Dear authors,
Thank you for the revised version of your manuscript "Development of physically based liquid water schemes for Greenland" by Verjans and others. Overall, I am satisfied with the changes you have implemented and how the comments from the reviewers’ have been answered. There are two outstanding issues that I would ask you to address before I can recommend your manuscript for publication. Neither of those two issues should be very laborious to implement. I have also added a short list of some minor issues I would like to see changed/corrected.
I look forward to receiving a revised version.
Cheers,
Nanna

1. The selection of firn cores for comparison with model outputs
While I agree that it is beyond the scope of the work presented here to assess the model performance through time, a bit more background is needed on why the specific sites/cores were selected. In the current version of the manuscript it is implied but not explicitly stated in section 2.4. I suggest adding a few sentences stating that:
- Multiple firn density data exist (add suitable references, e.g., PARCA, AWI data from Pangaea etc.)
- For your purposes, firn cores from parts of Greenland that experience little/no melt (e.g., the interior) is of course of no interest
- You are investigating the effect of different climatic conditions and thus have focused on the following end members:
o A cold site with low melt rates
o A cold site with high melt rates
o A warmer site near the equilibrium with high refreezing rates
o A site where firn aquifers are known to exist

2. Uncertainties related to the RCM forcing
Again, I agree that it is beyond the scope of the work presented here to discuss in detail the uncertainties associated with the RCM. However, you do compare your model results with observations and naturally, a reader would like to know if any consistent bias between model results and observations could stem from your climate forcing rather than the firn models. Thus, I would like to see more detail on biases from the RCM. Given the co-author list it should be easy to add a few lines in section 2.4 specifying if biases exist in the RCM compared to observations for each of your chosen sites (if observations exist). Since one site has consistently too low FAC (FA13) and another site has consistently too warm 10m temp (NASA-SE) it is important to be clear whether these biases originate in the RCM forcing or not. A sentence to this effect should be added to the discussion part for each site where possible.

Minor comments

P1,l13: I know you were asked to quantify your abstract but if you cite a specific amount of surface melt you need a reference here.

P1, l23-24: Unclear sentence: “However, we find that the implementation of preferential flow does allow for more frequent ice layer formation and for deeper percolation.” Is more frequent ice layer formation better? Do you mean more realistic or better matching observations?

P6, l21-22: Please define the acronym PROMICE, add that the PROMICE dataset is from an automatic weather station (presumably, the KAN_U firn core was drilled next to the KAN_U weather station but the reader does not necessarily know this), and adhere to the PROMICE terms of use, i.e., cite a GEUS peer-reviewed paper. For example van As et al., 2016 (http://www.geus.dk/media/10864/nr35_p71-74.pdf).

P.10, l19: why is there a reference to figure 1 here?

P13, l7: What is Appendix A5?

P26,l10-12: Unclear sentence: “Compared to the preferential flow scheme, the single-domain Richards Equation scheme generally showed biases of the opposite signs and of much lower magnitudes, suggesting it slightly underestimates percolation depths.” Please be more specific; opposite signs and lower magnitudes of FAC? Temperature? Both?

P27,l20-22: Please adhere to the PROMICE terms of use (include mention of GAP): “If KAN weather station data are also used, please use the acknowledgement: ‘Data from the Programme for Monitoring of the Greenland Ice Sheet (PROMICE) and the Greenland Analogue Project (GAP) were provided by the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) at http://www.promice.dk.’”

Dear authors,
Thank you for addressing the comments and suggestions from the reviewers and from me. I am happy to recommend your interesting study for publication.
Best,
Nanna B. Karlsson