Dear Authors
Thank-you for your revisions. I think some of the review comments are “open to interpretation” and so am still asking for some “Minor Revision”. This is for clarity and to include more of what I think the reviewers were asking for. My comments follow here.
Yours sincerely
John Huthnance

Comments
Page 3
Lines 31-32. Better “. . atmosphere, ocean mesoscale eddies are often described . .”
Lines 39-40. You have added the references but I think Referee 1 wanted a few words about what is learned from these references, e.g. scales resolved (Fu et al), eddy energy and tracking (Morrow and Le Traon), effects on atmosphere (Frenger et al.).
Line 42 (or nearby). I am sure Referee 2 comment 2 wants more text about motivation in your manuscript, not just the references. Their comment is a suggestion for what to include.

Page 3 line 51 to Page 4 line 1. Better “. . exhibits significant mesoscale eddy activity (Fig. 2). Many studies have tried to investigate mesoscale eddies in the NSCS . .”

Page 4
Line 57. “. . recorded evidence . .” (omit “the”)
Line 72. “. . 2004. Meanwhile, . .”
Line 73. “. . disappeared southeast of Hainan . .”

Page 5
Lines 78-79. “. . Despite the activities . . NSCS having received . .”
Line 82. “. . (Oey et al., 2005); they are . .”
Line 87. You have added the references suggested by Referee 1. However, I think you also need to comment on what they show (achieve), what is still needed and so how your study helps.
Line 88. “. . two typical anticyclonic eddies . .” Are these AE1 and AE2 (not clear as you have re-arranged the text)? Referee 1 (main comment 1) asked why these two particular eddies were chosen; you should say (they ought to be representative, survive long enough to be useful . . . etc.).

Page 6
Line 112. “. . System, are also used. . .” It would be better to divide this sentence which is too long.
Line 116. “. . used. Three drifters were designed”

Page 7
Lines 122-126. “. . study as follows: 1) there must be a closed contour on the merged SLA; 2) there must be one maximum or minimum inside the area of the closed contour for anticyclonic or cyclonic eddy; 3) the difference between the extremum and the outermost closed SLA contour, that is, the amplitude of the mesoscale eddy, must be greater than 2 cm; . ."
Line 136. “weak” -> “weakly”

Page 8, Line 156. “. . Legates and Willmott (1990). . .”

Page 9
Line 176. Please check fonts and alignment for “a”, “b”, “đ”.
Line 179. Likewise fonts for P, R to match symbols in equation (2).

Page 10.
Line 190. “. . CSCASS are in Li . .”
Line 193. “. . reproduction of anticyclonic eddies AE1 and AE2 in the NSCS . .”
Lines 197-198. “. . into CSCASS every 3 days . .”

Page 11.
Line 209. “. . when the ANP is greater . .”
Lines (209-210). “. . when the ANP is greater than 2 (that is the amplitude greater than 8 cm) . .” These two criteria are not the same thing. It is possible for ANP < 2 but amplitude > 8 cm for a large eddy.
Line 210. “well reproduced”. Referee 1 main comment 3 asks for an objective measure for good reproduction. Please say how you measure it.
Line 218. “. . CSCASS: the meridional and zonal radii of AE1 . .”
Lines 223-224. “. . (Fig. 7b-7j), e.g. moving northwestward firstly and then southwestward, can generally . .”

Page 12.
Line 230. “. . their observed amplitude”
Line 232. “relatively small, less than 8 cm, . .”. But this criterion “8 cm” may depend on altimeter accuracy (Referee 1 main comment 2). You should discuss how the criterion might differ in other contexts. Most readers will not be repeating your work in the NSCS but may want to know a criterion in their context.
Line 235. “assimilated . .”

Page 13.
Line 253. “2004 . .”
Line 255. “disappearance”

Page 14.
Line 273. “. . and then enhancement of AE1 was also predicted . .”
Line 278. Delete “which”.
Line 279. “continued”
Line 284. “reproduce . .”
Line 287. “. . but the predicted movement is firstly toward . .”

Page 15.
Line 296. “slow”
Line 309. “. . and movement direction . .”
Lines 310-311. “. . AE2 are keeping in the consistent trend (Fig. 14e), . .". This is very unclear. Also the figure does not show much consistency between the observed amplitude (overall decrease) and predicted amplitude (overall increase), but the observed and predicted amplitudes are getting closer with time.

Page 16.
Line 316. “owing to the low amplitude . .”
Line 325. “. . production and predictability . .”
Lines 327-328. Better “. . The comparisons of AE1 and AE2 observations with CSCASS prediction experiments, which assimilate SLA and SST, show that . .” ?
Line 331. “disappearance”. Again there is the question of what uncertainty determines the value 8 cm.
Lines 333-334. “. . prediction experiments . . with observations . .”

Page 17.
Line 336. “generation”
Lines 341-342. “. . reproduction and predictability. As . .”
Lines 348-350. Better “it cannot make up for limitations of numerical model algorithms and resolution. Hence for high-resolution operational oceanography, numerical models . .”

Page 20 lines 404-407. These two references should be in reversed order.

Thank-you for your revisions. I am now asking for some Technical Corrections for clarity (see Details below) and there is one point where I think you still need to answer a point of Referee 1. After this, your manuscript should go direct to the Copernicus production system with no further intervention by me. However, there will be copy editing and I expect that will make changes. You should check that your intended meaning is kept.

Details
Line 46. “the scales resolved” seems misplaced; it does not fit with the other items in this sentence.

Line 57. “marginal sea, in the northwest Pacific and connecting . .” (present wording suggests the Gulf of Mexico is in the northwest Pacific)
Line 59. “Current (KC), Rossby waves . . SCS and especially the”
Line 64. Delete “in the” at end.

Line 86. Delete “its”.

Line 97. Delete “appear”
Line 98. “show that an ocean model including tides or”
Line 101. Delete “about”.
Lines 102-104. “. . two typical NSCS anticyclonic eddies (Wang et al., 2008), chosen as representing different generation mechanisms and surviving long enough to be useful, with focus . .”
Line 107. “trajectories”

Lines 111-112. “In this study, altimetric data in 2003-2004 was selected, including along-track SLA, totalling 29 passes (about 9300 points) over the domain of CSCS. Considering . .”

Line 119. Delete “thus”
Line 121. “(2012), was . .”

Line 180. “climate” -> “climatology”

Lines 226-227. “fig. 5 shows . . AE2 can be well reproduced”. Actually figure 5 shows ANP and the model result is not close to the observed ANP. Referee 1 main question 3 was how do you measure “well reproduced”? Perhaps your answer is in the next paragraph lines 228-241? Please correct and clarify this for readers.

Line 227. “. . greater than 8 cm in our runs) . .”. ANP > 2 and amplitude greater than 8 cm may correspond in your example(s) but this is not a universal relation.
Lines 228-229. “Besides, we also use independent evaluation. Fig.6 compares the assimilating results of AE1 with observations . .”
Line 232. “CSCASS; the pink curves”
Line 248. “amplitude is greater . . ”

Line 270. “. . Exp5 is set up . .”
Line 290. “. . AE1 was also predicted . .”
Line 310. Delete “thus”
Line 315. “. . centres of the two almost coinciding. The . .”

Line 326. “moving” -> “movement”
Lines 334-336. “. . The observed amplitude of AE2 decays continually at this stage, but the predicted amplitude is almost constant. In . .”
Figure 5 caption line 550. “observed” -> “observations”.
Figure 6 caption line 554. Delete “of”.
Figure 7 line 562. “. . figure 6, . .”
Figure 8 caption line 583. Delete “moving”