This is a good paper with solid analysis. It builds on a good framework of previous studies, and presents interesting new results. 

Some of the discussion is a bit over-simplified. The pattern of energy transfer terms (Fig 5.6,) are complex and it is hard to know what to focus on. Features and 'results' highlighted not always as clear as the text suggests (e.g., most of what is emphasized in the discussion of Fig 6 can also be seen in Fig 5 - see comments on L473-475).  

In addition to the changing mesoscale field, it is worth noting that the IT also changes quite a bit between the 2nd and 3rd cases - the forcing is about 50% larger! I don't think one can really ignore this and state that the IT fields are the same (L332).  What are the impacts of a stronger IT (if the eddy field stayed the same)? I presume that this is part of the signal seen in Fig 7 (vs Fig 6). 

The analysis is well done, and the results very interesting, although arguably pretty complicated. It could be good to build composites (for all cases when a CE is on top of the seamount, for example, or to the north of it, or...), or try to quantify the dominant terms in a control region over multiple realizations, or ... Overall, the manuscript leaves many questions open but still is a solid piece of work that might inspire other studies. As such, I recommend publication, with authors reading and thinking about my comments. 

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Figure 1 - Cyan contour should not be used for Ceará Rise seamount. In the rest of the paper, cyan is used to mark eddies. It would be better to mark the seamount by a different color (thick black?), and repeat it in later figures (Fig 2,4) where the seamount is hard to locate.  

L332 and Figure 3 - Magnitude of the internal tide for the 3rd case is much larger. 

Figure 4 - it might be worth stating that while the conditions for the 3rd case seem very similar to the second case, the energetics (discussed later) are very different. Looking at Fig 4, I was wondering why there was a 3rd case. 

L338-343: Information about the seamount is scattered in the first two items. Combine in a new sentence before listing the 3 cases (L335).  

L473: "In the CEC case, the net effect of Hmn (Figs. 6g-i) is primarily governed by its symmetric part (Figs. 6m-o)." This is a bit of an overstatement.  Like in the previous case (Fig. 5), I would argue that it is 'clear' that H^A_{1-3} dominates H_{1-3} and H^S_{2-3} dominates H_{2-3}, but it's hard to immediately decide if A or S dominates for H_{1-2}. In this case, its's really a combination of both. The symmetric component plays a bigger role than it did in the previous case.

L475. "Specifically, between the shelf break and the southern edge of the CE, Mode-

2 IT loses energy to the Mode-3 background flow (Fig. 6o, blue patches)." That statement is also true for the previous case (Fig 5o). Maybe it is stronger here, but it's really hard to see with this (saturated) colorbar. 

L5530-538: One of the most striking feature of Fig 7 is the alternating bands in H_{12}, and H{23}, to a lesser extent. This is noted in L532, but left without explanation. This is due to the symmetric part (background and IT interactions). Is this due to an interference pattern (stronger IT)? You see it both before and after the seamount... 

L602: The impact of anticyclonic eddies is not shown in this paper. 

My detailed review is provided in the attached file.