Interactive comment on "HCOOH measurements from space: TES retrieval algorithm and observed global distribution" by K. E. Cady-Pereira et al.

Although not essential to the main purpose of this article, which is the presentation of a new dataset of formic acid abundances retrieved from the TES instrument, we want to comment on a specific chemical process included in the model simulations presented in Section of 4 of this paper: the photo-induced tautomerization of acetaldehyde to vinyl alcohol (VA) followed by oxidation of VA by OH to formic acid. Two recent laboratory studies (Andrews et al., 2012; Clubb et al., 2012) have proposed that this process might be a large source of formic acid in the atmosphere, possibly explaining (part of) the “missing" source of formic acid inferred from atmospheric observations (Paulot