Please make the following changes/responses to the manuscript:

1) The response to reviewer 2, in their point concerning the first percentile of AOD, for establishing the marine background, is still not clear. Please clearly explain why this value (0.04 AOD for June/July) is necessary in addition to the 0.15 AOD threshold for dust/marine aerosol.

2) Please include more information on the in-situ measurements. Simply citing other references is not sufficient. Since data from them is presented in Figure 8, the specific instruments used in this case should be detailed and size ranges and any relevant processing described. Relevant altitude ranges or flight manoeuvers (e.g. constant altitude flight legs) used to gather the data should be described, since this may impact the comparison to sunphotometer data. Information on the inlet and size measurement limitations should be described, since this has a large impact on the data shown in Figure 8.

3) p9 l30 - "The relevant comparison here is the shape of the size distributions" - if this is the case, the size distributions should be normalized so that the true shape differences can be compared.

4) Fig 5 - caption should name instruments used.

5) Fig 6 caption - should state what solid and dashed lines indicate.

6) p9 l7 - a better wording may be, "Only in very well mixed atmospheres with a single predominant aerosol type is it possible to tackle this kind of comparison."

7) p9 l22-23 - Table 2 only appears to show sunphotometer measurements. Please clarify this statement to indicate where the in-situ SSA values are shown/taken from.

8) p9 l27-29 - a scale height implies a decrease in concentration with altitude. (not distributed evenly).

9) p10 l29-30 - "The closure approach, aiming at the characterization of the same aerosol parameters with various independent methods, is the next step to be carried out with the SALTRACE dataset." - please make this sentence less vague and clearer.

Thank you for modifying your article and making the requested changes.