Types of interactive comments 

In the interactive public discussion following the publication of a paper in eEarth Discussions (eED), the following types of interactive comments can be submitted for immediate non-peer-reviewed publication alongside the discussion paper:

Short comments (SCs) can be posted by any registered member of the scientific community (free online registration). Such comments are attributed, i.e. published under the name of the commentator.

Referee comments (RCs) can only be posted by the referees involved in the peer review of the discussion paper. They can be anonymous or attributed (according to the referee's preference).

Editor comments (ECs) can only be posted by the Associate Editor of the discussion paper.

Author comments (ACs) can only be posted by the contact author of the discussion paper on behalf of all co-authors.

All interactive comments are fully citable, paginated, and archived as a supplement to eED.

Figures and supplements 

Comments can be composed by using either plain text or LaTeX formatting. Complex content without LaTeX commands can be uploaded as a *.pdf file and will be displayed as a supplement to the comment. In both cases, figures can directly be included in the comment.

The two phases of the interactive public discussion 

Phase 1: open discussion (8 weeks)

The referees are asked to publish one or more referee comments, and every registered member of the scientific community may publish short comments as defined above. The authors of the discussion paper have the option (but no obligation) to reply by publishing their own short comments individually, or by posting author comments collectively on behalf of all co-authors. The authors of a discussion paper are automatically informed via email about the publication of comments in the interactive public discussion of their paper. Publication alert services will also be available to other members of the scientific community. The publication of interactive comments is supervised by the Associate Editors, who have the option of censoring comments that are not of substantial nature or of direct relevance to the issues raised in the discussion paper or which contain personal insults. Authors are advised to follow the discussion of their paper and to notify the Associate Editor in case of abusive comments. The eE editorial board reserves the right to exclude abusive commentators.

Phase 2: final response

After the open discussion, no more short comments and referee comments can be accepted. However, the contact author and the Associate Editor of the discussion paper have the opportunity to publish final author comments and editor comments, respectively. The final response phase is generally limited to 4 weeks (can be extended to 8 weeks) and terminated by the authors as soon as they have sufficiently responded to the referee comments. Further author and editor comments can be posted, if appropriate. Before submitting a revised version of their manuscript for publication in eE, the authors should have answered the referee comments and relevant short comments cumulatively or individually in one or more author comments. The author comments should be structured in a clear and easy-to-follow sequence: (1) comments from referees/public, (2) author's response, and (3) author's changes in manuscript. Regarding author's changes,  a marked-up manuscript version (track changes in Word, latexdiff in LaTeX) converted into a *.pdf must be submitted, uploaded as a supplement to the author comment.