The two referees have put considerable time into commenting on this manuscript. Because they have provided another round of extensive comments, my decision is to reconsider the paper once again after major revisions. Please read both referee reports carefully and thoroughly respond to each comment.

The paper has been significantly improved. The authors have done a commendable job of addressing the reviewers' comments. However, there are many grammatical errors that need to be corrected to improve the readability of the paper. Please make the following corrections listed below and re-submit.

p. 1

line 13: Omit “pragmatically”
line 30: Replace “prediction” with “performance”
line 31: Change to “The predicted AOD can enhance measured short- and term-term AOD and….”

p. 2

line 3: Omit “However”
line 33: Change to “especially WITH THE OCCURRENCE OF and elevated…”
line 37: Define “Vis”

p. 3

line 13: Change to (i) under- and overprediction of AOD were not ASSESSED because of…”
line 16: Change to “WAS considered”
line 17: “Omit “efficiently”
line 38: change to “model ARE used to”

p.4

line 10: change to “due to PM10 ARE used”
line 19: Omit “Say”
line 33-34: Change to “these properties can have a non-trivial impact on the magnitude of the retrieved AOD.”
Line 36: should be “additional”
Line 42 – 43: change to “exerts less influence”

p. 5:

Lines 14 – 15: change to “using the RESULTING data FROM subset 1”
Line 20: Change to “LIDAR system is co-located with the”
Line 27: Glued→combined
Line 30: decimated→determined

p. 6:

Lines 1 – 2: change to “as described in Eq. (3) using the Angstrom power law (Angstrom, 1929).”
Lines 13 – 14: Omit “of the aerosols in the atmosphere.”
Lines 16 – 18: As written, it is difficult to tell which L values go with which type of aerosol. Please clarify.
Line 20: change to “The assumed value of L ADDS TO THE UNCERTAINTY in the AOD estimation.”
Line 21: change to “without the need to make AN assumption ABOUT the value of L.”
Line 23 – 24: change “THIS approach”
Line 25: change to “maximum height of THE aerosol”
Line 26: change to “Ro is THE height”

p. 7

Line 18: should be Angstrom exponent in the text and figure captions.
Line 20: change to “in THE ATMOSPHERIC column”
Line 34: change to “FALLS within”
Lines 37 – 38: change to “sometimes dust PARTICLE CONCENTRATIONS CAN BE ENHANCED above THE boundary”

p. 8

Line 10: Omit “Although”
Line 10: change to “driest season in Malaysia. PW frequency was approximately 20% lower than that of the northeast monsoon period WITH PW < 4.0”
Line 19: change to “SIMILAR studies have performed THIS analysis”
Line 28: change to “DIAGRAMS”
Line 36 fail→failed
Line 38: change to “ARE dominant”
Line 40: fails→failed

p. 9

Line 11: change to “in THE overall”
Lines 17 – 18: change to “BMA ARE likely the most common AEROSOL TYPES”
Line 25: seasonal → seasonally
Line 26: change to “PARCELS”
Line 29: solved→determined
Line 34: omit “transported”
Line 37: change to “AND Sumatra”

P. 10

Line 5: “similarities BETWEEN the air”
Line 21: “of THE Angstrom exponent”
Line 25: “that FOR Penang”
Lines 31 – 32: What is the point of the sentence starting with “The relative…”? It seems out of place here.
Lines 35 – 38: This is confusing. It is stated that the sensitivity of AOD prediction is affected when AOD values are low. Yet the next sentence says that aerosol models are insensitive during clear (low AOD) conditions. Please clarify in the text.
Lines 42 – 43: Change to “The accuracy of AOD prediction is improved for cases with higher aerosol concentrations.”

p. 11

Line 2: “of twenty two months OF data”
Line 7: “twenty two months OF data”
Line 15: “WHEN scrutinizing”
Line 35: “have A narrower”


p. 12

Line 8: “exhibits A high”
Line 13: “less THAN 1.0% in TERMS of”
Lines 13 – 14: clarify what is meant by “so is for the calibration data”
Line 20: Omit “which outliers are not removed”
Line 23: “Thus, BY filtering”
Line 24: “but wMAPE ONLY SLIGHTLY INCREASED from”
Lines 37 – 42: These two sentences needs to be re-worked for grammar and meaning.

p. 13

line 6: “above THE boundary layer”
line 9: “of aerosol residual LAYERS ABOVE the PBL”
Line 29: change to “Particles TRANSPORTED within the free”
Line 39: “potential OUTLIERS removed”


p. 14:

Line 29: “the result of THE comparison”
Line 34 – 37: Omit last two sentences of paragraph.

p. 15

Line 36: “in analyzing THE proposed model”
Line 41: “in THE current study”

p. 16

Line 2: “which MAKES sense”
Line 13: “stress-TESTED”
Line 14: “using A higher”

p. 30

Line 11: “using A moving”

Figure 4 caption: add a reference to HYSPLIT.

Figure 5 caption: “500 nm FOR 2012 and 2013”. The figure x-axis should have a label of “Julian Days”.