See attached PDF.

Review of https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3944: ‘Basal Unit Radar Characteristics at the Southern Flank of Dome A, East Antarctica’, by Yan et al.

Dear authors,

Your article describes the englacial basal units classified from the analysis of scattering in radar images. You discuss two types of units, depending on how sharp or gradual is the scattering variation, and relate the transition spatial transition between units to changes in englacial temperature and bed geomorphology. From my point of view, the main contributions of the article are the methods for limiting the upper layer of the basal unit, and for classifying the basal content with the two discussed types.

The structure of the paper facilitates the reading. In particular, the introduction nicely explains what the reader will find in the article. The images are very well chosen and meaningful, with scientific colour maps for universal interpretation. The references I checked support the article. The data are in public repositories and are open, except one data set, maybe currently under embargo.

In the attached pdf, I include my comments and suggested additions and minor corrections. My main comments are related to how reflections are classified between specular or scattering, to the interpretation of the two discussed types of basal unit types, and to the presence of sidelobes in the SAR images.

Regards,

Álvaro Arenas-Pingarrón