Dear Dr. Sánchez-Montes and co-authors,

Thank you for the detailed responses to the comments of the two manuscript referees. Your suggested changes indicate that you’ve given careful consideration to their concerns. Accordingly, I invite you to submit the revised version of your manuscript for further consideration. In your revised manuscript, I encourage you to modify Fig. 2 to include comparison of the Site 887 and U1417 IRD records, as mentioned in your response to Reviewer 1. In this modified Fig. 2, you might also consider including the Hidy et al. (2013) date for onset of CIS glaciation in interior Yukon. These suggested changes to Fig 2 would require very slight modification to Fig 1.

Because some of the reviewer comments, particularly those of Referee 2, concern technical details of biomarker interpretation, I will request re-review to assess the revised manuscript. To do so requires that I indicate “reconsider after major revisions”, but to be clear I consider the scope of the revisions to be relatively minor.

Sincerely,
Alberto Reyes

Dear Dr. Sánchez-Montes and co-authors,

Your revised manuscript has now been reviewed by one of the original referees. I agree with the referee that your revisions have resulted in tighter manuscript with improved clarity.

As you can see, the referee provided in-depth and constructive comments regarding interpretation of the TAR data and has recommended major revision. I would like you to consider these comments carefully and submitted another revised manuscript that addresses these concerns. Referee 2 will review your revised submission one more time.

Reviewer 1 (Anders Carlson) asked that you incorporate acknowledgement of the terrestrial record of Cordilleran ice sheet glaciation. It’s a good start to include a citation to the 2013 Hidy paper, but this insight (ie. extensive CIS far inland – in fact, the most extensive CIS advances in interior Yukon are the earliest ones) could be better incorporated in the penultimate paragraph of the introduction (lines 15-24, page 2) and likely also in section 4.3. Please also consider making some reference to the well established stratigraphic, geomorphic, and paleomag record for extensive inland CIS glaciation during the late Pliocene/earliest Pleistocene – you could refer to Duk-Rodkin et al 2004 (Dev. Quat. Sci 2B: 313-345) as a starting point. I think this would strengthen the connection between your relatively distal marine record and the less-well-dated direct terrestrial evidence for ice sheet extent.

Thank you again for submitting this very interesting and important manuscript to Climate of the Past. I look forward to seeing your revised submission.

Sincerely,
Alberto Reyes

Dear Dr. Sánchez-Montes and co-authors,

Your revised manuscript has now been re-reviewed by the referee who provided detailed suggestions in the last round of review. The referee thanks you for addressing their concerns, and commends you for the valuable contribution represented by your manuscript. Accordingly, I’m pleased to confirm that your paper will be accepted for publication in Climate of the Past, pending just a few very minor typographical corrections as outlined in the review.

Sincerely,
Alberto Reyes