We would like to thank Dr Ferreira for her very positive evaluation of the manuscript and her constructive suggestions, which have strengthened the statistical robustness and interpretability of the proposed model. We have addressed the minor comments and are now working on the major ones. 

Minor comments:

1. We have revised four sentences in Section 6 that referred broadly to 'Mediterranean urban ecosystems/cities', so that they now refer specifically to the three urban green spaces studied. This is consistent with the caveat already present in Section 5 (Limitations).
2. We corrected a typo in the word 'Antrosols/Anthrosols' (also noted by the other referee), an incorrect plant-community code in Section 4 ('AG-D', corrected to 'AH-D'), and a missing space after a citation in Section 4.
3. We reviewed all figures and confirmed that fonts and statistical symbols are legible at the current resolution. We also enlarged Figure 2 as requested by the other referee and will verify legibility again at the galley-proof stage..

Major comments

We agree that addressing all three major comments would strengthen the manuscript, and we are currently carrying out the relevant analyses. Due to the technical nature of these analyses, and the summer holiday period, we kindly ask Dr Ferreira to understand that the full results will be presented in our final response at the end of the discussion period, together with the revisions made to the manuscript. Our planned approach to each point is as follows:

1. Model validation: we will fit a standard Q₁₀ exponential model to the same dataset and report the root mean square error (RMSE), Akaike information criterion (AIC) and/or Bayesian information criterion (BIC) for both the Q₁₀ model and our proposed mechanistic model in an expanded Table 6, as well as providing a corresponding summary in Section 3.4 and the Discussion.
2. Breakpoint robustness: We will report the standard error and 95% confidence interval of the 18.4 °C breakpoint. These results will be presented in Sections 2.3 and 3.2.1/3.3, together with a brief discussion of the robustness of the breakpoint.
3. Temporal autocorrelation: We will assess the residual temporal autocorrelation of the fitted mixed models using ACF/Durbin–Watson tests. The outcome will be reported in Section 2.3. If autocorrelation is detected, the models will be refitted using a first-order autoregressive correlation structure, and the results will be compared to confirm robustness.

We would like to thank Dr Ferreira again for these constructive suggestions and will continue to engage with any further comments during the open discussion period.

We would like to thank the referee for their positive assessment of the relevance of the study and for their detailed comments aimed at improving the clarity, consistency and accuracy of the manuscript. All comments have been addressed, as summarised below.

1. Typo: “Antrosols” → “Anthrosols” --> Corrected throughout the manuscript.

2. Details on study sites

The study was conducted in three urban green spaces in Madrid: Ciudad Universitaria, La Elipa and Pinar de Conde Orgaz, which spanned approximately 1.9, 0.8 and 0.5 km along their longest axis, respectively. Within each site, three replicate sampling points were established for each of the four plant communities (three replicates × four communities = 12 points per site; total n = 36 sampling points). The following information will be added to Sections 2.1–2.2: site extent, spatial distribution of communities, and replicate information. The caption of Table 1 will be amended to n = 3 and the relevant sentence in Section 3.1 will be revised. The coordinates of all sampling points are provided in a new Supplementary Table S1. We have also attached a map showing the sampling points. 

3. Table captions above the table --> Agreed; all table captions will be moved above their corresponding tables.

4. Gas sampling time and randomization

The order in which the three parks were visited was systematically rotated so that each sampling campaign began at a different park, and within each park the order of visiting the 12 sampling points was randomized using a 12-sided die. Measurements were carried out between 08:00 and 18:00–19:00 h local time. We will add this description to Section 2.2.

5. Could higher CO₂ emissions in PH-M reflect measurement-time temperature differences?

This is unlikely, as soil and atmospheric temperatures did not differ significantly among plant communities (see Table 2), and as mentioned above, the sampling order was rotated and randomised across a wide daily timeframe. We will add a clarifying sentence to the Discussion section.

6. What does the 18.4 °C breakpoint represent given diurnal temperature variation?

The breakpoint is derived from a piecewise regression on the full annual dataset and therefore predominantly reflects seasonal rather than diurnal variation in soil temperature. We will add a paragraph to the Discussion clarifying this point.

7. Evapotranspiration unit and measurement method --> The correct unit is mmol mol⁻¹, measured directly by the LI-8100 chamber as the water vapor mole fraction at the soil surface; Figure 2 was already correct. We will correct the unit in Section 2.3 and in the Table 2 legend, and add a sentence describing the measurement method.

8. Figure 2: font size --> Figure 2 will be regenerated with larger axis titles, tick labels and legend text.

9. Figure 8: left and right panels look the same --> Sorry, this was a mistake. The left panel should show the correlations (SST <18.4°C)  instead of the partial ones. We will correct it.

We would like to thank the referee again for these valuable comments. We believe that they will substantially improve the clarity and rigour of the manuscript.