Dear Dr. Parson and colleagues,

thank you for submitting your responses to BG. As you have noticed the reviewers had major concerns regarding your manuscript. One reviewer suggested the rejection of your study given its shortcomings, while the other reviewer suggested major revisions. But I understand from your responses that you will be able to address the majority of the concerns by either clarification or addition of data.

I support your idea to provide only of the essential additional data within the manuscript and add the remainder to a supplementary. This will provide the reader with all details - if needed.

Please be consistent with units and select just one for your manuscript. I recommend a molar unit (see the reviewer's comment). Scientists not familiar with molar concentrations can easily convert to mg P L-1

Please be aware that your revised manuscript will be send back to the reviewers and (if required) to a new reviewer. Please therefore follow the advice of the reviewers closely when preparing your manuscript.

With kind regards
Tina Treude

Dear Dr. Parson and Co-Workers,

I have been reading thoroughly through the referee's comments and your responses. Your manuscript is a difficult case. Biogeosciences requests a high level of scientific quality. Your manuscript, in it's present form, does not meet this level. One of your referee's rejected the manuscript due to poor presentation quality, the other referee rated the quality "fair" and suggested major revisions.

However, despite one rejection I decided to reconsider the manuscript after major revisions, because none of the referees identified flaws in the actual data and because you were able to clarify and/or support weak points identified by the referees in your responses. Hence, I believe you should be able to address these weak points and improve the quality of the manuscript to meet Biogeosciences standards.

Please upload your revised manuscript. It will be returned to referees for a second round of review. Please be aware, however, that I will reject the manuscript if the second reviews should return with major revision required.

With kind regards
Tina Treude
BG Editor