Interactive comment on “ High Mountain Asia glacier elevation trends 2003 – 2008 , lake volume changes 1990 – 2015 , and their relation to precipitation changes ” by Désirée Treichler

This paper presents an extensive study of glacier elevation changes and lake volume changes in High Mountain Asia (HMA) based on ICESat altimetry, and attempts to link the observed changes with climatic drivers, in particular precipitation. It builds on a number of related studies in the past, but takes a clear step forward by expanding the study region to the entire HMA and introducing a finer spatial zoning that accounts for orographic barriers and other known (and unknown!) reasons for regional patterns in glacier change. This provides some new insights to how HMA glaciers changed in the period 2003-2009, and makes it easier to link the findings with meteorological drivers and the observed lake growth within the endoheic basins of the Tibetan Plateau.