Dear Authors,

Many thanks for your preliminary responses to the reviews that you have received for your paper in CP-Discussions. Both referees were encouraging with regards to the research you have presented, noting that it is "a nice new compilation of existing Holocene and glacial hydroclimate records, which is accompanied by an interesting analysis" and that "this work is encouraged to help future projection using paleoclimate information".

There are clearly a number of corrections to be made to your text, and I ask that you pay particular attention to the comments from Reviewer #1 (Cody Routson) who has requested that you focus on clarifying sentences and ensuring any statements you make are supported by data or reference to figures/tables/supplementary information also.

I have assigned your manuscript as "major corrections" - this will allow for the manuscript to be re-reviewed and checked for consistency in arguments, a final decision will follow on from a second review. I look forward to receiving a revised version of your paper.

Best wishes
Keely

Dear Authors,

Many thanks for undertaking a thorough revision of your manuscript. I have sent this manuscript out for an additional review by one of the original referees. As you will see, the reviewer has suggested minor corrections. In particular, could you pay close attention to the following request:

"The authors state in the abstract: “The long-term pattern of moisture change is highly related to the high-latitude ice sheets and low-latitude solar radiation, which leads to the poleward moving of westerlies and strengthening of monsoons during the interglacial period.” I agree with this statement, but these concepts are poorly developed in the manuscript. As presented, there are some poorly referenced conceptual ideas in the discussion, but a limited amount of text to support the above statement. At minimum the mechanisms of change need developed through a more thorough review of the literature. Bhattacharya et al. (2018); Routson et al. (2019); and Ramisch et al., (2016) would be some good papers to start with. Ideally the authors would present some evidence that their proposed mechanisms were indeed the cause of the observed changes, rather than simply associations."

It is absolutely paramount that you discuss your findings in context and provide a more detailed appraisal of the mechanisms responsible for the changes you observed by revisiting the published literature and including detailed references to this. The reviewer has suggested a number of papers to get you started.

If you are willing to undertake a second round of revisions, a final decision will be made following this. I have suggested the "major revisions" route again as this remit of the paper is slightly beyond my formal expertise, and I may need to sense check your additional changes with someone more familiar with this research topic.

Best wishes
Keely

Dear Authors,

Once again I would like to thank you for taking the time to reflect on the comments of a second review of your paper. From what I can see (and have read) you have addressed the additional comments, again adding value to your manuscript. I would be happy to see this manuscript go into press.

Thank you for working so hard on improving this paper from its first iteration. Whilst I appreciate it has been a long process, I do hope that it has been worthwhile. I wish you the very best of luck with your research into the future.

Best wishes
Keely