I have now read the referee report and the responses to reviewers.

The reviewer response as well as the referee report suggest that the paper is technically sound. The reviewer questions if there is actually any geomorphology in the paper. I do think the geomorphoilogical component of the paper is mainly qualitative. But I do not see a reason to hinder publication of the paper on this basis since this journal's aim is to cover a broad range of Earth Surface Dynamics and permafrost formation falls under that remit.

I have gone through the paper and I have a number of query and requests. Thus I am asking for minor revision. Please see the attached pdf with my comments.

I'd like to thank the authors for sending their work to ESURF and look forward to seeing the revision.

I am pleased to confirm acceptance of this paper for publication in e-surf, based on the evaluation from multiple reviewers and the careful oversight of the Associate Editor. Based on the reviewers' comments, the quality of the work appears to meet the standard for publication, and I agree with the AE that the paper falls within the broad scope of this journal. I hope that it will be of interest to a diversity of readers working on permafrost landscapes.

A question was raised during the review process about a potential conflict of interest with the original Associate Editor, Michael Krautblatter. To keep the record straight, Krautblatter has clarified that he was the external examiner on lead author Magnin’s PhD thesis, not one of the PhD supervisors as stated by the reviewer. In any case, both because of editor availability and to avoid any perceived conflict of interest, another Associate Editor, Simon Mudd, handled this manuscript through the remainder of the peer review process and provided the final recommendation. I'd like to express my appreciation to both of the AEs and the reviewers for their hard work on this submission.

And thank you for choosing e-surf for your work!

Josh West