Dear authors,
based on the three detailed and constructive reviews of your paper I recommend that you revise you paper taking into account all the comments by the reviewers, in particular relating to GIA, numerical instabilities and application of the marine ice shelf instability in fresh water. Note also the comment on additional sensitivity experiments showing "why lakes matter". Based on the revisions and a further review by the referees I will make a decision on how to proceed.

Dear Sebastian Hinck and co-authors, thank you for your detailed replies to the three reviewers comments. The manuscript has been much improved with the additional experiments, analysis and discussions provided in response to the reviewers suggestions.

However, there are still a few issues identified by the two reviewers which need to be addressed before making a final decision on publication in TC.

Please reply to these new set of comments, with particular attention to the comments relating to subglacial drainage, MISI vs pro-glacial lake feedbacks, gravitational effects, the impact of lakes on SMB, as well as the overall framing of your study. Most, if not all these points can be addressed in the text and do not necessarily require additional sensitivity experiments as noted by the reviewers.

Dear Hinck et all,
thanks for your detailed reply to the comments by the two reviewers on your revisions of the manuscript submitted to the Cryosphere. The revisions where major and you have answered most of these.

However, the reviewers had a number of concerns which you should answer in more detail in the final revised manuscript. In particular, this relates to the second review by Tijn Berends.

You have written out answers to each comment in the reply to the reviewers. However, I expect that you also make these points in the reply letter clear to the readers, as it is likely they will have similar questions when reading your paper.

In particular, please add details to the manuscript making the following key points from the reviewers more clear:
1. the relative impact of surface runoff on the shelf mass (as opposed to sub-shelf melt or calving);
2. expand on the impact of crustal deformation relative to gravitational effects;
3. clarify the main focus of the paper (see note from Berents);
4. expand on the potential impact of sub-glacial drainage.

For most of these issues you have answered the reviewers concerns in the reply letter, but not added sufficient detail in the revised manuscript. When resubmitting your final paper, keep in mind that you are writing for a reader in TC and not GMD - as such, the article should focus on the scientific results, their importance and context (in addition to the detailed description of the proglacial lake module).

These additional revisions should not take too long. Please include a version with tracked changes when submitting the final version.

Dear Sebastian Hinck et al. thanks again for revising your manuscript to TCD. I am happy to accept the current version for publication in TC.