The author did a thorough job addressing the comments/revisions put forward by the reviewers and the manuscript is in great shape. After reviewing the author's changes to the manuscript, I have decided to publish the manuscript following minor revisions.

1. In the abstract (page 1, line 18). Should the "or" between "layer" and "TPW" be deleted?
2. Page 13, Lines 19-21. I am confused by "cool Tbs associated with smoke may be confused with cool, elevated, land surfaces". Can you elaborate on the relevance of this statement since the bulk of the analysis in the manuscript occurs over the ocean?
3. Page 22, Line 7-8. "However, both methods relied on measurements of reflected solar energy...". CALIOP is an active sensor that relies on transmitted laser energy to detect the vertical distribution of aerosol and cloud layers using backscattered signal. CALIOP actually has better performance during the night because there isn't any solar contribution to the measured signal. Please consider revising/rephrasing this section of the paragraph.