Dear Dr. Parvathi,
First, I’d like to thank you for submitting your work to Biogeosciences and I’d like to apologize for the delay to come back to you after the submission of your responses.
Based on my reading of your responses to the referees’ comments, you give me the impression that you may be able to address most of these comments. I would encourage you to submit a revised version of your manuscript that will probably undergo further reviews with the same referees.
With best regards,
Laurent Bopp
Associate Editor

Dear Dr. Parvathi,
First, I’d like to apologize for the very long delay in getting back to you. I tried hard to chase for comments from the original referees, but I did not get them in due time. I have decided to proceed with the decision after a detailed read of the revised manuscript and of your responses to the initial referees’ comments.
I appreciate the time and efforts you put in the revisions. I noticed in particular the way you re-structured the introduction following Reviewer 2 comments, the improved discussions on the role of biology in driving O2 variations and on the connection between coastal and offshore O2 variations, and the fact that you now identify more clearly the caveats and limitations of your model simulations in the discussion section. I also acknowledge the fact that you re-organized many figures / legends following Reviewer 2 comments.
Overall, I’m quite satisfied in the way you responded to the comments and I can accept your manuscript for publication in BG, subject to some technical revisions that I list below. In particular, I would suggest that you identify sub-section headings for the Result and Discussion Section, as a way to guide the reader into your text.
Again, I’d like to say how I’m sorry for the extensive time we took in getting back to you. Thanks for submitting your best work to Biogeosciences.
Best regards,
Laurent Bopp


Model Description
Page 5 – line 28 : PISCES is indeed part of the NEMO platform – the way you phrase it is misleading. Please change accordingly.
Page 5 – line 30 : you mention that NEMO is coupled to PISCES with the OASIS coupler. I doubt this is the case. Please correct.
Page 6 – line 15 : Remineralization is mis-spelled.
Page 6 - line 16 : “Oxygen is produced during photosynthesis” – I would replace photosynthesis by “net primary production”, or also mention autotrophic respiration. What is modelled here is net primary production (and not photosynthesis per se).
Results - p10
Page 10 - Results. The Result section only contains one long sub-section (3.1). Even if the text and the arguments are now clear and well organised, I would suggest that you split this section into several sub-sections – this would help the reader.
Discussion – p15
Again, the discussion sub-section is mixing implications of your results, as well as some details on the limitations of your model. Even without changing the flow of arguments and ideas, would you identify sub-section headings (4.2, 4.3, …) that would help guiding the reader in the discussion.