The manuscript deals with the compilation of a glacier inventory in the Karakoram region. The topic is of high interest to the scientific community, and not only.

The manuscript is well written (there are a few typos to check, e.g. line 248), but there are some issues to be solved before its publication. First of all, authors need to describe all the, employed, data at the beginning of Section2; currently, ancillary data, which constitute an important part of the processed ones, are progressively introduced during the description of the various elaboration.

Concerning subsection 2.6, to improve readers' comprehension, a figure, like Fig. 4, should be added. Moreover, if applied to debris-covered glaciers, the discrepancies between the two methods highlight their proneness to errors in their mapping.

In Section 4, the authors should immediately state that due to the different approaches, data sources and methods cannot be compared without a high level of uncertainty and maybe, only qualitatively. Subsection 4.3 should be shortened and merged with the previous one.

Conclusions should mention that the processing is carried out by semiautomatically processing Landsat images and ancillary data.

Additionally, some parts need rephrasing as they are unclear to the reader:

• Lines 174-181;
• Lines 292-307.

In the data repository, the uncertainty statement is different from the one cited in the paper [±5.03% ≠ ±3.68%], please clarify.

There are also minor comments as follows:

• Subsection 2.5 is written in the wrong format;
• Line 485, please mention rockfalls in addition to avalanches;
• when regression or correlation analyses are cited statistical significance (p value) and the correct parameter should be cited;
• Maps should be improved by removing the north arrow and scale (the coordinates in the outline give the same information) or by placing them in the same area of the legend (i.e. unique white background).

Summary

This study presented a new glacier inventory for four time periods (1990, 2000, 2010, 2020) covering the Karakoram and surrounding region (upper Shyok basin) using Landsat satellite imagery and reported insignificant area loss in the study area. The manuscript is very well-written and nicely structured. I have given some minor suggestions for improvement. The important issue is an outline of the Karakoram region. The present study modified the extent of Karakoram (L131) presented by Bhambri et al. (2017) but did not mention the reasons for this change. Bhambri et al. (2022) recently reported no international standardization on the Karakoram extent. Therefore, consistency in the spatial extent of the Karakoram region is needed to quantify, analyze, and compare databases of natural and cultural resources for scientific investigation on a common platform and harmonization of scientific studies. Comparing glacier numbers and area statistics with previous studies is impractical (section 4.1) as all the studies on Karakoram glaciers have different area coverage. Bhambri et al. (2022) provided a most appropriate digital outline of the Karakoram region based on two decades (1920s and 1930s) long discussions and descriptive enumerations of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) and the Survey of India (SoI). I suggest using this most common outline (open access) for the extent of the Karakoram and using the same outline to extract previous glacier inventory data on the same platform for comparison and modify section 4.1. If you do not want to use this outline, for the sake of harmonizing scientific studies, you can change the title to "Interdecadal glacier inventories in the Karakoram and the surrounding region since the 1990s".

Suggestions

L41-42 Uncertainty is the same ±3.68 in two sentences. If it is the same, write accordingly. You can write ±3.7.

L50 Present results in single-digit after the point (23.4 ± 28.8 km2). Please carefully check the entire manuscript. In some places, it is single-digit (e.g., L300), and in others in double-digit.

L59 Most glaciological studies usually avoid referring to countries' names for the Karakoram region. If you mention Pakistan in the first sentence of the introduction, then India and China must also be mentioned for the sake of neutrality. If you like, you can refer to the contested nature of this particular mountain region with different territorial claims between the different nation-states in a very general way. This is one aspect which creates continuous problems for ground truthing and field measurements. See Baghel and Nüsser (2015).

L89 "Moreover, the presented areas of glacier coverage differ partially substantially for the different available inventories (Bolch, 2019; Bolch et al., 2019)." Here you can mention Bhambri et al. (2022).

L91 "delineation with the exclusion of glacierized areas in glaciated areas steeper than 40°." Here two terms, ' glacierized' and 'glaciated', are used, and I could not understand them. Please see Cogley et al. (2010) for these terms.

L133 "The data were identified and processed using Google Earth Engine." For image processing or glacier mapping?

L153 for Karakoram boundary modified…. Please see my comment above.

L175 Bolch et al. (2010) used TM3/TM5 band ratio instead of NDSI. Therefore, Bolch et al. (2010) TM3/TM5 band ratio threshold must be different from NDSI.

L201 Please omit etc.

L218 Double space between can be

L223 Double space between developed processing

L293 This paper was published in 2006 (Granshaw and G. Fountain, 2017). Please check.

L394 between 0 "and" 50°

L414 "Karakoram boundary used by us is a little different from that in previous studies (Bolch et al., 2019; Bolch et al., 2012)," I don't think this is little difference. Also, please see my suggestions for the Karakoram boundary above.

L438 Scherler et al., (2018)

I hope this will help. 

References

Baghel, R. and Nüsser, M., 2015. Securing the heights: The vertical dimension of the Siachen conflict between India and Pakistan in the Eastern Karakoram. Political Geography 48, pp. 24-36.

Bhambri R., Chand, P., Nüsser, M., Kawishwar, P., Kumar, A., Gupta, A.K., Verma, A., Tiwari, S.K., 2022. Reassessing the Karakoram Through Historical Archives - Environmental Change in South Asia: Essays in Honor of Mohammed Taher, in: Saikia, A., Thapa, P. (Eds.),. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp. 139–169. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47660-1_8

Bolch, T., Menounos, B. and Wheate, R., 2010. Landsat-based inventory of glaciers in western Canada, 1985–2005. Remote sensing of Environment, 114(1), pp.127-137.

Cogley, J.G., Arendt, A.A., Bauder, A., Braithwaite, R.J., Hock, R., Jansson, P., Kaser, G., Moller, M., Nicholson, L., Rasmussen, L.A. and Zemp, M., 2010. Glossary of glacier mass balance and related terms.

Granshaw, F.D. and Fountain, A.G., 2006. Glacier change (1958–1998) in the north Cascades national park complex, Washington, USA. Journal of Glaciology, 52(177), pp.251-256.