Dear Friederike Grimmer

I have now read through the reviews of your manuscript entitled "Early Pliocene vegetation and hydrology changes in western equatorial South America" by two referees (please note H. Hooghiemstra & S. Flantua also provided a ‘short comment’). Their suggestions/comments, together with the PAGES Data Review Team, underline largely different aspects to improve your manuscript. I agree with the reviewers, in particular on the possible extension of pollen record (as pointed by Referee 1) and more effort of age model in core 1239A (as pointed by Referee 2), which are of vital importance and thus should be incorporated for the revision. On such basis, I consider a major revision and accordingly invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that includes point-to-point response to all the concerns raised by both the reviewers and PAGES Data Review Team.

In addition, I would also like to see how you could reconcile explanations of the ITCZ and El Nino. Since these two phenomena are closely related, one may expect to know their individual contribution on the humid conditions at different epochs of early Pliocene. For example, as you stated in the manuscript, Zones I and IV are mainly influenced by El Nino while Zones II and III are mostly controlled by ITCZ shift. You may need to discuss a little bit more on the role of ITCZ shift on Zones I and IV, as well as the influence of El Nino on Zones II and III.

Look forward to receiving your revised manuscript soon.

Sincerely,
Yancheng Zhang

Dear Grimmer,

I am very pleased to let you know that the referee#3 has already completed the review of your manuscript as you may see from the report. Since the reviewer has concerns about the age model, an important but still unclear described part for your study. To establish a robust interpretation of your data, I would like to invite you to clarify this point (e.g. add more text, or figure in supplementary) clearly and other issues/corrections raised by the reviewer.

Hope to receiving your revised version soon.
Kind regards,

Yancheng

Dear Friederike Grimmer,

I have now read through your revision for comments/suggestions from referees, and found that you and colleagues incorporate all these concerns raised during several round reviews. Thus, I am very pleased to confirm that your paper will be accepted for publication in the Climate of the Past.

At this stage, I notice that in the caption of Figure 2, please clarify the exact time window, like adding ''1980-2010 AD'' (if it was) before the 'Long-term monthly July precipitation in mm/day (CPC) and ''850 hPa (if it was)'' wind field (NCEP)'.

Best regards,
Yancheng Zhang