Decision based two reviews and a revised version oft he manuscript

Dear Conrad Koziol and N. Arnold,
I thank the authors for their careful and substantial revisions in response to two critical but overall positive reviews. Both reviews highlighted the approach of coupled models and thorough comparison of the modelling to insitu observations as well as the thorough discussion.
However besides minor more technical issues, they also had some more substantial questions and critical points which briefly concerned:

-the representativeness (land-margin, not all Greenland)
-a more precise/extended discussion/interpretation regarding differences to the classic ‘alpine model’ (upstream response).
-improved explanation of the methods and model (incl. coupling/experiments) details
-a more nuanced/toned down formulation regarding the match between model and gps observations.

The authors very carefully addressed all the points raised by the referees and undertook substantial revisions in particular on the interpretation and explanation side. Thus, apart from some minor editing/typographical issues, they satisfactorily revised the manuscript so it is close to acceptance for publication.
Before final acceptance the authors should, however, correct these remaining minor editing and typographical issues which are listed in detail below. And please carefully proof-read the manuscript after all the corrections again.


At this stage I would also like to thank the authors for their excellent handling of revisions after the reviews.
Best regards

Andreas Vieli, the editor, 9 Feb 2018


p. 1 line 2: unlike stated in the response the abbreviation of (GiIS) is missing here after ‚Greenland Ice Sheet’ and should be added.

p. 2 line 23-24: plural or singular? either its should be ‘…to an ice flow model…’ or ‘…to ice flow models…’

p. 5 line 5: there is the degree circle missing between ‘-5’ and ‘C’

p. 6, 7 and 8: some of the symbols (variables, constants) in the text and in the tables 1 and 2 are not italic, but in the equations they are. (e.g. constants g,… exponents n, …, variables/coefficients m, G, S, r, M, R, p, q,…).
I have the impression that you wanted to maybe have the constants and exponents (normal) non-italic but in the equations they are italic anyway.
So I suggest to make them all consistently italic (at least the same in text, equations and tables).

p. 9 line 27: would ‘equally’ not be better here than ‘identically’.

p. 9 line 28: ‘crevasse fields’ (plural) (as later you always use the plural)

p. 10 line 12: ‘…drain INTO its…’

p. 14 line 13: ‘…schoof and Budd slinding laws…’

p. 14 line 333: … velocities…show a gradual…’ (plural)

p. 14 line 333: … measurements show …’ (plural)

p. 17 line 14-16: I agree with the fereree that ‘correlation’ is not the ideal term for ‘qualitative’ agreement as it has a set ‘quantitative’ meaning in statistics. Maybe replace/rephrase to something with agrees/corresponds/…

p. 17 line 33: there are some comma missing here I think. ‘…where the water in the lake, when hydrofracture occurs, was not…’

p. 18 line 8: again add a comma after ‘points’

p. 23 line 4: ‘…injection (singular) points…’

p. 26 line 25-26: I think the citation Smithe et al (should be outside the brackets e.g. ‘… results of the Smith et al. (2017) study.

p. 27 line 7 ‘Simulations results show (plural)…’

p. 28 line 6: delete the ‘in’ after ‘within’

p. 29 line 13: ‘This calculation needs (singular) only be done…’

p. 29 line 19: I think there is an ‘as’ missing between ‘well’ and ‘support’.

p. 30 line 21: style, maybe replace ‘has the consequence’ by ‘implies’

p. 31 line 5: ‘…levels TO circa 2100…’

p. 31 line 7 : ‘THE argument …’ (singular, as you only give one here)

p. 31 line 12: to avoid repetition maybe delete the ‘approximately’ before ‘2100’.

p. 31 line 25: something wrong in this sentence, do you mean.: ‘…of high complexity that incorporates a range of processes.’

p. 32 line 17: I would say ‘close to’ as otherwise you would have to say ‘closer to what????’

p. 32 line 22-23: I find it rather hard to follow this sentence and would simplify it a bit by simply saying: ‘In the second limit, for which winter ….’.

p. 32 Acknowledgnments: please acknowledge the two referees in the Acknowledgements

caption figure 10: maybe be more specific here and extend to:
‘…GPS sites for the different years and future scenarios.’