Dear Authors,
Although your responses to the reviewers are quite convincing, both reviewers requested to review the revised version.
Best regards,
Xavier F

Dear Authors,

I have resent your paper in review to the 2 initial reviewers.

One accepted your paper as it but the second one disagreed to review it again because his remarks have not be taken into account in the revised version. Therefore I have sent it to a third reviewer which confirms that the remarks from reviewer #2 need well to be taken into account i.e. it is necessary to evaluate if RACMO-CEMS2 is doing the right SMB for the right reason. Is the JJA T700 increase due to the higher climatic sensitivity from CEMS2 (which is for me the most likely with respect to Delhasse et al. (TCD, 2020)) or is it due to JJA circulation changes as discussed in Hanna et al. (2018) ?

According to this new review, and knowing that I have already requested to discuss this potential issue of the recent JJA T700 increase in CEMS2 in my initial review, I regret to be able to accept your paper only if you take into account the main remarks from reviewers #2 and #3. i.e.
- if you remove most of the comparison with RACMO2.1 forced by HadGEM2.
- if you compare the time series of the JJA total Greenland ice sheet short wave downward, absobed short wave and longwave downward fluxes from CEMS2-RACMO and ERA-RACMO2 i.e. if you add the equivalent of Fig 3 but for the main energy fluxes.
- if you add a discussion of the CESM2 ability to simulate the recent JJA GBI (Z500) and the JJA GBI2 index (from Hanna et al., 2018) observed evolution i.e. if you add the equivalent of Fig 4 but for Z500 (over Greenland) and Z500 (over Greenland) – Z500 (over the North Hemisphere).

The revised version will be again reviewed by me and the reviewer #3.

All the best,
Xavier Fettweis

Dear Authors,

Thanks for this revised version.

As announced by email, I have reviewed it myself and I'm happy to accept it for final publication in TC. While it is already mentioned pg 8 lines 2-5, I only request that you remember to readers, somewhere in your conclusion (Section 5), the issue about the recent general circulation changes not simulated by ESMs to be fair with the reviewers' concerns about this.

You could for example add something like this ", although no ESMs from CMIP5 (and likely CMIP6) accurately reproduces the recent observed changes in summertime Arctic atmospheric circulation, driving in part the recent mass loss" at the end of the sentence, line 15, pg 8.

Best regards,
Xavier Fettweis

Dear Authors,
Thanks for the last addition!
Let's go for the copy-editing...
Congrats,
Xavier F.