Dear Dr Dugstad and co-authors

Both reviewers have now provided feedback on your revised manuscript, and they are both very positive about it. I am therefore happy to accept the manuscript for publication in Ocean Science.
Referee 1 found a few minor type-os that you may want to fix now, before the article is type-set. I therefore hold formal acceptance until you have the chance to change these, see list below:
line 39: "vigurous" --> "vigorous"
line 63. I'd revise to "Spall identified narrow structures ... that can carry large ...." or "Spall showed that narrow ...."
line 79. "outputs" --> "output"
line 101 and following. These sentences could be streamlined. "We considered whether the omission of verstical diffusion might lead to .... However, tuning vertical diffusion ... but would not significantly affect ...."
line 111. "are reduced" --> "is reduced"
line 284. Change comma after "velocities" to semi-colon.
line 546-47. Maybe "We propose that actual water mass transformation takes place mainly ..."

Best wishes,
Erik