Dear authors,
Thank you for replying to the reviewers comments. I am sincerely disappointed that you didn't take the opportunity to dialog with the reviewers as they released their respective review very early. Anyhow, as reviewer 1 was underlining several initial statements that you gave in the original manuscript, I invite you to submit a revised version, but selected the major revisions to allow the 2 reviewers to check your revised version.
Thank you for choosing Climate of the Past to publish your results.
All the very best
denis-didier Rousseau
Climate of the Past co-editor in chief

Dear authors,
Thank you very much for providing a revised version of your manuscript. First I acknowledge your replies to the two reviewers' comments and that you did take into account their remarks to improve the initial manuscript.
After reading the review of the revised version, I am raising some minor points that I would like you to consider before the final acceptance of your paper.
1. Line 160, can you provide a reference to the meteorological data you used?
2. Lines 197-200 concerning the modern chironomid assembages, can you be more precise when indicating ”a warmer” or ”a colder” environment as you may have modern data to provide much more precise indication
3. Lines 491-493. Why aren't you considering that the population collapse could be also related to the people uptake when conducting the wars?
4. Fig. 1, you indicate Mountain (Mid and High), Loess plateau. Could you provide some general range of elevation to the general reader who is not necessarily familiar with China?
5. Fig. 3 can you add ”SE” for South East in front of Asian Monsoon boundary?
6. Fig. 5 and 6, Could you please remind the cold events corresponding to the grey shaded zones?
7. Fig. 6 Remove the big arrow on the right hand side, which could be confusing. Better indicate this in the caption.
8. In the figures, when mentioning the species and genus, can you use the "italic" font?
Thank you once more for considering Climate of the Past to publish your interesting results.
All the very best
Denis-Didier Rousseau
Climate of the Past co-editor in chief