Reviewer #1 raised questions about assessing the value of this new approach for practical determinations of particle size distribution in ambient conditions with unknown mixtures of aerosol species with differing index of refraction as well as shape. Clearly, without additional information about the actual particle populations, the new approach cannot realistically reduce uncertainty about the intrinsic uncertainties in the ambient particles. Your response made this clear, yet I am concerned that the reader of the revised manuscript may still suffer from some misunderstanding. Reviewer #1’s question appeared to include the suggestion that your approach would provide an *optimized* return of index of refraction. This is not the case - it will only return a set of possible solutions without any “relative value” associated with each solution. Please add short discussion making this explicitly clear to the (new) reader, perhaps with some guidance about whether you recommend that this approach be performed for all data collected, for special sampling opportunities, or for "spot assessments" of uncertainties in sub-sets of larger data sets.

The use of “spectral” (eg at lines 18 - 22 of page 6, and line 10 of page 10, etc.), could be confusing to some readers (who may think of wavelength-dependencies). Perhaps “signal” broadening? or “size broadening” would be clearer? Or simply “light intensity variations”?

In section 2.5.1, the discussion about light intensity variability focused on in Section 2.3 is rehashed; later you mention (page 9) changes in scattering geometry again. Please consider if these “partial” references should simply be redirects to a complete discussion of all the sources in Sec 2.3. Perhaps this section should also include a wider range of possible broadening source. Ones that occur to me include: the time response of the detectors/sensing system to particles passing through the lit region at different speeds, the temperature dependent variation in detector sensitivity, and the altitude dependent variations in background-noise that are possible with some systems…others were referenced at other points in the paper.