Dear authors

Thank you for your careful and detailed responses to the reviewers comments. You have indicated a number of locations where you have revised the text and graphics according to the reviewer recommendations.

Both reviewers comment on the importance of the record that you have produced given the limited number of data from the Indian sector of the Southern Ocean. They also acknowledge the complexity of the processes likely influencing the oceanographic signals here.

A concern for both reviewers was the generation of the age model and how this is justified. Your responses indicate that there are valid reasons for your approach which were not so clear in the original submission. Likewise some concerns around the periodicity of the SST variability and the uncertainties in the proxy have been addressed in the reply to reviewers.

I recommend submission of a revised manuscript in order to evaluate the incorporation of the recommended changes.

Thank you for incorporating the suggestions made by the two reviewers. These included some minor formatting concerns but also some concern about the way in which some of the arguments were being presented (age model, discussion of forcings). Given the complexity of the data and the likely forcings this was not an easy task. However, in the revised manuscript you have been able to incorporate these comments and the discussion is much more clear.

In Table 2 (the new one) could you clarify for the line on Holocene millennial changes which of the options you provide are for ‘warm’ and which for ‘cool’ events? For the mid-late Holocene variability line can you clarify if here you are talking about the ~200 year events (to differentiate from the millennial changes line)?

Line 951: you describe ‘a sharp cooling event’ at 8.2 ka BP but your preceding text is more tentative about this (this is actually the only time that you use this phrase). Perhaps a more accurate description is that there is a significant cooling event at 8.2 ka BP after which there is greater SST variability? You have confirmed with SiZer that this 8.2 ka cooling is significant; a ‘sharp cooling’ isn’t so obvious because it looks more like the ‘slightly cooler’ conditions after 8 ka BP are driven by the onset of more frequent cooler events rather than a wholescale shift in the average SST? Could you check your phrasing in the conclusion and ensure that it aligns with your earlier description and also the pattern that you want to highlight?