Dear authors,

The manuscript has significantly improved and I am in line with the reviewers who still see some minor issues but finally recommend publication.
Please consider the reviewer’s comments carefully in your revised version.
In addition to the reviewers comments, I ask you the following:
- Please mention in the abstract the total area of the RGI including the uncertainty.
- Figures: Please avoid long captions and please include a legend so that the figure is understandable without reading the captions (e.g. "Green lines denote glacier outlines" can and should be easily substituted by a legend)
- Fig. 16, L 718: Should be Bolch et al. (2012)
- Table 1-3: Please include the uncertainties where available (e.g. the RGI, see Pfeffer et al. 2014).

The revision should contain a response to each of the comments from the reviewers and explain how the comment was handled. If you disagree with a comment, please explain why. If the text was modified as a response to a comment, please indicate how the text was modified, including the new text and its position in the manuscript (line numbers).

I am looking forward to the new version of your manuscript.

Best regards,

Tobias Bolch -Editor-

Dear authors,

Thank you very much for your thorough revisions. Most of the concerns were properly addressed. However, I identified still few issues which need to be addressed. I will not send the manuscript once again for review if you address these comments properly.

Major comments:

- The language of the newly integrated parts is partly awkward. Please carefully proofread the paper before resubmission.
- The important information about the minimum glacier size needs to be presented in the methods section. In addition, a short justification to the selected threshold (e.g. reference) needs to be provided.
- The information about how the uncertainty was estimated should be presented in the methods section instead of the discussion. In this way, the reader knows how the uncertainty range (e.g. given in L. 277) is calculated.
- The conclusion is not well written. It should present all major conclusions from your study, but this is not the case. It contains also several parts which are better suited in the main text:

o The comparison to the GlobGlacier inventory should be presented in the sections where you compare your inventory to other ones.
o L. 447-452: Fits better in the discussion.
o L455ff: Fits also better in the discussion.

Further comments

L4: “The state and fate of Asian glaciers” reads like the title of the 2012 review about Himalayan glaciers which could also be cited here.
L45/46: The cited remote sensing studies are using ICESat and GRACE. I suggest to include also one study which used DEM differencing (e.g. Gardelle et al. 2013) a widely used method to assess glacier volume and mass changes
L48: I do not fully agree with this statement. Most of the studies agree well and the general picture in HMA is now clear (significant mass loss in the Tien Shan, and Himalaya balanced budgets, at least for the last decade in the Karakoram and Western Kunlun). Please adjust the statement.
L. 60. Replace “but” with “however”
L. 61/L130: Please cite the technical document for the version 4.0 (Arendt et al. 2014) here. You may omit Arendt et al. (2012) in line 55.
L. 102-112: This is mainly important methodological information and should be move to the methods section.
L. 102-104, L108f: Please correct the sentences: glaciers delineation are not “based on” or not “delineated using” Fig 2x.
L. 104: “Red lines indicate”… This read like a figure captions and should be deleted here.
L. 114: TM scenes prior to 1999 can also be processed in Level 1T. Please clarify.
L. 118f: I do not agree that ASTER GDEM generally “exhibits superior accuracy to the SRTM”. I know examples where the SRTM is morphological more correct. Please adjust your sentence.
L180ff: You first write that “decreased colour contrast … may be responsible for large uncertainty in GDEM2” but then you conclude that GDEM2 is more appropriate. Please clarify.
L182: Toutin (2002) is a good reference for ASTER DEMs in general, but not for the GDEM.
L. 187ff: The recommendation glacier mapping from GLIMS (which is the basis for the mapping activities within the GLIMS, GlobGlacier and other initiatives/projects) should more explicitly be mentioned (“Bodies of ice above the bergschrund that are connected to the glacier shall be considered part of the glacier”, Raup and Khalsa 2007, p.4), along with your reasons why you deviate from this recommendation.
L. 192: “(…), surface elevation changes related to glacier mass fluctuations do not often occur.” Please provide little more info and/or reference.
L. 220: “slope transition zones”. These zones are indicated by high curvature values. It was already presented in the literature, that using curvature information from a DEM is suitable to detect glacier margins. This should be mentioned here.
L. 284: It would be interesting to know how the “snow-line elevation” was calculated. Is it different from: Shi, Y., Hsieh, T.-c., Chen, P.-h., & Li, C.-c. (1980). Distribution, features and variation of glaciers in China. IAHS Publication, 126, 111–116. who write “Some firn line elevations were determined on the spot, while most were diagnosed according to topographical maps or calculated by Hôfer's method.”
L. 287ff: The median glacier elevation is a relevant and interesting result of your study. Therefore more info also for other regions can be given. You may also shortly compare your results with the results of Bolch et al. (2012), Fig. S2, for the Himalaya based on a different data set.
L. 298: Remove “slightly”. 7% is not slightly.
L. 305: “28, 26%”. Not clear why you mention two values here.
L. 324: Mention the uncertainty here.
L. 331: Bolch et al. (2010), TC report possible similar overestimation of the glacier area of the CGI due to the inclusion of seasonal snow for Western Nyainqentanglha.
L. 335: You may mention that the data source of the Bolch et al. (2012) inventory is the new ICIMOD inventory for large parts of the Karakoram, Central and Eastern Himalaya, while the western Himalaya stems mainly from the GlobGlacier inventory (see Fig. S1).
L. 343: I would not mention “rock glaciers”. The definition of these ice-debris landforms differ and identification is difficult.
L. 362: Clarify the difference between the headings of sections 4.3 and 5.2
L. 402: Rastner et al. 2005 is not existing. Maybe you mean Paul and Kääb (2005) which mention the suitability of using band 1? Otherwise is it Rastner et al. (2012).
L. 406: The gap filles SRTM DEM is used to “support” glacier delineation, I suppose.
L. 454: It might be worth to mention somewhere in the discussion that change assessment should only be done either by the same surveyor or if the outlines and the source of the outlines are available. In any case the definition criteria must be the same.
Fig. 3: L. 604f: Omit the sentence but include the manually delineated outlines in the legend.
Fig. 5: Can you also show/mention the RGI outlines?
Fig. 12: “median elevation … Purple dashed lines …” Please include the info in the Legend.
Fig. 16: Please include the most important information in the legend to keep the caption short.
Table. 3: Please include also the numbers of the ICIMOD inventory for comparison.

The revision should contain a response to each of the comments and explain how the comment was handled. If you disagree with a comment, please explain why. If the text was modified as a response to a comment, please indicate how the text was modified, including the new text and its position in the manuscript (line numbers) and indicate the changes in the new manuscript.

I am looking forward to the new version of your manuscript.

Best regards,

Tobias Bolch -Editor-

Dear authors,

I have checked your additional improvements and I am happy to accept the manuscript now as is.
Thank you for your fine contribution to The Cryosphere.

Best regards,

Tobias Bolch - Editor TC