Dear Sebastian and Hilmar,

Thanks for this new version of your manuscript and your reply to both reviewers. Based on these two reviews and the changes done on your manuscript, I think it can be accepted to publication in The Cryosphere after the minor revisions listed below has been done.

Thanks for having choosing The Cryosphere to publish this interesting piece of work!
Regards,
Olivier Gagliardini

Minor remarks:
- line 80: flexural ice- softening -> flexural ice-softening
- line 90: what is h in Eq. (4)-(6) should be specified as from Fig. 1 it seems to be the ice thickness at the front, whereas in the analytical solution it is the mean(?) or local(?) thickness. Also, it is mentioned line 113 that this solution is derived for an infinitively long ice-shelf (which I guess means with periodic boundary conditions in the x direction), which seems in contradiction with a constant thickness gradient along x? How the assumption that h is not constant departs from this assumption should be discussed (or at least clearly mentioned).
- line 92: the GL that the -> the GL so that the(?)
- line 122: w_a is noted W_a in Fig. 1 (make it consistent). The Poisson's ratio is usually \nu?
- line 143: s is the surface elevation, b is the bed elevation
- Equation 18: why not u_shift instead of n_shift (which looks like a ratio of velocity, not a velocity)?
- Caption Fig. 2: in table 3 -> in Table 3
- line 198: Then I don't understand because it is mentioned above that only the non linear viscous term is conserved and that elasticity is neglected? Did I miss something? There is no E in Eq. (18)? Which value for A has been used? It should be mentioned in Table 1.
- line 248: \rho_i should be \rho
- line 250: similarly to reviewer #1, I don't understand what is an elastic foundation. Are you just applying a normal stress equals to the water pressure on that surface? If yes, why do you need to introduce this concept of "elastic foundation"? Or is it more complex, like the "viscous spring" term in Eq. (15) of Durand et al. (2009)? Then it should be mentioned.
- Figure 3: margin till -> margin BC?; ice stream till -> ice stream BC?
- line 330: no space after MS_4


Durand, G., O. Gagliardini, B. de Fleurian, T. Zwinger, and E. Le Meur (2009), Marine ice sheet dynamics: Hysteresis and neutral equilibrium, J. Geophys. Res., 114, F03009, doi:10.1029/2008JF001170.

Dear Sebastian and Hilmar,

Thanks for this last version. I am please to accept it as it is for publication in The Cryosphere. Thanks for having choosing The Cryosphere to publish this nice piece of work.

Regards,
Olivier Gagliardini