Dear authors,

The two reviewers who have provided the comments to your first submission reported that their concerns are well addressed in the revised manuscript and the revised manuscript is satisfactory for the publication. Nevertheless, my own review found a few problems that need more clarifications, and numerous editorial issues.

The revised manuscript is associated with 13 supplemental figures and 2 tables. This helps readers to get the comprehensive understanding of this work, but it requires a lot of cross-referring. In some cases, extra few sentences in the main text could help readers understand the contents without cross-referring the supplement. Please review the entire manuscript to see (1) whether arguments in the supplement are cited at the right position (rather than as an addition at the end of the discussion for completeness), and (2) whether the main text summarizes the materials presented in the supplement (if not, add a few sentences to help readers). This is the case for snow drift analysis using surface curvature and wind speed. When I read the manuscript pages 11-12 and see Figures 4, S11 and S12, I was not convinced why these wind threshold values are chosen. Then, at P12 L19, Table S2 is refereed, in which I found more detail analysis for different wind speed thresholds.

I found many typos; I actually spent a lot of time to realize some of them can be a typo. One reviewer also pointed out that the reference list has typos and should be carefully checked by the authors. Because of the degree of cross-referring in this manuscript, readers can be easily confused with typos.

I request a minor revision; it means that the new manuscript will not be sent to the reviewers but assessed by the editor. Please submit marked manuscript to highlight changes made in the next round. Point-to-point responses are necessary if you don’t agree the suggestions or if you change the manuscript largely different from the suggestions.

The manuscript improved significantly with helpful reviews. Thus, I’d suggest the authors to acknowledge these reviewers.

Thanks for submitting your work to TCD and I look forward seeing the revised manuscript.

Kenny Matsuoka, TC/TCD Editor

Editorial points:
- P4L1: add unit for snow density.
- P5L15: what does the hyphen between Fig. 1 and 5% mean? Should it be replaced with comma?
- P6 Table 1 caption and forward: elevation reference is not shown. Is it reference to the sea level? I am asking this question because the elevations are shown very precisely (to 1 m). If it is referenced to the sea level, rewrite “m” to “m a.s.l.” This comment is applicable for all of this problem found elsewhere in the manuscript.
- P7L5: “scales compared to Fig. S9”. Is it Fig. S8, not S9?
- P8 Figure 2 caption 2-3 lines from the bottom: I cannot see markers with white and black faces.
- P9 Table 2: Please show the boundary of West and East Antarctic Ice Sheets, as well as the southern boundary of Peninsula in one of maps, probably Fig. 2.
- P10 Fig. 3: “difference in SMB between models and observation” is ambiguous. Please clarify whether it is ”(model) – (observation)” or “(observation) – (model)”.
- P10 Fig. 3: Why does MAR SMB is shifted by -30? Does it mean “0” in the figure means “-30”? If this adjustment is made for the presentation purpose, please do not shift the data but change the y axis label. The green and brown masks are used to show positive and negative values. However, because of this shift, the mask may give a wrong impression. My recommendation is to remove this shift, and expand the y axis range to capture the full variations.
- P10L2: Add “local” before “fluctuations” at the beginning of the paragraph.
- P11 Fig 4 caption: Do you mean “back outlines” by saying “black contours”?
- P11 Fig. 4 caption line 7th from the top: it is said “wind speed greater than 9 m/s”. Is this typo, and supposed to be “greater than 7 m/s”? (I actually spent long time to realize that it can be a typo and wondered why you use two different criteria).
- P12 L3-4: here it is said that there is no relationship between SMB and curvature if wind speed is lower than 7 m/s. However, in Fig 4 caption, the drift snow is proportional to the wind speed when the wind speed ranges between 5-7 m/s. Please clarify.
- P12 L6: not elevation curvature, but surface curvature.
- P12 L19-24: unclear. Revise.
- P12 L31: I am not aware that “dynamical downscaling of ERA-interim with RACO2 and MAR” is described above (or what do you want to say with “dynamical downscaling”?). Revise. And cite key figures supporting this sentence.
- P13 Fig. 5c: why do you define the difference as RACMO2 – MAR for this panel, though all the other three defines the difference as MAR-RACMO2. If you don’t have a good reason, please use the same definition MAR-RACMO2 for all panels.
- P13L2: In this study -> “In that study” or “In Grazioi et al (2017)”
- P14L14: change to “2000 m a.s.l.”
- P14L27: change to “Figs. 5b and 5d”
- P15 Fig. 6 y axis labels: unit for panels b and c are wrong. m-2, not m2.
- P15 Fig.6 caption: line 2 from the top, change to “Figs. 5b and 5d”. I think both models use the same BEDAMP2 ice topography. So, why is the surface elevation different (apparent for 1700 km from B1)? Add unit for the curvature (0.005 and -0.005).
- P16L5: again what does “dynamical downscaling” mean? Do you mean individual components of the climate models enforced by these reanalysis data?
- P16L17: it is first time for me to see that the RACMO2 underestimates the drifting snow transport by a factor of three. It was not quantified earlier, and the factor of three suddenly appears in the conclusions and then abstract. In my opinion, Figure 4 cited here does not immediately support this statement. Please explain.
- P16L24-25: Revise.
- P16-17: I agree with the authors on the recommendations of future modeling work. Sublimation and thus wind speed should be better modeled for low elevated regions near the coast, where the surface topography is highly variable and BEDMAP2 topography is not accurate enough. So, model cell size and input topography data should be considered as well. Just a comment.

Editorial points in the supplement
- Table S1 caption: unclear. Please revise what each number means. I think that the second number shows the number of model cells where the data are present for the specific depth range, and the first number shows the number of observations in total. For example, for 0-100 cm of Albert et al. (2007), only 1 cell has the observation data, and this cell has three data points.
- Figure S1 caption: Table S1, not S2.
- Figures S5 and S6: revise the unit to kg m-2 yr-1 in each panel.
- Figure S6 caption: Table 2, not 1.
- Figure S9 caption: contour lines -> outlines. Add a brief explanation why these data were excluded. Are they excluded because of the slow wind speed (< 7 m/s)? Again, why do you use this 7-m/s criteria, though the regression is made for the locations where wind speed is more than 9 m/s? (it may be a typo, however).
- Figure S10: the definition of positive and negative wind deflection is not clear. Is it better to define as eastward or westward?
- Figure S11: unit for the gas constant of water vapor should be J kg-1 K-1. Add “-1” after K. Also thin normalized curves in Panels c and d are hardly readable. Please add explanations for 95% and 99% envelopes.
- Figure S12: check the very end of the caption. The curvature for the valleys must be wrong.

Dear authors,

The new version addressed all of my concerns adequately, and I am happy to accept this manuscirpt as is.

Thanks for choosing The Cryospehre to present your work.

Kenny Matsuoka
TC/TCD Editor