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Progressively smaller glacier lake outburst floods despite worldwide growth in lake area

  • Glacier lake outburst floods (GLOFs) may originate from larger lakes as these continue to grow with ongoing glacier retreat; however, this perception remains poorly supported in available GLOF databases. Here we mapped the areas of 1,686 glacier lakes, just before they drained, across 13 glaciated mountain regions outside polar regions and examined the trends in pre-GLOF lake areas between 1990 and 2023. We found that pre-GLOF lake areas barely changed, or even decreased, regionally through time, even as the total lake area, and thus hazard potential, grew overall. This counterintuitive finding reflects limits to growing GLOF magnitudes, such as the decoupling of lakes and parent glaciers, the development of wide, low-gradient outlets or human management. Across all regions, pre-GLOF lake areas depend on a few ice-dammed lakes, which have produced ten times more reported outbursts and ten times larger outbursts than moraineand bedrock-dammed lakes. The latter two dam types willGlacier lake outburst floods (GLOFs) may originate from larger lakes as these continue to grow with ongoing glacier retreat; however, this perception remains poorly supported in available GLOF databases. Here we mapped the areas of 1,686 glacier lakes, just before they drained, across 13 glaciated mountain regions outside polar regions and examined the trends in pre-GLOF lake areas between 1990 and 2023. We found that pre-GLOF lake areas barely changed, or even decreased, regionally through time, even as the total lake area, and thus hazard potential, grew overall. This counterintuitive finding reflects limits to growing GLOF magnitudes, such as the decoupling of lakes and parent glaciers, the development of wide, low-gradient outlets or human management. Across all regions, pre-GLOF lake areas depend on a few ice-dammed lakes, which have produced ten times more reported outbursts and ten times larger outbursts than moraineand bedrock-dammed lakes. The latter two dam types will continue to impound growing amounts of meltwater, thereby accounting for most of the overall GLOF hazard potential, while ice-dammed lakes will shrink with deglaciation. As these lake types will evolve differently in the twenty-first century, we call for customized simulations of GLOF outflows and impacts, given the growing exposure of critical infrastructure.zeige mehrzeige weniger

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Autor*innen:Georg Veh, Björn G. Wang, Anika Zirzow, Christoph Schmidt, Natalie Lützow, Frederic Steppat, Guoqing Zhang, Kristin Vogel, Marten Geertsema, John J. Clague, Oliver Korup
Dokumenttyp:Zeitschriftenartikel
Veröffentlichungsform:Verlagsliteratur
Sprache:Englisch
Titel des übergeordneten Werkes (Englisch):Nature Water
Jahr der Erstveröffentlichung:2025
Organisationseinheit der BAM:VP Vizepräsident
VP Vizepräsident / VP.1 eScience
Veröffentlichende Institution:Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM)
Erste Seite:1
Letzte Seite:25
DDC-Klassifikation:Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften / Ingenieurwissenschaften / Sanitär- und Kommunaltechnik; Umwelttechnik
Freie Schlagwörter:Bayesian hierachical modelling; Climate change; Outbursts flood
Themenfelder/Aktivitätsfelder der BAM:Umwelt
DOI:10.1038/s44221-025-00388-w
URN:urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-625709
ISSN:2731-6084
Verfügbarkeit des Dokuments:Datei für die Öffentlichkeit verfügbar ("Open Access")
Lizenz (Deutsch):License LogoCreative Commons - CC BY - Namensnennung 4.0 International
Datum der Freischaltung:20.02.2025
Referierte Publikation:Ja
Datum der Eintragung als referierte Publikation:03.03.2025
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