Response to Referee 1

Abstract

Interactive comments (>> italic black) by Anonymous Referee # 1 (RC1). Authors' responses are given in blue print in each section >>The manuscript describes an implementation of the Black Sea circulation model (BSEA), which is based on the NEMO version 4.0 (Madec, 2008). The model domain includes the deep Black Sea basin (max depth: 2178 m) together with the shallow Azov Sea (depth 10m) in the north and the Marmara Sea in the south. In order to represent the Bosphorus exchange flows coupled to Black Sea, an artificial box representing the Marmara Sea and the Bosphorus Strait have been added to the domain. The manuscript focused mainly on the analysis of the 10-year (2009-2018) variations of C1 GMDD Interactive comment Printer-friendly version Discussion paper temperature and salinity using their monthly and sub-basin averaged values. We thank referee # 1 for valuable comments, based on the brief reading of the paper. >>The model could provide a good opportunity to improve the modelling ability of the Black Sea by incorporating the Bosphorus Strait into the simulations. However, I would like to express concerns that in its current form the manuscript focusing largely on the validation of a model rather than using the model to fully explore the processes responsible for the trends or capturing real dynamical features. This study does not focus adequately on new knowledge and instead focuses largely on developing and validating a model. I think the paper needs to be substantially revised in order to focus more on the new understanding of the processes that can be obtained, i.e. using the model as a tool to explore them. I recommend a major revision or possibly a resubmission.