Dear authors,

Two reviewers have given supportive and positive feedback on your paper. The main concerns of both of the reviewers were related to the lack of validation with either direct flux or dew measurements. You have answered to those already in your comments to the discussion in a satisfactory manner.

Both reviewers state that the proposed method and the use of it within the framework of NEON is interesting and affords novel insights, and most of their minor comments have been editorial. I agree with their assessment and find that given the requested adjustments regarding the introduction of the methods (both reviewers) and the discussion (see comments by reviewer #2), as well as a comment on lack of validation the paper (see major comment reviewer #1) can be published within HESS.

You have already addressed some of the reviewer comments in your responses, especially regarding the major concerns. Please submit the revised manuscript together with a point by point response to all of the reviewers comments, specifically also addressing the detailed comments and questions raised, which were not yet addressed in the discussion. Please bear in mind that any questions raised by the reviewers, even if possibly based on a misunderstanding, might also occur with other readers. In such instances, please consider small amendments within the manuscript to improve communication. Also please make sure to address the reviewers major concerns by adding a comment on the lack of validation data and an outlook for future validation into the discussion and/or conclusion section, as suggested by reviewer #1.

Additionally, I have a minor comment below. I look forward to the new version of the manuscript and the response to the reviewers comments.
Kind regards,
Anke Hildebrandt

Page 12 L 6: I find that the description of S as “energy lost by the system” is misleading. You really refer to change in energy storage within the system. Please remove this ambiguity.

Dear Authors,

thank you for the revision of your manuscript. You have well responded to and addressed the comments of the reviewers in the new version. I think that the paper is almost ready for publication in HESS given some small additional amendments stated below, which should be easy to implement.

I am looking forward to the final version of your manuscript.
Anke Hildebrandt


Reviewer #1 pointed out two sources of uncertainty related to measurements, which may affect the results.
(1) Sensor drift of the temperature sensor between calibrations
(2) The substantial uncertainty regarding relative humidity measurements in moist conditions.
I agree with the reviewer. Regarding the first point you propose that the Monte-Carlo simulations sampling the spatial distribution of surface temperature should capture the error. However, the latter samples a normal distribution, which would not capture systematic deviations like sensor drift. For the second, you indicate the uncertainty information delivered by NEON, but no mention has entered the discussion as far as I can see. Please add a comment regarding both points in the discussion.

Reviewer #2 suggested to split up Results and Discussion and moving some points from the Conclusion to the Discussion section. You have well responded by adding an additional section “Ecological significance of dew formation”, and moved some material of the Conclusions there. This section should be named more specifically, such as in “Ecological implications of the results” or similar, as the current name is too general and does not capture the content of the section. Also, I respect your choice for not splitting up Results and Discussion sections, although I agree with the reviewer that the split-up would have improved the paper. However, I ask you to have another go on the Conclusion section. This section should be concise in order to transport the main messages efficiently. For this it is not necessary to refer to figures or tables, present exact numbers, and also avoiding abbreviations will improve communication.

Dear authors,

thank you for the last changes to the manuscript. I am pleased to accept it in its present form for publications.

Best regards,
Anke Hildebrandt