Dear authors,

Thanks for submitting your responses to the review comments. Please submit the revised manuscript with these changes and I would like to send it out to another round of review.

Kenny Matsuoka
TC/TCD Editor

Dear authors,

Thanks for submitting a thoughtfully revised manuscript. Both referees provided highly constructive comments and I am very glad to see that the authors made satisfactory responses. I recommend the authors to follow all new suggestions made by the referees and calculate depth profiles of E2-E1 at all sites and plot them in supplemental figure, possibly together with the data from site I or from ice core to facilitate reader’s comparison between this new figure and Fig. 6. Also, please consider my own comments listed below; all are relatively minor.

The authors declared that the full dataset and relevant codes will be released through the UK polar data center, but the link given here is generic. As the review process is nearly finalized now, please upload all relevant files, receive DOI for these resources, and include specific URL/DOI to the manuscript.

I request a minor revision. Please submit the revised manuscript, the manuscript with track changes, and the brief response letter.

I look forward seeing the revised version soon.

Kenny Matsuoka
TC/TCD Editor

All page/line numbers refer these of the manuscript with tracked changes.
- Figure 1 caption: add geographical orientation (ESE, 110o) of the horizontal-polarization plane. Illustrations representing antennas are unnecessarily complicated; just show the antenna element orientation. The WAIS Divide orients 20 degrees, and the horizontal plane orients 110o, but these two orientations are shown the same in the illustration.

- Figure 2: adjust color for strain components. Dark blue and red are very hard t read. Clarify the unit of elevations (m a.s.l.?, or mention the geoid height in the caption). Include intervals of the surface elevation contours (10 m), and the ice thickness at site I in the caption.

- P7L134: The equation of \epsilon (z) is, I think, incorrect. The authors intend to define \delta\epsilon(z), permittivity anisotropy in the horizontal plane. Figure 5 caption gives the range of \epsilon(z) [0 1.5e-2], but I think it is the range of \delta\epsilon(z), not \epsilon(z).

- Figure 3: add the level where SNR is considered too low (e.g. horizontal bar showing the minimum signal level that makes adequate SNR, or depth ranges where SNR is too low).

- P11L240: spell out FIR (finite impulse response?)

- P11L269: change “the directions of the smallest…” to “the orientations of….”

- P13L300: E1 and E2 orientations are “mostly” depth invariant. So, add “mostly” or indicate the range of depth variability like “depth invariant (within +/- 6 degrees throughout the depth range, Fig. 4a and Table S1).”

- Figure 5: remove WDC from the beginning of the caption. I think \epsilon(z) is indeed \delta \epsilon (z). At the end of the cation it is said that E1 and E2 plane orientations are set to 0o and 90o following measured observations, but it is not accurate enough. See my comment on P13L300.

- P14L315: Now Discussion Section is largely expanded so revise this sentence to narrowly indicate the discussion about this point.

- P15L304: Is beta linearly interpolated and shown in dB scale? It seems that beta is linearly interpolated over the dB scale. Clarify. Also, is it linearly interpolated between 10-m-separated data points or is it linearly fit using the all data together? Fig. 5 colorbar shows that beta varies very smoothly.

- Figure 6 caption (and relevant locations): is the firn correction made only for permittivity anisotropy in the horizontal plane, or both this and mean propagation speed (giving slightly different depths of these data points)? Please clarify.

- Figure 6: consider adding beta to this plot.

- P21L497: Include diameter of the first Fresnel zone. Sampled ice volume is largely constrained by the size of the Fresnel zone, not by the antenna aperture.

- Table S1: Add two columns to show geographical orientations of E1 and E2. Add \pm before all values showing standard deviations (as it is done throughout the text). I assume that these orientations are measured clockwise, which is not mentioned explicitly; please clarify.

- COF, ice fabric, etc are used interchangeable ways. Please make the manuscript more consistent.

- WDC can be replaced with “WAIS Divide Ice Core”, “core site” or such. So, please consider avoiding the acronym.

Dear authors,

The revised mannuscirpt addressess all issues brought in the previous review process, and I am very happy to accept this article as is.

Kenny Matsuoka
TC/TCD Editor