Dear authors
I have now read both reviewers comments and your replies and I recommend that you attempt to address these in detail in your revised manuscript (i.e. minor/major revisions). I have found in particular reviewer 1's comments fair and would like to see you address these more in depth in your revised manuscript.
Additional comments:
- please clarify your main message as to which way the bias in leads elevations affect the freeboard estimates. Clarify how misclassified dark leads are affecting the processing.
- please explain the use of alpha_i^2 in the weighted standard deviations in section 3.2 and define all variables (i.e. H_lower...).
- please clarify location and validation procedure (i.e. what is the time lag between satellite and airborne data as it is important for the cloud comparison).
- expand and strengthen the discussion for sea ice thickness but also for cloud and lead co-variability.
Regards
Michel

Dear authors

Thank you for your replies and revised manuscript. In proposing publication but I am circulating again to the reviewers for final revision and checks of the resubmitted manuscript and replies. In particular I am seeking feedback from reviewer 1 on his major comments.

Please also make sure you correct few typos still lingering (i.e. 'a more pulses'...).

Regards
Michel


Regards
Michel

Dear authors

Both reviewers expressed their positive feedback and I am now satisfied that this paper can proceed with publication provided you incorporate the minor adjustments proposed below. I would also encourage you to give the manuscript another read to spot any remaining typos.

Lines and comments refer to the tc-2020-174-author_response-version1.pdf document

Major comment 1 -> please include at least some of the elements of your reply to the reviewer into the manuscript

“In repeating the analysis, the sea surfaces in Release 2 were not available in Release 3.
This indicated that the sea surfaces used in the Kwok et al. analysis were dark leads (i.e.,
not classified as sea surfaces) and no longer designated as sea level references for use in
freeboard calculations. This suggests that the lower IS-2 freeboards in the previous
analysis may be (because of the small number of samples) due to the impact of dark leads
– providing a higher (biased) sea surface and thus lower IS-2 freeboards consistent with
our expectation of results from the algorithm revision.”

Major comment 2 -> please include a reference to this into the revised manuscript. A version of your answer would do.

Minor comment -> please refer to this also (together with major comment 2)

Other edits

P1L22: clarify -> freeboard composite means
P4L6: description of the …
P5L18: please change naming convention of h^2_smooth as it looks like the height is squared (maybe h^(2))
P6L19: it takes more (remove a)
P7L13: not sure phenomenology is the best word here
P9L5: rephrase …efficacy…

Dear authors
I am satisfied that you have now included all of the reviewers and my comments and I am happy to proceed with publication.
Regards
Michel