Dear authors,

Thank you very much for your thorough revisions. I have only few comments which I ask you to consider prior to publication:

P2L17: Omit “then”. I ask you to consider Böhner (2006) who generated to my knowledge the first gridded precipitation data set for entire High Asia.
P4L30: Aizen et al. studies only few regions of the Tien Shan. Narama et al. (2010) or the later cited review by Sorg et al. (2012) should also be mentioned here.
P4L31: The situation in Pamir is not quite clear. Gardner et al. (2013) and Kääb et al. (2015) indicate mass loss for most parts of the Pamir.
P4L32ff: You may also consider here Neckel et al. (2014).
P5L2ff: ICESat is a laser altimeter, not a DEM. The elevation changes are measured using ICESat data. SRTM serves a reference as the repeat ICESat tracks do not fully match each other.
P5L19: Bolch et al. (2012) show the mean elevation of glaciers in the Himalaya (Fig. S2) which has similar behaviour that the median elevation. Might be worth mentioning.
P5L28: You may include the information about how the “snow line altitude” was estimated (See Shi, 2008, p. 14).
P7L18: “ice-free area in the accumulation area”. The accumulation area should not be ice free. I think it is more correct to refer to the ice free area in accumulation area and it contributing headwalls.

One important issue is that this paper should be published along with the paper on the GAMDAM glacier inventory which is the basis of this analysis. The latter is not finally accepted but I am confident that it can be accepted soon. Hence, I will suggest to the editorial office that this paper should be on hold until the GAMDAM paper is accepted.

Thank you for your contribution to The Cryosphere.

Best regards,

Tobias Bolch -Editor-

References (not cited in the manuscript):

Böhner, J.: General climatic controls and topoclimatic variations of Central and High Asia, Boreas, 35, 279–295, 2006.
Kääb, A., Teichler, D., Nuth, C. and Berthier, E.: Brief Communication: Contending estimates of 2003–2008 glacier mass balance over the Pamir–Karakoram–Himalaya, Cryosphere, 557–564, 2015.
Narama, C., Kääb, A., Duishonakunov, M. and Abdrakhmatov, K.: Spatial variability of recent glacier area changes in the Tien Shan Mountains, Central Asia, using Corona (1970), Landsat (2000), and ALOS (2007) satellite data, Global Planet. Change, 71, 42–54, 2010.
Neckel, N., Kropáček, J., Bolch, T. and Hochschild, V.: Glacier mass changes on the Tibetan Plateau 2003–2009 derived from ICESat laser altimetry measurements, Environmental Research Letters, 9, 14009, 2014.