Interactive comment on “ An estimate of the terrestrial carbon budget of Russia using inventory based , eddy covariance and inversion methods ” by A

General comments This paper provides estimates of the carbon balance of Russia based on three forms of measurement (inventory [LEA], eddy covariance and atmospheric inversion. Calculations are also presented for 8 DGVMs but these are not used in providing the final overall estimate of the net carbon balance. Each of these has quite different properties and different levels of uncertainty. The inventory approach gathers together a very diverse set of ground-based measurements covering many aspects of vegetation and soil, supported by some remote sensing information. The diversity of these measurements and lack of information in the paper on their individual properties (number, period and location of measurements, selection bias, methodology, known limitations) makes it hard to judge the uncertainty in the individual components. Eddy