Dear Dr. Nicholas Golledge,

Thank you for submitting your work to Climate of the Past, and for your responses to referees’ comments.

As you had already examined, both referees indicated the importance of the studied topic, but also raised some fundamental issues that would require your considerations through a major revision.

I am not intending to repeat these comments; all are clear and constructive. Clearly, the manuscript would need to be improved in a number of aspects, including the expression, analytical rational and interpretations. In terms of the ms writing, both referees considered that ‘tipping point analyses’ are the main focus of your current manuscript while you stated in your responses that this is not the case.

We invite you to resubmit your manuscript after addressing all reviewer comments. When resubmitting your manuscript, please carefully consider all issues mentioned in the reviewers' comments, outline every change made point by point, and provide suitable rebuttals for any comments not addressed.

All the bests
Zhengtang GUO

Dear Dr. Nicholas Golledge,

Thank you for your efforts in revising the ms. I am now pleased to accept your revised version for publishing in Climate of the Past.

Congratulations.

All the bests

Zhengtang GUO