Reply to comment by Ben-Zvi, A., D. Rosenfeld and A. Givati on the paper: Levin, Z., N. Halfon and P. Alpert, “Reassessment of rain experiments and operations in Israel including synoptic considerations,” Atmos. Res. 97, 513-525. DOI: 10.1016/j.atmosres.2

The attempt by BRG to explain the reduction of the DR to ~ 1.00 in the operational seeding period by the suppression due to pollution have been disproved by Alpert et al. (2008, 2009) and also fail to explain the sharp decline of the target/control ratio right at the beginning of the operational seeding period when the lucky draw in this area came to its end (see LHA).