Dear Joshua, dear all,

first of all, let me apologize for the delay in the handling of your manuscript. I have now taken on responsibility for handling the remainder of the submission process, and expect no further delays.

In particular, based on my own reading of your manuscript and the very positive feedback by the two reviewers, I plan to assess any revision myself rather than sending it out for another round of review.

Please submit the revised version of your manuscript, a version with tracked changes, and an updated reply to the reviewer comments. I will try to handle all of them as soon as possible.

Thanks again for submitting your paper to The Cryosphere!

All the best,

Dirk

Dear Joshua, dear all,

thanks for your quick handling of the reviewer comments. I am happy with all your replies and the changes made to the manuscript. I hence accept your paper for publication in The Cryosphere.

I apologize again for the long handling time of this paper, I hope you will not experience this again in the future!

All the best,

Dirk