Dear Authors,

Your manuscript received two reviews, both of which were very critical about the study. According to your posted responses to referees, I understand that you have tried to address these criticisms in detail and revise your manuscript accordingly. Based on your responses, I am willing to provide you a chance to submit your revised manuscript. In particular, please pay attention to the referees' comments regarding the experimental setup, a need for more model runs, and the use of independent datasets for model calibration, validation and testing (for both V-A scaling method and SIA model). You also might consider a substantial reorganisation of the manuscript in order to improve its clarity and logical flow. Once received, your revised manuscript will be sent for another round of reviews.

Best regards,
Valentina

Dear authors,

Your revised manuscript received two reviews. While the referees acknowledge the efforts you have put into the revisions they still remain critical about the study. Please see their responses below. I am willing to provide you a chance to submit your responses to these comments and revise the manuscript accordingly. In particular, pay attention to the referees' comments regarding the (1) usefulness of V-A scaling in the light of existing more advanced approaches, and (2) the clarity on how the parameters in the V-A scaling are calibrated over the Himalayan glaciers. It is likely that your revised manuscript, once received, will be sent for another round of reviews.

Best regards,
Valentina

Dear Authors,

Thank you for the revised manuscript and line-by-line response to referees' comments.

I agree with most of your responses to the referee's criticism, especially on the need for simple models. However, I did find that the key criticism of Reviewer #1 still holds: 'I do not think that any conclusions on sea level contribution validity of different models can be obtained from a study on
Himalayan glaciers (or any other mountain glaciers, given the limited total volume of ice
stored in these ice bodies).’ As I understood this comment, it's not about whether your analysis and findings are valid, but whether you should stretch your findings to global scale while your study is on a regional scale or more precisely, on a suite of glaciers. I do think you should 'scale down' your conclusions, especially in the Abstract section. Effectively, you provide the analysis on synthetic glaciers and a subset of Himalayan glaciers. Thus you results (and objective) concerns glacier evolution on a regional scale. I don't see any need to 'sell ' your study as one on glacier contribution to sea level rise as this would imply 'global' scale' modeling application which you did not perform. I suggest to revise the text throughout the manuscript so that you focus on glacier evolution on regional scale rather than on 'sea level rise.' It is fine to mention the potential implications for the sea level rise estimates from melting glaciers (as you currently do in the Conclusions section), but you should not overreach in the objectives, i.e. presenting the study to be what it is not.

In the light of this criticism I also suggest to change the title to: 'Possible biases in scaling-based estimates in modeling the evolution of Himalayan glaciers.'

Best regards,
Valentina

Dear authors,

Please revise your manuscript with the the following minor corrections (also check for any typos and incorrect grammar throughout the text - I have only checked the revised parts):

Line 3: change 'from such a scaling-based models' to 'from a scaling-based model'

Line 3: change 'with that' to 'with those'

Line 7: change ' a 2-d SIA model, obtains' to 'the SIA model, yields'

Line 7: change 'time than that predicted' to 'time than those predicted'

Line 10: 'The SIA results yield parameterisations of climate sensitivity and response time of the glaciers in terms of the corresponding ablation rate near the terminus, mass-balance gradient, and mean thickness'. The sentence is a bot convoluted. How about: 'According to the SIA model, the climate sensitivity and glacier response time are best parameterized as functions of ablation rate near the terminus, mass-balance gradient, and mean thickness.'

Line 12: Change 'A linear-response model based on these parameterisations outperforms the scaling model in reproducing glacier response as simulated with SIA.' to 'Using a linear-response model based on these parameterizations, we find that the linear-response model outperforms the scaling model in reproducing the glacier response simulated by the SIA model.'

Line 58: change 'of the evolution mountain glaciers' to 'of glacier evolution'

Line 348: change 'between the SIA and scaling models' to 'between the SIA and the scaling model'

Line 350: change 'Please note that' to 'Note that, '

Line 357: change ' from that obtained here' to 'from these here'

Thank you,
Valentina