This study investigates the impact of shrub branches on irradiance by monitoring light levels at specific wavelengths (390±125 nm and >715 nm) within snow-covered shrub areas and adjacent grassland throughout a winter season. Light sensors were deployed at fixed heights within the shrubs and on the grassland. While the research presents interesting findings relevant to snow-related studies, certain areas require improvement to enhance the overall quality of the manuscript.

Major comments:

Q1: The manuscript's Abstract and Introduction currently lack a clear articulation of the research objectives and significance. It's crucial to explicitly state the research gaps addressed in this study compared to previous work. The reader should readily understand the motivation behind this research. Please revise and improve these sections accordingly.

Q2: While Section 3 presents numerous figures and tables, it lacks detailed descriptions and explanations for them. This makes it challenging for readers to understand the results. It's important to guide the readers through the findings and not leave them to guess the story behind the data. Please provide comprehensive descriptions and interpretations for all figures and tables.

Q3: The study simulates the influence of shrub branches using a "soot-equivalent" approach. However, figures like Fig. 2, Fig. 5, and Fig. S1-S3 highlight the variability of snowpack properties. Deep snow and high specific surface area (SSA) can significantly impact irradiance. The current analysis doesn't seem to account for these snowpack properties, leading to potentially inaccurate simulation results. This is particularly evident in Section 3.4, where the lack of consideration for snowpack properties results in convoluted and confusing explanations. That means your conclusion in Abstract and Conclusion section would be modified. Please address this issue. 

Q4. Branch density is a crucial factor, yet it's only briefly mentioned in Section 4.3. I recommend including comparative tests in Section 3 to explore its influence.

Minor comments:

Abstract

Lines 23-24: The sentence needs clarification and rephrasing.

The abstract should clearly highlight the research gap this study aims to fill.

Introduction

Line 38-41: Please provide more information on this physical process.

Line 46-47: Explain the focus on the 300-450nm wavelength range. And comment on the use of 760 nm in this study.

Line 54-55: Expand the introduction of previous studies, detailing their measurement methods and identifying research gaps they left unaddressed.

Line 62: Specify the species of shrub studied.

Line 66: Add a reference to support your statement made.

2.2 Sensor deployment and site description

Figure 2: Include images to illustrate sensor deployment both before and after snow cover, showing how measurements are taken.

Section 2.4: change all instances of “snow heigh” to “snow depth”

Line 172: Provide an explanation for the statement made.

Line 187: Specify the number of snow layers considered and describe how snow depth is divided into these layers.

Lines 187-188 & 190-191: Justify the assumption that all absorbing impurities are soot-like and explain why other elements like dust are not considered.

Line 195 and 202: Explain how the values "~29 cm" and "8.2 cm" were derived.

Section 3:

Line 214-215 & 221-222: Provide more detailed explanations for Fig. 5 and Fig. 6, guiding the reader through the snowpack properties evolution and the significance of the figures.

Line 232-234 & 244: Clarify the conclusions drawn and specify the variables or evidence supporting them.

Line 236: Address the potential uncertainty error in the simulation due to direct radiation on March 6^th

Line 245: Explain the selection of specific days for analysis and clarify the statements made in relation to Section 3.1.

Line 245: why did you select these four days “February 2nd, 3rd and 23rd and April 1st” for analysis? If you think the following sentence is the reason, it is still unclear. You didn’t give the explanation in Section 3.1

Line 245-246: Explain the statement made here.

Line 253: Provide additional explanation and comment for Fig. 9.

Section 3.3: “A… reported in Table 1. B…. is shown in Fig. S4. …”. Clarify the purpose of the two sentences and Table 1 in this section.

Line 266: Explain the selection of these specific days for analysis “February 2nd, 3rd, 23rd and 28th, March 6th and April 1st.”

Line 268-271: Rephrase the sentence to improve clarity on the simulation parameters used.

Line 272-273: Provide references or evidence to support the idea presented.

Table 2: Clarify if the soot density information is derived from the simulation, based on the description in Lines 272-273.

Fig. 10: Provide further descriptions and comments to guide the reader's understanding.

Line 356: “Figs. 9 and 10 illustrate that irradiance decreases faster with depth at SHRUB than at FIELD.” Acknowledge that the faster decrease in irradiance with depth at SHRUB compared to FIELD also suggests the influence of snow properties on irradiance reduction

Like soot, shrub branches can have large impacts on the vertical irradiance distribution in the snowpack. This study used the comparative measurements of irradiance in snow with and without shrub branches to show the significant impacts of shrub branches in radiative transfer processes in snowpack, which is interesting and promising. My most comments are related to the technical clarifications and in-depth discussion. Please see below for my specific comments.

Major concerns:

1. Section 2.4: Please provide more details on the snow height estimation. How did the authors use camera photos to estimate snow height? Please also provide more details on the uncertainty of 1.5 cm.
2. Line 170-174: How did the authors acquire the gain correction factor as well as the detection limit?
3. Line 175-194: How did the authors determine the sky conditions as the overcast?
4. Line 187-190: Please clarify how the authors considered the soot in the simulations, considering no direct measurements of soot concentration? How about dust? Black carbon, brown carbon and dust can have very distinct impacts on snowpack.
5. Line 190: Please clarify why did the authors can use soot to simulate the impacts of branches? Their optical properties can be very different.
6. Line 196-208: There are many numbers in this paragraph. Please clarify where these numbers are from and what is the major points from these numbers?
7. Section 3.1 & 3.2, 4.2: Please add the statistical tests to check whether the differences are significant among SHRUB and FIELD. Besides, the introduction in section 3.1 is too simple.
8. Section 3.3 is too simple. Did the authors use these data for the analysis and explanations?
9. Line 278-280: Please explain why the soot concentration of a given layer is not expected to vary significantly over time.
10. Section 4.1: Can the authors provide some field-based evidences for this?
11. Many parts of the discussion should be moved to results section.
12. How the site-scale findings in this study can be extended and incorporated into Earth system models deserves more discussion.

Minor concerns:

1. Figure 3: Please provide the full names of some abbreviations in the caption.
2. Figure 4: How about the bark absorption?
3. Table 2 & 4: How did the authors determine these values?
4. Section 4.4: This section belongs to results.