Dear Dr. Herman,

Please see the comments of two of the original reviewers of your paper. They are requesting some clarification as there may have been misunderstandings in some of the comments. Both reviewers recommended minor revisions, and I am in agreement with this provided the concerns are addressed.

Best regards,
Jenny

Dear Dr. Herman,
Thank you for your contribution to the Cryosphere. In my final read of your manuscript I found some small language points for your consideration. Please make a careful proof read before final publication. Some suggestions are below
1. Consider if your use of brackets is needed. Locations I noted where you may be able to not use brackets are: Page 1, line 24; Page 14, lines 4-9; Page 12, lines 29-33; and other locations.
2. Page 4, line 31. Is there a word missing from the end of this sentence?
3. Page 5, line 4: "grain width is"
4. Page 5, line 8: you may want to specify "future versions of the model"
5. Page 13, line 14: "decide" and "deciding" are an interesting choice of word here. Would "control" be a more appropriate word?
6. Page 13 last sentence. I am not sure I fully understand this statement. Perhaps you need a different conjunction than 'so' to clarify that even though the attenuation is fast, the probability of breaking is not dependent on this. Is this because the attenuation is faster than the distance between breaks? I think I am simply misunderstanding your statement as it is written. I should also mention that the key points in lines 10-15 on this page were also hard to follow, but made sense when I read them twice. Maybe consider simplifying your sentence structure if you wish.
Best regards,
Jenny