Dear Prof Archer,

First, I’d like to thank you for your revised version of “A model of the methane cycle, permafrost, and hydrology of the Siberian continental margin”. I have carefully read your revised manuscript as well as your detailed responses to the reviewers’ comments. One of the original reviewers had also a chance to read your revised version and provide additional comments and remarks.

I acknowledge the fact that you addressed and answered most of the comments and questions raised in the initial reviews. But as noted in the second round of review, these additions have lengthened the original manuscript as well as reduced the overall readability.

I would be ready to accept your manuscript after some substantial minor revisions, mostly to improve the readability of your manuscript. The reviewer and I share the same concerns: it is in its current form to long, sometimes too dense and not organized as clearly as possible. I would suggest following the reviewer’s suggestions, i.e. (1) re-write the abstract, (2) clarify in the introduction the outline of the paper, (3) shorten when possible (and/or use supplementary materials), (4) re-organize the discussion along the lines suggested by the reviewer.

If you are prepared to undertake the work required, I would be pleased to accept the revised manuscript.

Sincerely yours,
Laurent Bopp

Dear Dr. Archer,
First, I’d like to acknowledge your thorough reorganization and re-writing of the manuscript, taking into account my previous remarks as well as those from the reviewers. The manuscript, which has been greatly improved over the different phases of the review process, now reads much better. I’m convinced that it will be more accessible to interested readers than in its first version. I’m also very positive about the new discussion on critical issues for further model development.
I’m glad to accept the manuscript in its present form for Biogeosciences. I would prefer that you keep the additional section describing the outline of the paper, but remove the table of contents. To do so, I have accepted the manuscript subject to technical corrections. This will also allow you to fix the latest details that I came across when re-reading the latest versions (some numbering issues, references to sections, ….).
To conclude, I’d like to thank you for submitting your best work to Biogeosciences, and would like to apologize for the long time and delays you encountered for the review process of this paper.
Best regards,
Laurent Bopp