Dear authors,
your answers to the reviewers addresses their issues convincingly. Publication of your manuscript will be contingent on providing a revised version that include the proposed changes.
Sincerely,
Christine Klaas

Dear authors,
your answers to the reviewers addresses their issues convincingly. Publication of your manuscript will be contingent on providing a revised version that include the proposed changes.
Sincerely,
Christine Klaas

Dear authors,
the revised version of the manuscript appropriately addressed comments from both reviewer with perhaps one exception:
Section 2.1: this section describes the study area in general terms (including a detailed description of waters masses). However, there is little information from and of relevance to the study here (i.e. the relevant info is revealed only piecewise in the discussion). It would help the reader if the available relevant information (also from other PEACETIME manuscript in the special issue) be reported/summarised here. This concerns in particular:
1) Primary productivity and fluxes or particle load at the different stations before and during PEACETIME. 2) Significant atmospheric inputs and relevant elements at the different stations before and during PEACETIME.

And last but not least, for the discussion, how is the impact of deep winter convection in the western basin: were, when and how deep? Where does the POM come from: resuspended coastal sediments? Which area does this transport influence? Is there any info on particles in this layer? Finally, how does DOM affect the relation between Baxs and PHP in this particular study (i.e. DOM might not affect Baxs, but it would affect PHP).

Minor comments and request for clarifications and some suggestion for improvement of the text are given in the annotated manuscript. I would urge the authors to use the same tense throughout (use either past to present tense to describe PEACETIME results) as well as the same abbreviations in text as in figures (see annotated manuscript).
Sincerely,
Christine Klaas

Dear authors,
the revised version of the manuscript appropriately addressed comments from both reviewer with perhaps one exception:
Section 2.1: this section describes the study area in general terms (including a detailed description of waters masses). However, there is little information from and of relevance to the study here (i.e. the relevant info is revealed only piecewise in the discussion). It would help the reader if the available relevant information (also from other PEACETIME manuscript in the special issue) be reported/summarised here. This concerns in particular:
1) Primary productivity and fluxes or particle load at the different stations before and during PEACETIME. 2) Significant atmospheric inputs and relevant elements at the different stations before and during PEACETIME.

And last but not least, for the discussion, how is the impact of deep winter convection in the western basin: were, when and how deep? Where does the POM come from: resuspended coastal sediments? Which area does this transport influence? Is there any info on particles in this layer? Finally, how does DOM affect the relation between Baxs and PHP in this particular study (i.e. DOM might not affect Baxs, but it would affect PHP).

Minor comments and request for clarifications and some suggestion for improvement of the text are given in the annotated manuscript. I would urge the authors to use the same tense throughout (use either past to present tense to describe PEACETIME results) as well as the same abbreviations in text as in figures (see annotated manuscript).
Sincerely,
Christine Klaas

Dear author,
the new version of the manuscript has taken into consideration the main comments. The Abstract would still need some polishing (it also includes a mixture of present and past tenses). Suggestions are given in the annotated document.
Sincerely,
Christine Klaas

Dear author,
the new version of the manuscript has taken into consideration the main comments. The Abstract would still need some polishing (it also includes a mixture of present and past tenses). Suggestions are given in the annotated document.
Sincerely,
Christine Klaas