Dear author,

Thank you for sending your responses to reviewers. After reading them, I would like to have a look on your revised version. Please send it quickly and do not forget to add a version with the corrections in track mode changes and I will complete my complete my decision.
It is very likely that your corrected paper will return in review as the two reviewers asked to see the corrected version before publication.

with my best regards
Nathalie

Dear Authors,

We have received the comments of the reviewers on your revised version. There are some other amendments to adress especially concerning reviewer 2 requests.
Could you please follow the remarks and change the text as requested. I will have a look on the new manuscript following its reception and then decide quickly on the definitive status of your paper.
If the amendments are compliant with remarks of Reviewer 2, your document will be definitively accepted.

with my best regards

Nathalie Combourieu-Nebout

Dear Authors,

Your paper is very interresting and needs to be published. nevertheless, I will be satified when you follow these last comments and remarks in reponds to your reponse to reviewer

Point 1 regarding the terms
It is important to have a carefull use of the words even if you considered it is only semantic. I ask you to follow the request of the reviewer concerning the use of the term calibration. Please do that before the acceptance of the manuscript. If not, justify in the text the term calibration by add something about that and join the reference in additional data for example. It is essential for the non-specialists of climate reconstruction to know what you have exactly used and to solve this disagreement.

Point 2 concerning the sentence pointes in line 121 although just at the beginning of section 2.3
Perhaps the reviewer did not note the good lines but the sentence is in your text and I think it will be better to change in accordance with this remark. So adapt your sentence in accordance please.

Point 3 the reconstruction and the problem of Pinus
I think that the reviewer point the problem of quantitative reconstruction including Pine when you are working on marine cores. It is not sufficient to just add the reférece. I think that more explanation are necessary. The dta published by Sanchez Goni team and Salonen used method excluding Pinus from the counts which is so different from your method. Some precisions have to be included in the text to clarify that. Did you use the raw pollen data from the marine sites (complete, those used by Sanchez Goni) or the values from the reconstruction published in these paper? Or do you do another run of reconstruction with pine included in all cases? now it is not clear for me.
Combourieu-Nebout et al., Fletcher et al. and Sanchez Goni et al. used reconstructions excluded PInus in any cases.
The responses to these questions are crucial and have to be included in your text in the method and in the discussion. If not we might considered that you compare apple with pears!!
In addition, you're right saying that the vegetation includes Pinus in western Portugal. Nevertheless, keeping this taxa in the reconstructions in marine core induce a very large bias as at 100 km off the coast the % of pine is over-represented up to 80% in a very big proportion that hide the modification in the other association as the reviewer said to you. For this reason the counts are improved to better represent the vegetation. This fact has been demonstrated since a long, long time by many authors (papers are often referenced in the methods of numerous papers on the pollen records from marine cores).
What do you do with the pollen spectra in some series where some taxa are over-represented due to edaphic conditions or specific inputs? Did you conserve them or not?
This is important to note such things in your paper and more explain it in the methods to close the debate and show that you have done the same on all the records.

When you have 80% of Pinus in marine samples, it did not necessary reflect that you have a high representation of Pine in the vegetation, it is not the same as in peatbogs or lakes. Reasoning only on the other taxa drives to a best representation of the vegetation in which we can add Pine afterwards and the reconstructions without Pinus (using samples and database without Pinus) are not so bad especially concerning the precipitation, temperature being sometime too cold (see the tests done in Combourieu-Nebout et al 2009 on top-core and surface samples in Mediterranean area).

At the end, for my part, I remain not convinced by the reconstructions when you conserve Pine in all the marine core as it is not correct to illustrate the vegetation, used for the reconstruction. It did not change a lot your paper if you had presented different runs for the marine and continental records if explaining why by justifying the differen between sediments.
So, Please do something about that in your text especially by developping your choices in the methods parts.

Point 4 My last remark concerns the figures: It is not acceptable to propose figures as the series presented in figure 3 a,b,.. What is represented by the large white rectangle with the little cross. This need explanations??? Did crosses represent the presence, the sites? This figures are supposed to show the percentages of the taxa but there is nothing on the figures with percentages, only crosses. Please explain in the captions ; the figures must be read alone without the text.

Waiting after your new version with the corrections done and your paper will be definitively accepted.

With my best regards

Nathalie Combourieu-Nebout.

Dear Basil Davis

Thank you very much for the careful revisions.
I am pleased to accept your manuscript for publication in Climate of the Past.
Thank you for choosing to submit your work to C. Past.

Sincerely,

Odile Peyron
Editor, C. Past