Dear authors,
Thank you for your considering all comments carefully and your detailed reply. Please revise your manuscript accordingly, provide a response letter where you clearly write how and where you addressed the comments (incl. my editorial ones). Moreover, please provide a version where you highlight the changes made along with a clean version.
If the revisions are done as thorough as the response letter, I will not send the manuscript again for review but will make an own editorial decision.
Do not hesitate to ask in case you have any questions.

Best regards,

Tobias Bolch – Editor TC

Dear authors,

Thank you for considering thoroughly all comments. I read the revised manuscript and your reply in detail. The manuscript has further improved. However, I still have some comments and suggestions to further strengthen your study. Some of these points were not raised by the reviewers but I feel they are important to mention and did not want to send the manuscript to a further reviewer as this would have delayed the process. If you address all the comments carefully I am happy to accept the manuscript. Please revise your manuscript accordingly, provide a detailed point-to point response letter where you clearly write if, how and where you addressed the comments. If you do not agree please provide a clear rational. Moreover, please provide a version where you highlight the changes made along with a clean version. I want to mention that such a point to point reply to all comments along the with the resubmission were you clearly stated what you did (not only as a reply in the discussion where you stated what you will do) was missing.

Editorial comments:
L23ff: This new sentence is now very long and difficult to understand. Split into two and clearly state that your result indicates a lower limit of permafrost between 5350 and 5500 m asl. (or 5450 m asl. as you started in the response letter?)
L26: Please write a.s.l. in full the first time mentioned.
L29f: “However, seasonality…”. Sounds like you missed this in your study as well. Either omit or move to the beginning of the abstract and clearly mention the results about the seasonality of your study.
L31f: Which other mountain areas? Are there regions with higher permafrost occurrence?
L35: Include here the later mentioned thermal definition with the 2 consecutive years.
L37: Provide also a reference which focusses specifically on permafrost and not only on rock glaciers.
L38: “Due to its thermal definition, it is difficult to evaluate permafrost conditions without ice-occurrence.” This sentence is unclear. Can’t you measure temperatures to evaluate permafrost occurrence? Please revise.
L40: I disagree that “Periglacial landforms of high mountain environments well suited to detect and to study changes of permafrost temperature.” They might be suited to detect permafrost conditions and changes but not of the temperature. “A periglacial landform is a feature resulting from the action of intense frost, often combined (rem.: but not necessarily) with the presence of permafrost.” (French 2012). Moreover: State here or where it fits what landforms you are investigating.
Here or elsewhere in the introduction/discussion I recommend also to consider also other holistic studies combining filed investigations and remote sensing to investigate rock glaciers, their ice content and climatic response (e.g. Monnier et al. 2014, Dusik et al. 2015, Bosson and Lambiel, 2016; Bolch et al., 2019)
L43: Refrain from citing submitted papers. There are several studies addressing the importance of rock glaciers in arid South America (e.g. Rangecroft et al. 2016, Azocar and Brenning 2010). I suggest also to include references for HMA.
L45: Please update with Immerzeel et al. (2020).
L48: Please use “atmospheric warming”. Is there any more recent reference in addition?
L56: Chen et al. (2016) investigate an area on the central-west TP. It is a nice study but not really suited to back up this statement. I suggest cite a review paper instead, which provides an overview of available measurements.
L69: The study area is certainly remote, but, e.g. the railway line is – considering the vast area of Tibet relatively close.
L71: “MAGST”. It is not clear to me. You do not need boreholes to measure the MAGST.
L72: Write consistently “InSAR”
L83: Here ore elsewhere: Please consider the study by Heaberli et al. (2006), which provides a comprehensive review and includes many co-authors.
L84f. There is now little more literature presenting rock glaciers on the TP (e.g. Ran et al. 2018). Please be also clear what you mean with periglacial landforms/indicators.
L89f: State which periglacial landforms you are investigating; rock glaciers contain ice per definition unless they are relict. Adjust/revise this research question.
L98: As stated in my access review you are investigating (and also showing in Fig. 1) Western Nyaingentanglha. Please correct.
L110: Add at least one further reference about glacier changes (especially mass changes), e.g. Zhang and Zhang (2017).
Figure 1: I suggest to include a hillshade in Fig. 1B and C. Not clear why there are not data. Please mention in the main text. The sentence “Note the proposed permafrost coverage of more than 90 % in the study area, marked by the black edging.” is unclear.
Figure 2: The arrows are not clear. Why are there no arrows from the method to the aim?
L191: Basically fine as you do not focus on glaciers, but why did you not use the glims outlines as basis?
L192f: Please be more specific and mention here how you identified rock glaciers instead of referring only to literature. Cite the IPA action group report properly already here.
L280ff: In contrast, here you describe much detail. Is this section basically a description of the work by Reinosch et al. (2020)? If yes, please shorten keep only the most important information and refer to the paper for more details.
Figures 6/7/9: The colour chosen are a bit misleading: Dark green give the impression about vegetation. Please choose other colours. E.g. dark brown can also be well distinguished. From the other colours. Moreover the different greenish colours are a bit difficult to distinguish in Fog. 9.
L351: I am not fully sure if you do: Please make sure to relate these geomorphological evidences with the remote-sensing derived measurements. Maybe you can even refer in this section to the measurements.
Caption/Table 4: You do not need to repeat methods in the figure caption but make sure that the info is given in the methods section. But even more important: It is not clear where the standard deviation is shown, e.g 13 +- 60? That is a huge spread then. How is the distribution? Normal or skewed?
L432: Add uncertainty.
Fi. 10: Include a legend for 10A. In this way the figure is understandable right away and you do not write long explanations in the caption.
The time series points are a bit hard to identify especially in Fig. 10C. I suggest to highlight with an arrow in addition.
Section 4.4.: This section is a bit short. Put more emphasis on it and provide more information.
L461ff: Harris and Pederson (1998) are not correctly referred to. They e.g. write “Thermal response to a change in air temperature (positive or negative) is immediate and substantial, so it is not merely the result of the Balch effect.” Please differentiate better the different processes involved and adjust your text. Please consider to add more literature, e.g. from on rock glaciers in the Alps with detailed measurements. I also recommend to include Gorbunov et al. (2004).
L462: “Alps”
L494 “Remote sensing”
L504ff: Moisture availability is key for the variations in creep and I agree therefore with your argumentation in L 513. Please consider more recent literature where the importance of water for the velocity variations are investigated more in detail (e.g. Wirz et al. 2016; Kenner et al. 2017; Cicoira et al. 2019).
L520: These references do not fully fit. Please consider at least two with really address the hydrological importance and their response to climate.
One remark to the author contributions and authors: According to the Copernicus policy (and also to international standard) “All authors listed on a presented scientific work must have contributed a significant part to it. Vice versa, all persons who contributed to the presented work need to be named in the list of authors.” You list 5 persons responsible for funding acquisition but only one of them seemed to have really significantly contributed to the work according to the author contribution statement. Please be more specific about the authors’ roles and consider revisiting the authors’ list.

Please do not hesitate to contact me in case you have any questions.

Best regards,

Tobias Bolch – Editor TC

References:
Azócar, G.F., Brenning, A., 2010. Hydrological and geomorphological significance of rock glaciers in the dry Andes, Chile (27°-33°S). Permafrost Periglac. Process. 21 (1), 42–53. https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp.669.
Bosson, J.B., Lambiel, C., 2016. Internal structure and current evolution of very small debris-covered glacier systems located in alpine permafrost environments. Front. Earth Sci. 4 (39). https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2016.00039.
Bolch, T., Rohrbach, N., Kutuzov, S., Robson, B.A., Osmonov, A., 2019. Occurrence, evolution and ice content of ice-debris complexes in the Ak-Shiirak, Central Tien Shan revealed by geophysical and remotely-sensed investigations. Earth Surf. Process. Landforms 44 (1), 129–143. https://doi.org/10.1002/esp.4487.
Dusik, J.-M., Leopold, M., Heckmann, T., Haas, F., Hilger, L., Morche, D., Neugirg, F., 2015. Influence of glacier advance on the developmentof the multipart Riffeltal rock glacier, CentralAustrian Alps. Earth Surf. Process. Landforms 40 (7), 965–980. https://doi.org/10.1002/esp.3695.
French (2012): Periglacial Landform. The Canadian Encyclopedia, https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/periglacial-landform , accessed: 6/11/2020.
Gorbunov, A.P., Marchenko, S.S., Severskiy, E.V., 2004. The thermal environment of blocky materials in the mountains of Central Asia. Permafrost Periglac. Process. 15 (1), 95–98. https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp.478.
Haeberli, W., Hallet, B., Arenson, L.U., Elconin, R., Humlum, O., Kääb, A., Kaufmann, V., Ladanyi, B., Matsuoka, N., Springman, S., Vonder Mühll, D., 2006. Permafrost creep and rock glacier dynamics. Permafrost Periglac. Process. 17 (3), 189–214. https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp.561.
Immerzeel, W.W., Lutz, A.F et al. 2020. Importance and vulnerability of the world’s water towers. Nature 577 (7790), 364–369. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1822-y.
Kenner, R., Phillips, M., Beutel, J., Hiller, M., Limpach, P., Pointner, E., Volken, M., 2017. Factors Controlling Velocity Variations at Short-Term, Seasonal and Multiyear Time Scales, Ritigraben Rock Glacier, Western Swiss Alps. Permafrost Periglac. Process. 28 (4), 675–684. https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp.1953.
Monnier, S., Kinnard, C., Surazakov, A.B., Bossy, W., 2014. Geomorphology, internal structure, and successive development of a glacier foreland in the semiarid Chilean Andes (Cerro Tapado, upper Elqui Valley, 30°08′ S., 69°55′ W.). Geomorphology 207, 126–140.
Ran, Z., Liu, G., 2018. Rock glaciers in Daxue Shan, south-eastern Tibetan Plateau: An inventory, their distribution, and their environmental controls. Cryosphere 12 (7), 2327–2340. https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-2327-2018.
Rangecroft, S., Suggitt, A.J., Anderson, K., Harrison, S., 2016. Future climate warming and changes to mountain permafrost in the Bolivian Andes. Climatic Change 137 (1), 231–243. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-016-1655-8.
Wirz, V., Gruber, S., Purves, R.S., Beutel, J., Gärtner-Roer, I., Gubler, S., Vieli, A., 2016. Short-term velocity variations at three rock glaciers and their relationship with meteorological conditions. Earth Surf. Dynam. 4 (1), 103–123. https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-4-103-2016.
Zhang, Q., Zhang, G., 2017. Glacier elevation changes in the western Nyainqentanglha Range of the Tibetan Plateau as observed by TerraSAR-X/TanDEM-X images. Remote Sens. Let. 8 (12), 1142–1151. https://doi.org/10.1080/2150704X.2017.1362123.

Dear authors,

Thank you very much for your careful improvements. I am happy to accept the manuscript after very minor technical corrrections:
L44: Omit Bolch & Gorbunov (2014), This study does harldy adress the hydrological importance.
Please change Bolch and Marchenko (2006) to:
Bolch, T., Marchenko, S. S. (2009): Significance of glaciers, rockglaciers and ice-rich permafrost in the Northern Tien Shan as water towers under climate change conditions. In: L. Braun, W. Hagg, I. V. Severskiy & G. J. Young (Eds.): Selected papers from the Workshop "Assessment of Snow, Glacier and Water Resources in Asia" held in Almaty, Kazakhstan, 28-30 Nov. 2006, IHP/HWRP-Berichte, 8: 132-144.

Thank you very much for your excellent contribution the The Cryosphere.

Best regards,

Tobias Bolch