General comments

Overall well-written, informative and with some interesting points. Minor amendments to grammar, scientific content and references are recommended. I don't have a problem with old references as it's good to credit the people who originally came up with the findings. However, there should be a few more recent references included, especially for certain key points. I enjoyed reading the paper and would like to see it published, but there are a few scientifically unsound methods and conclusions I believe should be removed or amended before I would recommend it for publication. In short, these are the use of only four data points in statistical analysis and the conclusion that latitude explains the differences between sites when 3 of 4 sites are within around 35 km from each other. However, I think there is enough substantial information in the paper to be able to omit that particular conclusion. Please see the below comments which are largely replicated from my notes in the PDF.

Specific comments

Line 22: T-SOCS is introduced without defining what the T stands for. Define it here instead of later.

Line 51: “Increasing the organic C or SOM, directly improves the quality of the soil, hence contributing”- Is that always true or only in soils with low SOM? This would benefit from clarification.

Lines 58-59: If this is still true, a more recent reference should be included. Soil and food choices seem to be on the agenda more in recent years. Otherwise, a slight rewording would be good e.g. "has until recently been neglected".

Lines 63-64: This is very generalised. Can more figures and references be included here?

Line 82: As opposed to what? What is wrong with being available in reports?

Line 83: Good point which I believe is still largely true. Give more updated references. The references are too old for a key point like this as it is the basis of your paper.

Line 162: 7.9 is more alkaline than 6.8 is acidic - Perhaps better to omit "acidic" and say close to neutral?

Line 183: I would recommend changing the heading of either section 3.3 or 4.3 slightly to make them different.

Lines 190-195: There is potential for an informative figure out of this data which would be more beneficial than the figures with only 4 data points. Just a suggestion.

Lines 196-198: This sentence doesn't make sense to me. It says there is a clear link between T-SOCS and latitude but only about 70 km is covered in this study. Three of the four points are within approximately 35 km from each other. It seems very random to suggest these differences are related to latitude.

Lines 199-200: Only 4 data points are used for this when a minimum of 10 is recommended. Four data points are not reliable. I suggest omitting this or use all the replicates.

Line 201: Again, only 4 data points.

Lines 218-220: If this is correct, a better explanation would be beneficial here. How is the acidic nature of the studied Vertisols attributed to base parent materials?

Line 304: Has anybody found similar patterns since then?

Line 309: This is not high latitude!

Lines 310-312: I don't believe there is any evidence of this. From the location map, the southern most site is only about 70 km south of the most northern site with most sites being considerably closer to each other. I don’t believe that is a reasonable distance to make judgments about latitude.

Line 312: The reference is incorrect or not listed at the end. Do you mean Tan et al. (2020)? Tan’s study covered 3000 km which is a lot greater than 70 km.

Lines 313-314: This sentence makes it sound like Plaza et al had an r2 value of 0.7104 but from the figures I see it was this study. You only have 4 data points when a minimum of 10 is recommended for regression analysis. I therefore suggest that you don't report this in the text as it can't be considered reliable. Alternately, why not include the replicates?

Line 331: Yes, I thought this point would be closer to the beginning of the discussion since it is one of the first things mentioned in the abstract and there is a lot of detail about it in Table 1. You could make more of this.

Line 343: Again, I don't believe you can conclude this from this study.

Lines 357-358: I don't think there is a scientific basis for the statement of 71 % explanation based on the number of data points. The discussion on vegetation would benefit from being extended.

Line 378: Thank you.

Technical comments

There are minor issues with grammar which mostly appear at the beginning of the text. This would likely deter potential readers from viewing what is otherwise a well written paper, so it would be beneficial to amend these. For example:

Line 14: “Researches” should be “Research” and referred to as “is” rather than “are”.

Line 15: Research should not be referred to as “ones”. Better to say “the few existing studies are….”

Line 36: “Their organic C stocks are crucial”. Soil is referred to singularly in the previous sentence so would be “Its” rather than “Their”, but it would be better to say “Soil”.

Line 47: The word “their” is unnecessary and incorrect.

Lines 48-50: “Thus, loss of organic C or SOM results in the loss of soil quality and impaired associated functions including soil degradation, decline in agronomic productivity, food insecurity, malnutrition and starvation” Good points but the sentence needs rewording, malnutrition and starvation are not soil functions.

Line 72: Stock is singular so it should be “its” not “their”.

Line 74: What is "they", soil? "Soil has the potential..." would read better.

Line 101 (and other places): sudano-sahelian – capitalise this to Sudano-Sahelian to be consistent throughout the text.

Line 159: Be consistent with capitals. Better to use BD than Bd.

Lines 212-213: Should be especially, not specially and no need for the word "and".

Line 305: Better to say “only a small fraction….”

Line 307: Delete the word “part”.

General comments

Tsozué et al. present their work on quantifying soil organic carbon stocks in the Sudano-Sahelian area of Cameroon this manuscript. The manuscript is generally well-written, but my main concerns with the manuscript are a lack of appropriate discussion and presentation of the data and absence of broader implications of the study.

I have made some specific comments and suggested a number of minor technical changes. There were a fair amount of grammatical errors, but these generally did not detract from my understanding of the manuscript. See comments below.

Specific comments

Lines 28-30: I think it’s a bit confusing to switch between “T-SOCs” and “SOCS” here, I would just get rid of the term “T-SOCS” altogether and just use SOCS.

Line 40: I think this might be a better opportunity to define SOM here than to just vaguely mention it.

Lines 48-52: I think removing “organic C” and replacing it with SOC in each case might make this passage less confusing and wordy.

Line 67: I think you need to insert specify why we care about these natural factors, you should specify that these are natural factors that contribute to SOC degradation/loss.

Lines 69 – 75: This entire passage should be revised. This can easily be shortened and you need to refer to soils (or soils in dry areas specifically) instead of   using “their.

Lines 185-191: In this section I would suggest not stating that SOC values are either high or low, and simply report the values here.

Lines 199-202: There are some interpretations here that should be moved to the discussion section.

Line 202: I assume the word “globally” is used to refer to your entire dataset? Please remove this word and replace it with “overall,” or something similar as it is confusing.

Lines 208-210: I’d suggest just stating that clay content increased with depth instead of referring to the surface/base of the profiles.

Line 244-246: Suggesting that SOM is not homogenous is a given, I suggest this sentence be removed.

Line 250-254: Again I think you can just state that SOC was highest in the top 25 cm, I don’t think this needs to be substantiated by citations as it is usually the case.

Line 304-311: Is the latitudinal gradient in the study area great enough to exert an effect on SOC?

Lines 331-336: This should be changed from “high” to “higher latitude,” but I would recommend removing the discussion on latitude entirely. Instead, the authors can explain regionally how precipitation/temperature/vegetation/elevation vary, and then discuss how this relates to regional SOC storage.

Line 346-349: What led to this idea regarding parent material? Why does this contradict previous findings on dryland ecosystems?

Section 4.1: This section (and the discussion overall) is lacking any references to values, tables, figures, etc.  as there is not a single instance of this. As it stands the discussion simply states soil properties were high, low etc. I think the authors could help the flow of the manuscript by reporting values in the text and re-orienting the readers on where they can find the relevant data.

Section 5: I wonder if the data supports some of the assertions in this section. Are data from four soils enough to conclude that climate is controlling SOC storage in the region? I also think the section ends abruptly and is lacking in highlighting the study’s importance – what are the broader implications of this work?

Figs. 3&4: Why haven’t you included uncertainties here? Instead of using linear regression you might consider box and whisker plots.

Table 1: I think the list of dominant plant species here makes the table too cluttered and should be moved to the supplement if possible.

Table 2: I think these descriptions can be summarized in the text and this table can also go in the supplement.

Technical comments

Line 14: Suggest using the word “region” in place of “part” here.

Lines 19-21: Shorten this to simply state “Three replicates were collected at each site…”

Line 20: Remove “the.”

Line 35: “Represents”

Line 26: Remove “their” here.

Line 41: I think you should specify that it is a CO₂ (or simply C) sink.

Lines 41-43: This sentence seems a little out of place here and I suggest you remove it.

Line 44: Do you mean 50% by weight? Is this even necessary to mention?

Line 47: Remove “their”

Lines 52-54: I wouldn’t recommend beginning a sentence with but or using the word “nowadays.”

Line 63: Remove “the” and just say “SOC content.”

Lines 64-67: I think these two sentences can easily be merged together.

Line 79: The authors switched back to using carbon instead of C here.

Line 81: Again, use “studies” or something similar in lieu of “ones.”

Line 95: Use commas or scientific notation when reporting the extent of the study area.

Line 169: We need some more context here – what are these averages?

Lines 177-178: This is an interpretation of C:N values and should be moved to the discussion.

Line 187: I would remove the term “zigzag.”

Line 191: Using “this content” is vague, just say “SOC content” or just SOC.

Line 230: Why mention this here?

Lines 234-237: This should be moved to the introduction.

Line 268-271: Odd word choices here “parental” and “departure,” please revise.

Lines 354-355: I don’t think it’s important to mention the soil taxonomy here.

Lines 361-362: This sentence should be revised for clarity.