Dear Tiera-Brandy Robinson and co-authors,

Thank you for the submission of your revised manuscript. It has improved and I think your response to the referees is satisfactory. The manuscript is close to accepted. There are some minor comments and issues from my side, which are listed below. Please account for these in the final version of your manuscript.

Title: Please refrain from capitals. Is the importance of depth ON TEP correct? Shouldn’t it be: the importance of depth FOR TEP?

L19 „Showing that the …“ A full sentence cannot start with “Showing that …” You could write something like: This shows that …

L20 It is not clear what kind of enrichment is concerned here. Please specify enrichment with respect to what?

L23-25 This should be a separate sentence: “Other probable biochemical drivers of TEP transport are discussed.”

L29 substances instead of parameters
L39-40 “Meanwhile, when these OM rich aggregates sink, they help to feed both the chemical and biological pumps (Engel, 2004; Mari et al., 2017).” This needs some more explanation. Not every reader would know what these pumps do and how they work, and the chemical pump is even less well-known.

L47 “between 5-1000’s meters” This notation is not clear. Please correct.
L48-49 “As the importance of the SML in air-sea exchanges has grown …” It is not clear where this is based on. This needs at least a convincing reference.

L69 Please use format: between 8 and 25 July 2017
L72 “but for the purpose of clarity will from here on be called the Norwegian Sea.” This sentence is an anacoluthon, please correct.

L73 Please change data format
L76 flow-through (hyphen)

L79 registers or records (instead of: collects)
L80 Please spell out PAR for first use

L92 Please change data format

§2.4. Please provide info on precision and/or accuracy of nutrient measurements. In the Results sections the limit of detection is mentioned, which does not become clear from the info in the Methods section.

L132 sulfuric acid
L137 by Bittar et al. (2018) …

L139 Any uncertainty estimate for primary production?
L140 by Wurl et al. (2011b).

L160 psu is not an accepted unit for salinity. Salinity has no unit.
L160 I suggest to change to “ … thus had similar salinity (8.92 ± 0.2) relative to those at the Norwegian cruise.”

L161 delete Meanwhile
L162, 163 please no psu

L167 Please start new sentence here: Again, …
L183 enrichment is not sporadic when 50% enrichment exists

L204-205 “Of the three regions, samples from Cape Verde showed the lowest TEP concentrations, however not to the same order of magnitude that Chl a showed.” In this sentence, something is missing. It is not clear which order of magnitude for Chl is meant or in which relation. Please rephrase or correct.

L205 Change to: “Phosphate concentrations were similar to those in the other …”
L212 “between all regions” or “for each region”

L212-213 “were significantly higher” Higher always compares the one with the other. Please specify higher, with respect to what?

L220 Change to: “ … due to low numbers of samples (n=4)”

Table 3 The way this table is presented is a little confusing. The title saying vertical distribution makes one think of a plot. I suggest changing the title to something like: TEP concentrations at various depths (in m), providing an indication of the vertical distribution; variance between …

L227-228 “ … but rose in concentration and …” Please change wording. One can only describe the data in a way that TEP first relatively low and later higher.

L241 (2018) (parentheses)
L241 minimum, maximum

L271 Add: “This is in large part …” (the sentence cannot begin with In large part)
L327-328 “during the second half” It is not clear where this refers to.

L342 “when TEP and Chl a abundance increased” change to: where TEP and Chl a abundance were higher

L343-344 Bjørnsen and Nielsen (1991), Carpenter et al. (1995) and Nielsen et al. (1990) (format)

L348-349 “Especially with the majority of TEP produced by diatoms, which are non-mobile phytoplankton who would be more susceptible to grouping and patchiness by physical forcing.” This is not a full sentence. Added should be something like: This holds especially with …

L356-357 “Suggesting that with sufficient phytoplankton abundances, and reduced influence from the open ocean, the biological influences on TEP heterogeneity can dominate.” Dito. Either couple to the previous sentence with a comma, or start with something like: This suggests that …

L358-368 This last paragraph of the discussion reads like a conclusion. I suggest moving it to the conclusions section.

L377 substances sounds better here than parameters

Fig 2 Please explain EF on the y-axis and the meaning of the horizontal lines in the graphs
Fig. 3 Please add that the numbers on the x-axis denote station numbers

Table 1 Write full SD and SI in title
Table 1 delete psu with salinity
Table 1 Solar Irradiance, please correct unit spelling W m-2

Please check all references again. There are many erroneous citations. Here are some from the start.
L402 Erroneous reference: Limnol. Oceanogr., 49, 741–748
L410 Please add volume number

L432 Progr Oceanogr., 109, 104-116
L433 Citation: The ISME Journal, 3, 1001–1003 (2009)

Thanks and best wishes
Mario Hoppema

Please correct the following references before final submission:

Busch et al: Front. Mar Sci. 4:166, doi: 10.3389/fmars.2017.00166
Engel et al 2017: Front. Mar. Sci. 4:165, doi: 10.3389/fmars.2017.00165

Goering and Wallen: please correct format and add volume and pages: Volume 14, 29-33, 1967.

Grasshoff et al.: Please complete the reference: publisher, pages
Harvey and Burzell: no volume and pages

Louis et al: Please complete and correct the citation: Louis J, Pedrotti ML, Gazeau F, Guieu C (2017) Experimental evidence of formation of transparent exopolymer particles (TEP) and POC export provoked by dust addition under current and high pCO2 conditions. PLoS ONE 12(2): e0171980. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0171980

Ortega-Retuerta et al: Front.Microbiol.7:2159, doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2016.02159
Robinson et al: wrong vol, please only use the doi

Wurl et al 2011a: Complete citation is: Wurl, O., Miller, L., and Vagle, S. ( 2011), Production and fate of transparent exopolymer particles in the ocean, J. Geophys. Res., 116, C00H13, doi:10.1029/2011JC007342.