This manuscript provides a continuous record from 60 ka to the present of brGDGT temperature reconstruction for the Eifel region (Central Europe). This record is relevant and deserves to be published in Climate of the Past. So far, there is a lack of regional quantitative climate reconstructions for the last glacial period in Central Europe and very few for other European regions. However, before accepting this manuscript for publication, the authors should address some chronological issues and discuss the ELSA record in more detail, taking into account the other quantitative climate reconstructions for Europe. I am not an expert in geochemistry and my review is mainly focused on section 3 of the manuscript "Results and discussion".

Lines 35-40 and lines 450-453: In the Introduction and in Section 3.4, it would be relevant to cite the papers that, based on pollen analysis of deep-sea sediment sequences, have detected for the first time, without chronological ambiguity, the European millennial scale climatic variability in response to the D-O warming and cooling events, including the Heinrich events (e.g. Sanchez Goñi et al. 2000, 2008). The only works cited in the manuscript are the terrestrial pollen records and speleothem sequences, which, even if relatively well dated, cannot be directly compared with the North Atlantic millennial-scale climate variability.

Figure 7: How is it possible to have 50%-100% of tree pollen in the 60-30 ka interval? These values are found during interglacial periods, as shown during the Holocene of the same sequence.

Lines 394-401 in section 3.3 and lines 453-471 in section 3.4: I do not know to what extent the temperature of months above freezing (TMAF) in the Eifel region can be compared with the sea surface temperatures (SST) of the Iberian margin but if the authors do so, I think it is more appropriate to discuss the TMAF in the Eifel region in the light of the surface air temperatures estimated from the pollen records of the Iberian margin, the Alboran Sea (Sanchez Goñi et al., 2002) and the Gulf of Lyon (Sanchez Goñi et al., 2021), which cover the period 50-27 ka, i.e. HS 5 to HS 3 and the associated D-O cycles. Although the latter correspond to winter temperatures, the authors should compare their estimates of summer temperatures with them, especially in the light of the question of seasonality they discuss in Section 3.4, which is the main contribution of this work. For HS 5, pollen-based winter surface air temperatures show pronounced decreases, averaging 5-10°C relative to present, in southern Iberia and south-eastern France, consistent with the severe SST low in the eastern North Atlantic. HS 3 is also marked by cooling in southern Iberia, although less so than HS 5 and HS 4. Furthermore, why are HS 5 and HS 3 marked by warm summers in the Eifel region and HS 4 by cold summers? Are these seasonal changes linked, for example, to orbital parameters?Figure 10 should be implemented with the pollen-based surface air temperatures from western Europe.

Lines 409-422: The authors discuss the mean temperature of the 29-24 kyr b2k interval in the Eifel and compare it with other reconstructions for the LGM without defining their respective chronologies. This interval extends from 29 to 19 ka according to Hughes et al. (2022) but from 23 to 19 ka according to Mix et al. (2001, EPILOG). The problem is that the LGM according to Hughes et al. encompasses three D-O warming events (D-O 4, D-O 3 and D-O 2), HS 2 and the LGM defined by EPILOG. Do they compare the same period in the different reconstructions (Paris Basin and Auel Maar, "...considering the significant age uncertainty in the Auel Maar data", line 372, for example), the assimilation of global palaeoclimatic data and the output of the HadCM3 model? In terms of vegetation in north-western and southern Iberia, the HS and LGM are markedly different (Naughton et al., 2007; Fletcher et al., 2008; Turon et al., 2003), with more Ericaceae and less Amaranthaceae-Chenopodiaceae during the LGM compared with the HS that flank it, indicating drier and colder conditions during the HS, associated with greater seasonality.

Lines 468-471 : It is interesting to add that the 17°C of warming of the coldest month between stadial and interstadial yielded by the LOVECLIM model simulations (Van Vermeerck et al., 2011) is higher compared to the pollen-based estimations of 10°C on average for SW and SE Iberia and 5°C for SE France.

The last part of section 3.4, devoted to the examination of changes in seasonality during the last glacial period, should be improved and strengthened by taking into account the pollen-based reconstructions of winter temperatures available for Western Europe.

Minor comments

Line 212 : Specify in the text the meaning of the abbreviation SM = Schalkenmehrener Maar

Line 214 : Replace Schalkenmehrener Maar with « SM »

Lines 245-247 : Rephrase. A dot is lacking after Figure 5b.

Line 391 : Replace « prescence » with « presence ».

Line 445 : the subject of the sentece is lacking.

References

Fletcher, W.J. & Sanchez Goñi, M.F. (2008) Orbital- and sub-orbital-scale climate impacts on vegetation of the western Mediterranean basin over the last 48,000 yr, Quaternary Research, 70, 451-464.

Hughes et al. (2022) The European glacial landscapes from the Last Glacial Maximum – synthesis. In : European Glacial Landscapes Maximum Extent of Glaciations, Elsevier, Pages 507-516.

Mix, A., Bard, E., Schneider, R., (2001). Environmental processes of the ice age: land, oceans, glaciers (EPILOG). Quat. Sci. Rev. 20, 627–657.

Naughton, F., et al. (2007). Present-day and past (last 25 000 years) marine pollen signal off western Iberia. Marine Micropaleontology 62: 91-114.

Sánchez Goñi, M.F., et al. (2000). European climatic response to millenial-scale changes in the atmosphere-ocean system during the Last Glacial period. Quaternary Research 54: 394-403.

Sanchez Goni M.F., et al. (2008) Contrasting impacts of Dansgaard-Oeschger events over a western European latitudinal transect modulated by orbital parameters, Quaternary Science Reviews, 27, 1136-1151.

Sánchez Goñi, M.F., et al. (2021). Muted cooling and drying of NW Mediterranean in response to the strongest last glacial North American ice surges. Bulletin of the Geological Society of America 133, 451-460.

Turon, J.-L., Lézine, A.-M., Denèfle, M., (2003). Land–sea correlations for the last glaciation inferred from a pollen and dinocyst record from the Portuguese margin. Quat. Res. 59, 88–96.

The manuscript by Zander et al. presents a 60 kyr long record of brGDGTs composed by several lake sediment records from the Eifel volcanic field, Germany. By using an array of modern soil and top core sediments from the area, the authors show a clear and unique lacustrine signal in the lake sediments. Additionally this modern dataset performs relatively well when recent temperature calibrations are applied to it, however the authors observe that the performance of this calibrations is enhanced when a correction to the calibration is created based on the abundance of the isomer IIIa’’. When the Raberg et al., 2021 calibration, adjusted with the IIIa’’ correction, is applied to the 60 kyr record; the authors observe a generally good agreement between this record and previously published records for this period. Nevertheless, warmer than expected temperatures during Dansgaard-Oeschger events are interpreted by the authors as the proxy recording generally stable non freezing season temperatures, while the DO influence may have primarily been reflected in the winter season in this area. 

I think this is a very well written manuscript with a clear structure and well presented data and results. I do not have any major comment and would be happy to recommend it for publication once the following minor observations are addressed.

Figure 3 A and B: I imagine the authors might have gone for open shapes in these panels to avoid cluttering the figure. However I find it slightly difficult to distinguish the colors when only the outlines are presented. Maybe using some transparency could help avoid cluttering in this figure and would make it easier to read.

Lines 287-288: Could you mention in-text some of the most relevant correlation values? I think it would enhance the reading of the text without having to look for Table 2.

Figure 8: This figure is a little hard to read since all the values from the different bins are presented together and it makes it hard to distinguish which bin the points belong to. Maybe something like removing the horizontal lines could improve this, or adding some space between the bins, would be my suggestion.

Line 445: Sentence is missing the first part.

Lines 459-460: This sentence is a little hard to read, please rephrase it.