Dear Mrs. Gisnas and co-authors,

I have carefully checked your entire revised manuscript and I attach a pdf version in which you find a few dozens of editorial comments, corrections and suggestions. These can help to shorten and focus the manuscript in some parts and I address a few remaining unclear points in the manuscript.

It appears to me that you have very carefully implemented all suggested changes and especially methods (i.e. 3.2./3.3.), results and discussion profited significantly from the improvements.

The key messages are novel, the evidence is well developed and concisely and systematically presented in the results and the discussion section. Methods have profited significantly from the revisions and are now presented in a straightforward and concise way. Key findings are discussed in a way that is easily understandable even by the wider readership of The Cryosphere.

However, I think the abstract could be more concisely written (I have made some suggestions to shorten sentences) and should present more of the key findings. In such a condensed abstract I would also include your key findings on (i) model sensitivity, (ii) model validation with logger and borehole data and (iii) the importance of lognormal vs. gamma distribution, all of which might be important teasers for other scientists to read the paper.

I would also check the conclusion, which could be more concisely written and present main points in two lines each.

Otherwise a innovative, interesting and well-presented paper which I recommend for publication after the minor editorial comments summarised in the attached pdf and mentioned above.

Good luck with the revisions

Michael Krautblatter

Dear Mrs. Gisnas and co-authors,

I have checked your revisions with respect to my "150" minor suggestions in the text and the general comments. Especially the abstract and the conclusion have significantly profited from the thorough revision and appear to be more concise and straightforward now.

Thus, from my side I recommend publication of this very interesting paper.

All the best

Michael Krautblatter