Dear Authors,

I have read through the three reviews you've received as well as your manuscript and I have decided that major revisions are necessary. All of the reviewers were positive about your manuscript but they also suggested some important revisions.

I suspect there has been a bit of a misunderstanding about the Biogeosciences process. The process involves the authors responding with how they plan to revise the manuscript, awaiting the editor's decision and then submitting a revised manuscript alongside detailed point by point changes. In practice, you often have to revise the manuscript to do this and I can see that you've already attempted to upload a revised manuscript. As a result, I have looked through this and my sense is that the current changes are not yet sufficient.

The reviewers made some very specific suggestions about improvements about the clarity of experimental protocol and implications of results. I think more effort could be made in revising the text to accommodate these changes. In particular, I would like to see further discussion of the mechanisms and wider implications. I look forward to seeing these changes in the future.

In addition, one reviewer asked about data sharing. I refer the authors to the journals data availability statement https://www.biogeosciences.net/about/data_policy.html. I feel very strongly that all data should be shared in an open repository, I didn't find the existing statement sufficient. The journal specifically states: "If the data are not publicly accessible, a detailed explanation of why this is the case is required." I hope the authors will reconsider freely sharing their data.

Finally, I see a comment directed at Dr. Bahn? This was confusing as they didn't review the manuscript, was this a mistake?

Best wishes with your revisions,

Martin De Kauwe

Dear Authors,

Two reviewers have now seen your revised manuscript. I'm happy to recommend acceptance subject to a few minor suggested revisions from the reviewers.

R1:

My only commentary is for clarifying the language of the authors’ sections of new text. Please see below for specific examples and suggestions for edits.

Specific Technical Comments:

Line 12-13: Edit out “such as the changes in” and replace with ‘by altering rates of’ for a
stronger opening sentence
Line 16: Remove “about” for ~3°C
Line 17: Remove “about” for ~4°C
Line 30: precipitation pulses during the growing season Line 37: of the earth’s
Line 62: during the growing season
Lines 94-101: A previously published warming experiment is referenced but no explicit mention of those results are given. The new, long-term warming experiment is then stated to possibly have an opposite result, but again, no explicit statement of what that might be. Could the authors clarify this paragraph?
Line 104: Remove “about” for ~3 and ~4°C, or since this is clarified in the Abstract and then outlined in the Methods a few paragraphs later, this detail could be omitted here.
Line 132: remove long-term as this sentence (line 131 above) started by defining this as the longer warmed plots
Line 137: space needed between regimes (one-year)
Line 148: Can remove the sentence defining the control plots as they were already defined in lines 138-139
Line 150: were installed with a “dummy” heater...
Line 274: Respiration significantly increased with...
Line 290: end sentence with: from each other (P= 0.45)
Line 340-342: Awkwardly worded sentence. Rework to state that the positive feedback loop could be weakened with length or intensity of warming
Line 343: Edit out Actually, and start sentence with Total respiration (Rs) Line 350: add in “and” before consequently the total Rs
Line 378: may rapidly increase
Line 382-384: Edit out “at a higher level” as substrate limitation is just another limitation, not necessarily higher (or more important) than moisture, or soil type for instance. Unless you mean higher level as in greater respiration....Please clarify
Line 385: high meaning increased respiration?
Line 414: thus affecting its temperature sensitivity; SWC becomes the main factor... Line 419: warming; and – split into 2 full sentences
Line 421: implicate that multiple factors together...

R2:

Consider including the hypotheses in the abstract.

Hypothesis 1 can be more specific. Currently, the hypothesis states that "soil moisture plants a key factor controlling Rs." This hypothesis would be stronger if the author's specified how soil moisture is expected to control Rs.

I do not necessarily feel you need to include your hypotheses in the abstract that is up to you, but I do think you could revise the hypotheses so that they are more insightful, I think the reviewer makes a good point.

Martin De Kauwe

Dear Authors,

Thanks for uploading your new revisions, I am now happy to recommend publication, congratulations.

Best wishes,

Martin De Kauwe