Dear Authors

Please consider the reviewer's second review carefully. The reviewer does not note any significant issues with your paper. You have addressed all major comments carefully and I thank you for your fine work. I will acept your paper after you have considered the minor but numerous suggestions made by the reviewer. Of course, you always have the option not to follow suggestions, as long as you clearly explain the reasons.

best of luck for this final stage,

Florent Domine

Dear Authors,

Thank you for your detailed response to Fred Flin’s review. I believe that you made an excellent use of Fred’s thorough and constructive review, and I am essentially ready to accept your paper. There is just one item that I would like you to consider. In your reference to Gallet et al. (2014) and to Adams and Walter (2014), you state that their observations involve depth hoar crystals. In fact, they observed essentially sublimation crystals, whose mode of formation is very different from that of depth hoar. You may refer to all those crystals as kinetic growth crystals or any other adequate term, but it is important not to mislead readers with an erroneous vocabulary. I had a recent discussion with Ed Adams on his work, and he now probably thinks his crystals were also sublimation crystals. While you are at it, you may also change “founded” to “found”, line 117.
Lastly, in your acknowledgements you may also want to consider mentioning Fred’s thorough and constructive review, which contributed to the quality of your paper. Reviewing papers is a thankless task. If we want the review process to function, it is important that reviewers get some recognition for the time they spend contributing to the work of their colleagues.
Thank you for submitting your paper to The Cryosphere.

Best regards

Florent Domine