“Gap-Free Global Annual Soil Moisture: 15km Grids for 1991–2016” by Mario Guevara et al. Responses to anonymous reviewer #1

Abstract

This paper presents a 15 km annual-average soil moisture product that is generated by machine-learning the relation between 0.25 degree ESA CCI soil moisture estimates and topographic indices derived from a higher-resolution DEM. I have several major concerns regarding the hypothesis/assumptions on which the methodology is based as well as the employed validation methodology, and consequently also the conclusions drawn from the presented analysis: AUTHORS RESPONSE: We appreciate the reviewer comments as they provide valuable feedback to increase the impact of our work. We revised our work and will provide analyzes (including new datasets and analyzes of variable importance) to improve the C1 ESSDD