Dear Mr. Heino,

My apologies for a delayed response. Having read the reviewer's comments and your detailed replies, I invite you to submit your revised manuscript for reconsideration by the reviewer and myself. From your replies, I'm convinced that you understood our concerns, and have attempted to address them. I'll be interested to read the revised manuscript.

Best regards,
Dan Kirk-Davidoff

Dear Mr. Heino,

Review 1 and I have now had a chance to review your revised submission, and I am happy to recommend publication subject to a couple of minor revisions requested by review 1,
namely:
"1. The data used in the regression is a bit unclear to me. Since the model only simulates one growing season, this means that there is only one harvest per year. Are the climate indices used in the regression based on the harvest year or the sowing year, when they are different? Also, if there is only one growing season per year, why do the results change if the growing season is defined starting in May versus in January?

2. Please provide some discussion of how the impacts of the same index on different crops can vary in the same region. For instance, in Line 20-22 on page 12, it is stated that wheat and maize have negative sensitivity to NAO but Soybean has the opposite. Is that because these are grown at different times of the year or because these crops respond differently to the NAO induced climatic conditions? Presumably negative soil moisture would be bad for all three crops."

Thanks again for your submission to Earth System Dynamics and for your hard work responding to the reviewers' recommendations. I look forward to publication of your final revised manuscript.

Best regards,
Dan Kirk-Davidoff

Dear Mr. Heino,

Thanks for your responses to the reviewer's final corrections. I am now pleased to accept your paper for publication in Earth System Dynamics. Thank you for choosing to publish with us, and for your patience with our review process.

Best regards,
Dan Kirk-Davidoff