Modelling the Climate of the Eemian in Europe Using an Interactive Physical Downscaling
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsPlease see the attached file.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
The writing of the “Results and Discussion” is chaotic, and some of the wording are puzzling, please rewording and enhance this part.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe research design is elegant and clearly articulated. The implications of the experiments in terms of climate model design (e.g., forcing mechanisms) are clear as is the impact of downscaling on model outputs. The paper will appeal to climate modellers in particular (re: Interest to readers). I only have minor revisions to suggest (see below).
Line 59: should read "Several paleoclimate studies have investigated the Eemian."
Lines 60-61 Climate model simulations (…) and proxy-based climate reconstructions (…) are available.
Line 71 Re: “relative to pre-industrial” (and see line 193 “pre-industrial era”). It would be useful if the authors could provide a definition of the pre-industrial baseline for the non-specialist to more clearly distinguish between Holocene conditions (with which pre-industrial conditions are compared in this study) and baseline.
Lines 72-73 read: “a greater abundance of deciduous trees than present day, such as birch which was later replaced by oak forest” – rephrase, replacing birch with oak doesn’t signal a change in abundance of deciduous trees since both taxa are deciduous.
Line 75 should read “although numerous climate modelling studies focus on the Eemian”
Line 185 “Eemie” should read “Eemian”
Line 196 “warming seen in the northernmost” should read “warming seen in northernmost”
Line 220 “Scandinavian coast) being wetter, then succeeded by a drier zone” should read Scandinavian coast) being wetter, succeeded by a drier zone
Lines 225-6 “The drier zone receives a decrease in precipitation of at least less than -200 mm/yr centered around the Alps” should read “The drier zone receives decreased precipitation < 200 mm/yr centered around the Alps” (if I have not misread the original).
Line 259 “The precipitation in EEM_Down was generally higher than EEM_Standard” rephrase: “Precipitation rates in EEM_Down were generally higher than EEM_Standard”
Line 308 “…slightly wetter during the Holocene after 9 ka than the Eemian” should read “ slightly wetter during the Holocene after 9 ka than during the Eemian”
Lines 316-17 “with enhanced deep-water formation and reduced sea-ice cover in the Nordic Seas. The AMOC in the Nordic Seas and reduced sea-ice cover contributed to the redistribution of…” could read: “…with enhanced deep-water formation and reduced sea-ice cover in the Nordic Seas, contributing to the redistribution of…”
Lines 379-80 given Fig.7 I think it is redundant to add: “with our magnitude of precipitation anomalies between +150 to +300 mm/yr relative to preindustrial in central to eastern Europe.”
Line 401 should read “Proxy-based reconstructions of Brewer et al. (2008) describe climate evolution”
Line 426 strike out “for example”
Lines 433-35 should read “In this study, we performed simulations of the Eemian climate using the standard version of the iLOVECLIM model and a version with interactive physical downscaling ( increasing its horizontal atmospheric resolution from 5.56° to 0.25° latitude-longitude).”
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe downscaling of global climate models can significantly enhance the spatial resolution of paleoclimate modeling results, thereby enabling a more detailed grasp of regional climate changes. Frank Arthur et al. have presented innovative findings by applying an interactive downscaling technique to their Earth system model (iLOVECLIM), increasing the horizontal atmospheric resolution from 5.56° to 0.25° latitude-longitude. This approach has yielded novel insights into Eemian paleoclimate variations in Europe. When compared with previous modeling results and proxy data reconstructions, their study offers an improved understanding of regional climate diversity. I believe this is a timely and novel contribution. The paper is well-structured and well-written, with high-quality plots. I recommend that this paper be published in Quaternary.
However, the Conclusions section is somewhat lengthy and contains a few repetitive sentences. If the authors revise their paper, it would be beneficial to shorten this section to enhance clarity and conciseness.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsMost of the comments and suggestions from my review of the initial version of the manuscript were considered by the authors. I have no more questions.
