The referees reports on the first version of this paper were positive and in revising the paper you have responded thoroughly to their comments. Indeed some of your revisions have gone well beyond anything specifically recommended by the reviewers but my impression is that the paper has been further improved as a result. Therefore I'm ready to accept this paper for publication in ACP.

But one detailed point that I noted was the following.

l29-34 on p9 of the revised manuscript say:
'As seen in Fig. 2, the pattern of annular mode variability at 10 hPa
extends all the way into the tropics. Similar broadening is observed at other stratospheric levels (not shown), and is already discernable at 100 hPa level in the austral hemisphere (Fig. 2a). Consequently, observations from the midlatitudes and tropics are sufficient to constrain the annular mode at higher elevations, and reanalyses do not suffer from limited observations over Antarctica.'

Is 'extends into the tropics' meant to apply to both hemispheres? This comment comes at the end of some text on the SAM -- so perhaps you see it as clear that it is meant to apply only to the SH? But the 'in the austral hemisphere' in the second sentence confuses that. My reading of Fig 2 is that 'extends into the tropics' applies to the SH at 100hPa and at 10hPa (though it is difficult to make out the green lines on the left-hand figure because they coincide with the blue lines) and it applies to 100hPa, but definitely not to 10hPa in the NH.

Please can you clarify the text? I'm requesting this as a 'minor revision' because I'm interested to see what you say. But as soon as I receive your revised version I'll accept the paper. (You might take this opportunity to check the text again for minor typos etc.)

I am pleased to accept this paper for publication in ACP. (Thanks for your response to my question posed in the previous revision stage!)