Dear authors,

Thank you for providing a point-by-point answer to the comments made by both reviewers. As you see, both reviewers compliment this work, and rightfully so: this is an important study that reports on years of data from three towers in a large-scale ecosystem manipulation. Additionally, you use a robust combination of methods to maximize the inferences you can draw from these data. Both reviewers provided excellent comments and suggestions to further improve this work in terms of flow and clarity. I therefor invite you to submit a revised version of your manuscript that adequately deals with the points that were raised by the reviewers. I don't see any major issues in the reviews - but there are quite a few suggestions to address.

Additionally, after going through the manuscript again, and as also suggested between the lines by one of the reviewers: not everyone is familiar with these data analysis methods. You introduce the singular spectrum analysis (i.e. what it does and why you need it) at the end of the introduction. My feeling is that you could do the same for information theory, just to already lay it out on beforehand. I would repeat this in just one or two lines again at the start of the methods paragraph before you dive in the fundamentals of those methods. An open suggestion in the interest of attracting a broad readership for your work

I am looking forward to receiving the revised version of your manuscript.

All the best,
Marijn

Dear authors,

Thank you for the revised version. I want to get this checked by at least one of the reviewers before getting back to you.

Thanks in advance for your work on this interesting manuscript,

Marijn

Dear authors,

I have received input on the revised version of your work from one of both reviewers now. I agree with the reviewer that you have done a great job in addressing the comments that were raised on the original manuscript. There are just a couple of small additional edits or remarks that are highlighted by the reviewer. I hope you can address these, and then I will happily accept your work for publication in Biogeosciences.

All the best,
Marijn