Dear Authors

Thank you for your much improved revised version. The reviewers noted a significant improvement in your paper. Some minor changes are still recommended but I foresee that you paper can be accepted once you take these into account. Please address the recommended changes and as usual provide a version in track changes mode. If you provide a revised version within 2 weeks, I will be able to take a final decision before the end-of-year hollydays.

Best regards

Florent Domine

Dear Authors,

Thank you for the second revised version of your manuscript. I believe you have adequately taken the reviewers’ comments into account and I am pleased to accept your paper for publication in The Cryosphere, provided that you think carefully about the Authors list.

Being an Author of a scientific paper requires active involvement in actual scientific aspects. These include designing research, collecting data, analyzing data and writing the paper. This is not an exhaustive list, by the way. Checking the language, as done by Yubin Zhou, is not considered a scientific contribution, even though it is very useful and highly appreciated. Moreover, even though the contribution of Yubin Zhou is noticeable, your previous versions were already in reasonably good English, so there was no critical need for language clarification. Normally, Yubin Zhou’s contribution should therefore be mentioned in the acknowledgements. Likewise, replotting Figures is useful and appreciated, but this does not normally involve an actual scientific contribution, and Jiecan Cui should therefore be named in the acknowledgements. Finally, I encourage you to add a paragraph detailed each Author’s contribution. This is done in most papers published in The Cryosphere, please check recent papers to see how this is done. Please note that since these changes are just technical corrections, I will not review your paper again.

Thank you for submitting your paper to The Cryosphere. Your contribution on organic matter in snow is original and greatly appreciated.

Best regards,

Florent Domine
Co-editor-in-Chief