Dear authors

Considering the following two comments from the two reviewrs

"SSA measurements during a period of one month are hardly representative
for four years. Since the AOD SSA relationship becomes important later to explain
the steep decrease of j values with AOD, I wonder why AERONET based SSA are not
consulted for the whole period."

"For which wavelength are SSA values given? As both parameters have a wavelength dependence and since PF ozone "effective" wavelengths are ∼305 - 315nm, could this dependence play some role in the provided analysis of the AOD
and SSA effects on PFs. ?"

In this work you have used in situ measurements for the retrieval of SSA at 525nm.
It would be much more appropriate to use aeronet based SSA since:
- they represent the aerosol column that is what you need for the particular application
- they are more representative for the whole time period.

So what the reviewer is stating is to provide
- what is the SSA used from the in situ at 525nm.
- what is the difference with the aeronet based in situ at 440nm
- What is the effect of the above difference in the Photolysis Rates (PFs) ?
Mention also the possible uncertainty on the spectral dependence of the SSA as either it is used from 525nm nor from 440nm they both differ from the 305-315nm range of interest, here.

Conerning the comment replied

you write:
This difference is possibly due to the uncertainty of AERONET based SSA and the poor vertical representative of near ground SSA.

I think the main difference is that aeronet ssa represent the column and in situ ssa what happens near the ground plus the drying that you mention. I think this have to be clarified.

The 11%-16% due to SSA in situ / aeronet differences you are mentioning is very important.
It means that due to the in situ SSA use, you are constantly underestimating the PFs by this amount. I think this have to be reported.
However, if you have a look at the following paper of Krotkov et all

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237741790_Aerosol_ultraviolet_absorption_experiment_2002_to_2004_part_2_Absorption_optical_thickness_refractive_index_and_single_scattering_albedo/figures

and Corr et al.,
https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/9/5813/2009/

they point out that SSA in the UV can be lower than the visible. So in general this 11-16% could be less.

I think you have to include this in the manuscript because SSA in Beijing tends to be very important because of the high AODs that are measured.