Dear authors,

both reviewers recommend publication and I will likely accept your paper after some further revisions.

I have re-read your manuscript and recommend to improve the language and logic in some places. More importantly, I think the explanation of the synoptic codes used still needs more and better explanation. This was also criticized by the reviewers and I think the revisions are not sufficient. I have suggested some changes to improve clarity but also think you need to explain these observations more extensively.

When re-reading your paper, I stumbled upon one issue that needs clarification and/or discussion. The number of dust event (DE) days was based on the basis of all station observations (i.e., when one station records a dust event, that day is classified as a DE day). That means that the number of DE days is entirely dependent on the number of stations. With a denser network, you would get more days. Adding stations (as you have done) during the period of your study will lead to a positive trend. Comparing numbers with numbers elsewhere seems not very meaningful. You need to better explain your reasoning behind this way of classifying DE days and discuss the limitations of that approach.

Kind regards,

Andreas Stohl