Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

thank you for this interesting and well written study.

I have a few minor points (marked in the attached PDF) and two general points, which I like you to address.

The general points are:

What is the main difference (except of the terrestrial data over China) to other combined GFMs, such as XGM2016 or XGM2019? What is the main methodological difference and advantage of your method? Please comment on that question quantitatifely and qualitatively.

Your method for combining the satellte-only GFM with EGM2008 (sec. 3.3) seems quite simple for me and probably not optimal. Why do you think, that a sharp cut-off SH degree between the satellite-only GFM and EGM2008 is better than a rigorous combination by applying some sophisticated weighting approach? Could you please comment on the effects you introduce by applying such a sharp truncation combination approach.

Kind regards

Reviewer

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We thank you for your constructive and detailed comments.  It has improved the readability, clarity, and quality of our manuscript.

The point-by-point response can be found from attachment, please see attachment.

If you have any information, please don’t hesitate to let us know. Thank you very much again.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Generally it is a good paper and it was interesting to me. However, comparing with the conclusions (I mean, the computed potential value) the paper is a bit too long. I can accept it, because it is a good explanatory text, however some partially offtopic or superfluous parts (e.g. point 2.1.2 (keeping the Table 1 only), the unified topo data in lines 181-191, the „textbook equations” of the gravity of a prism in page 7 and the textbook adjustment equations in page 8). It is rather an editorial question. The paper is good and acceptable without them, too. Line 259 refers to a x as a ’parameter’ in Eq 12, I suggest to use ’vector’ or ’parameter vector’ instead. As a structural suggestion, considerable part of the Results are rather belong to Discussion (thus making the better balance between these two chapters, in extent and in content, too): I suggest point 3.3 (or maybe also 3.2) to Discussion – as they are discussing the already shown results. Conclusion – it shouldn’t be a summary as should be recompiled. The second part of the 3rd paragraph and the 4th paragraph are enough, completed by the estimated error of the main conclusive potantial value.

Author Response

We thank you for your constructive and detailed comments.  It has improved the readability, clarity, and quality of our manuscript.

The point-by-point response can be found from attachment.

If you have any information, please don’t hesitate to let us know. Thank you very much again.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.