Dear Dr. Vihma,

I'm sorry for the delay in the review of your manuscript but I would like to ask that you include in your response to reviewers file the changes that you made to the manuscript. I find the review process goes much more smoothly where not only the reviewer comments and response are written, as you have done, but also an explicit writing out of the text of the changes that were made.

Best regards,

Tim Garrett

Dear Dr. Vihma,

This paper was clearly an unusually substantial effort for your team to put together and I would like to congratulate you on creating this synthesis. The thoughtful comments (and time spent!) by the reviewers led to substantial improvements in the clarity and flow of the manuscript. The one modification I request is that the resolution of the figures be improved and that some work be done on Fig. 10 to improve its presentation.

Otherwise the paper is suitable to be forwarded for publication.

Regards,

Tim Garrett