Please find the reviewer’s comments below.

I would like to thank the authors for preparing a compelling response to my initial review, in which they clearly demonstrate that my technical concern regarding the parametrization of vertical mixing strength only applies to gases, but not to aerosols. I believe that the modelling community will benefit from articles that point out these hidden model aspects as clearly as possible, which this article now does.

I have two more minor comments, and a few proposals for language improvements.

Minor comments:

1. I still wonder how the findings of this article should be interpreted in the context of Du et al. (2021). Figure 7 shows a range of nighttime mixing coefficients in the range of 0-3 m²/s. As pointed out by the authors, the clipping of mixing strength does not apply to black carbon (BC), but Du et al. (2021) have nonetheless shown that perhaps it should, because their clipping at 5 m²/s resulted in significantly more realistic surface BC. There is also no reason why trace gases should undergo a different mixing routine than aerosols. Based on these two arguments, it seems plausible that the exclusion of aerosols from the clipping procedure was an oversight. The authors need not concern with this question directly, but they should attempt to answer the following (perhaps in the discussion of Figure 7):

Assuming it were appropriate to apply the clipping also to the mixing of aerosols, would this not potentially change the findings of this article? After all, the entire variance of the nighttime mixing values would vanish if the values were clipped to 5 m²/s as suggested by Du et al. (2021). At daytime, where mixing coefficients are higher anyways, this logic would not apply.

2. The authors discuss the correlation between surface types / land usage and mixing strength. In doing so, they mainly focus on how turbulence is affected by surface roughness. But there is another major mechanism to be discussed: The differences in radiative uptake among different surface types. Some surfaces absorb more of the actinic flux, and subsequently transfer this energy through sensible heat to the air above, which significantly contributes to the day-time convective boundary layer.

Comments on language / writing style:

l. 101: change to "Previous research has indicated (...)". The use of the plural "researches" appears in other parts of the article as well and appears false to me.

l. 101-106: This research summary is only helpful if the readers are made aware of the differences between the model code in the presented article and the referenced literature. For example, the study by Kuhlmann et al. (2003) is over 20 years old, and uses a different model at far lower resolutions. I would argue that such literature has limited relevance for the article's research question.

l. 163: Here and in other places, the term "multi-resolutions" is used, which I would recommend to replace by "multiple resolutions", "different resolutions", or "various resolutions".

l. 177: The sentence with "contains some treatments" is not very informative. The authors could write instead: "WRF-Chem treats photochemistry of trace gases and aerosol-related processes with various different schemes (e.g. the Statewide Air Pollution Research Center (SAPRC99) photochemical mechanism and the Model for Simulating Aerosol Interactions and Chemistry (MOSAIC))."

l. 190: remove "also".

l. 313: Split into two sentences: "This study primarily focuses on BC. The spatial distribution of BC emissions is shown in Figure 22."

l. 322: Is Zhang et al. (2021) a good reference to the MEGAN model? As far as I know, MEGAN is usually cited as:

Guenther, A., Karl, T., Harley, P., Wiedinmyer, C., Palmer, P. I., and Geron, C.: Estimates of global terrestrial isoprene emissions using MEGAN (Model of Emissions of Gases and Aerosols from Nature), Atmos. Chem. Phys., 6, 3181–3210, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-6-3181-2006, 2006.

This refers to the original version of MEGAN, and newer versions have been published. Regardless, Guenther et al. should be cited in the context of MEGAN.

l. 350: Change "derived" to "used".

l. 391: "We believe this approach (...)" should be rephrased to a more objective statement.

l. 489: Change to "Figure S8b demonstrates (...)".

l. 647: It is unclear to me what "intension" means in this context.

l. 671: Remove "vertically upward".

l. 863: Change to "dynamical framework of the model".

l. 865: Change to "The resolution of dynamic processes reduces (...)".