Dear Ulrich Kotthoff et al.,
Thank you very much for your detailed and thorough responses to all the referees' comments. I look forward to receiving your revised manuscript, which will include all the revisions detailed in your author comments. For the final decision on the revised manuscript, I might consult again with referee 3 in particular.

Sincerely,
Markus

Dear Dr. Kotthoff et al.,

Thank you very much for submitting a thoroughly revised manuscript that addresses most of the concerns raised by the reviewers. In following with the explicit request of one of the reviewers to see the revised ms prior to publication, I asked him/her to provide feedback on the revised iteration. Because he/she was on vacation, this delayed the whole process, for which I apologize.

Both the referee and I agree that prior to final publication, we have to ask for the following two minor edits to the manuscript:

Instead of showing the different TEX86 indices and temperature proxies in the appendix only, please move this figure to the main ms., and include a brief discussion. Please also include the formula of the TEXH86 index and the applied TEXH86 SST calibration in the main text.

In line 660 of the revised manuscript, you appear to be misquoting Krossa et al. (2017): there is no "multiple proxies should therefore be used simultaneously to provide independent paleotemperature records", but only alkenone-based SST records.

Thank you very much for your attention to the above concerns, and apologies again for the delay.

Sincerely,
Markus

Dear Dr. Kotthoff et al.,
Thank you very much for addressing the two outstanding issues highlighted by the referee. I am happy to accept your contribution in its present form.

Sincerely,
Markus