Review of “TRAILS – A novel framework or time-height-resolved attribution of long-range transported wildfire smoke”

This paper builds on the tool developed by Radenz et al. (2021) and offers a synergistic approach to attributing wildfire smoke. The new tool, called TRAILS, overcomes the main limitation of Radenz et al. (2021), which is the fixed reception height. The reception height is now dynamically defined based on extending the work of Guan et al. (2010). The algorithm incorporates UVAI observations and active fire data to derive profiles of the metric smoke occurrence fractions. The algorithm, its configuration, and related ramifications are thoroughly explained. The paper is clearly written with clear structure which makes it mostly easy to follow but I do have a few comments that should be addressed before publication that I have outlined below. Also, I provide a few technical corrections. I would suggest reviewing parentheses and acronyms throughout the manuscript.

General comments

Page2Line55: I happen to come across of the Huang et al. (2026; https://doi.org/10.1029/2025GL120904), who in fact observed it.

Page3Lines85-86: It is not clear to me, not at least at this point, but do active fire data are part of Radenz et al. (2021)? If this is the case, this sentence could be omitted.

Page5Line115: Tackett et al. (2023) introduced the improved stratospheric typing algorithm; therefore I would suggest including also Kim et al. (2018; https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-6107-2018).

Page6Lines123-125: Why is it needed? How does it serve TRAILS? Is it valid only for the cases presented here, and can it be used to improve the classification in general?

Page6Line128: Which denoising and filtering techniques?

Page6Line131: What do you mean by cluster? Is it a binary array: say 0 for cloud and 1 for aerosol? So, if I get it right, a cluster is a “pixel” and multiple clusters correspond to a layer.

Page6Lines138-139: This statement refers to the visual inspection of the smoke layer boundaries and whether the method enclosed correctly the plume, as in figures 1e and 1f. The thresholds of Table 2, where do they come from?

Page8§2.3: Is it really needed? Isn’t it part of Radenz et al. (2021)?

Page12§3.1: Figure 5 is not introduced at all. Please do so. Also, the choice for the default UVAI_fresh value is only given in the Appendix (lines 684-686), it would be worthwhile also to mention it as well in this section.

Page13Figure5: The UVAI_dust default threshold does not appear in the caption.

Page14Line320: Please define z_tropo.

Page17Line404: Maybe discussion on the choice.

Page24Lines520-521: Would the presence of pyrocb activity explain the high depolarization ratio values?

Technical comments

Page1Line10: Close parenthesis or remove.

Page1Line23: It should be “short for”.

Page3Line69: It should be “EPIC’s”.

Page3Line79: Correct to “outperforms”.

Page3Line 81: Change “studies” to “study”.

Page6Lines118-119: Review “prohibiting an ambiguous classification”. Prohibiting and ambiguous are contradictory.

Page6Line130: Remove “via” and double parentheses.

Page8Line175: I would probably remove “Observations conducted by”.

Page8Line186: Remove double parentheses.

Page8Line188: Consider changing “based on” with “with.”

Page11Line261: Fix parentheses.

Page11Line269: Something is wrong “Fig. 5 is explained”.

Page12Line277: Change “5” to “4”.

Page12Line279 and Line292: Keep consistent nomenclature.

Page13Figure 5: Remove comma after “observed” and change “been” into “be”.

Page14Line300: Close the references in parentheses.

Page14Line318: Correct “parcle”.

Page16Line380-381. Correct the sentence

Page17Line393: “posit”?

Page20Figure8: Review parentheses

Page25Figure11: Change “d)” to “c)”. Add “the” after “of which”.

Page26Line597: Add “of” after “lacking”.

Page28Line631: Fix parentheses