Both referees have made critical comments on the manuscript. In particular, Referee 2 suggests to reject the manuscript at this stage, but also suggests two major directions for future improvement. Therefore, the manuscript will only be reconsidered after major revision. All the comments of the referees should be taken into account. In particular, the authors should follow the suggestions of Referee 2 to demonstrate the validity of the EBM and its sensitivity and to show more clearly what is the added value of their study.

It is interesting that the authors claim to have already used their EBM to perform experiments for present day climate and doubling CO2 and plan to publish the results in a follow up paper. However, for their model being credible, such a paper on the validation of the model and its sensitivity to CO2 must actually be published before the publication of the results submitted here. I recommand therefore that relevant results on model validation and sensitivity are added in the present manuscript for this manuscript being reconsidered for publication, otherwise the manuscript will be possibly reconsidered only after the authors have demonstrated the quality of their new model, it means after the publication of the "follow up paper".

Dear authors,
Your manuscript has been read by two referees, and in the light of their advice, I am delighted to let you know that it is accepted to publish in Climate of the Past. Referee 2 still has some minor comments and please revise your manuscript accordingly.
Best regards,
Qiuzhen Yin