Ice thickness and morphological analysis reveal the future glacial lake distribution and formation probability in the Tibetan Plateau and its surroundings

Zhang, Taigang; Wang, Weicai; An, Baosheng; Gao, Tanguang

doi:10.1016/j.gloplacha.2022.103923

Cited by 11 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 105 publications

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“…Regional studies suggest that ongoing expansion of lakes (Gardelle et al, 2011;Shugar et al, 2020) is expected to create new hotspots of hazardous lakes (Furian et al, 2022;Linsbauer et al, 2015;Zhang et al, 2022a;Zheng et al, 2021a), with implications for GLOF hazards and risk (Haeberli et al, 2016). Numerous processes have been previously identified as direct or indirect triggers of GLOFs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A comprehensive and version-controlled database of glacial lake outburst floods in High Mountain Asia

Shrestha,

Steiner,

Shrestha

et al. 2023

Earth Syst. Sci. Data

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Abstract. Glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) have been intensely investigated in High Mountain Asia (HMA) in recent years and are the most well-known hazard associated with the cryosphere. As glaciers recede and surrounding slopes become increasingly unstable, such events are expected to increase, although current evidence for an increase in events is ambiguous. Many studies have investigated individual events, and while several regional inventories exist, they either do not cover all types of GLOF or are geographically constrained. Further, downstream impacts are rarely discussed. Previous inventories have relied on academic sources and have not been combined with existing inventories of glaciers and lakes. In this study, we present the first comprehensive inventory of GLOFs in HMA, including details on the time of their occurrence, processes of lake formation and drainage involved, and downstream impacts. We document 697 individual GLOFs that occurred between 1833 and 2022. Of these, 23 % were recurring events from just three ephemeral ice-dammed lakes. In combination, the documented events resulted in 6906 fatalities of which 906 can be attributed to 24 individual GLOF events, which is 3 times higher than a previous assessment for the region. The integration of previous inventories of glaciers and lakes within this database will inform future assessments of potential drivers of GLOFs, allowing more robust projections to be developed. The database and future, updated versions are traceable and version-controlled and can be directly incorporated into further analysis. The database is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7271187 (Steiner and Shrestha, 2023), while the code including a development version is available on GitHub.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A comprehensive and version-controlled database of glacial lake outburst floods in High Mountain Asia

Shrestha,

Steiner,

Shrestha

et al. 2023

Earth Syst. Sci. Data

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Regional studies suggest that ongoing expansion of lakes (Gardelle et al, 2011;Shugar et al, 2020) is expected to create new hotspots of potentially dangerous lakes (Furian et al, 2022;Linsbauer et al, 2015;Zhang et al, 2022a;Zheng et al, 2021a) with implications for GLOF hazards and risk (Haeberli et al, 2016). Numerous processes have been previously identified as direct or indirect triggers of GLOFs.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

HMAGLOFDB v1.0 – a comprehensive and version controlled database of glacier lake outburst floods in high mountain Asia

Shrestha

Steiner

Shrestha

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Abstract. Glacier lake outburst floods (GLOFs) have been intensely investigated in High Mountain Asia (HMA) in recent years and are the most well-known hazard associated with the cryosphere. As glaciers recede and surrounding slopes become increasingly unstable, such events are expected to increase, although current evidence for an increase in events is ambiguous. Many studies have investigated individual events and while several regional inventories exist, they either do not cover all types of GLOF or are geographically constrained. Further, downstream impacts are rarely discussed. Previous inventories have relied on academic sources and have not been combined with existing inventories of glaciers and lakes. In this study, we present the first comprehensive inventory of GLOFs in HMA, including details on the time of their occurrence, processes of lake formation and drainage involved as well as downstream impacts. We document 682 individual GLOFs that occurred between 1833 and 2022. Of these, 20 % were recurring events from just three ephemeral ice-dammed lakes. In combination, the documented events resulted in 6907 fatalities, with 6000 of these linked to a single GLOF, three times higher than a previous assessment for the region. The integration of previous inventories of glaciers and lakes within this database will inform future assessments of potential drivers of GLOFs, allowing more robust projections to be developed. The database and future, updated versions, are traceable, version controlled and can be directly incorporated into further analysis.

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“…Additionally, numerous glacial lakes on the TP have formed and developed due to glacier retreat and melting . Currently, 15,826 potential glacial lakes with areas > 0.02 km 2 exist on the TP and its surroundings, covering an area of 2253.95 km 2 (Zhang et al 2022). In a previous study, we found CH 4 missions from supraglacial sediments and proglacial runoffs (Zhang et al 2021).…”

Section: Uncertainties Of Estimation On Ch Emissionsmentioning

confidence: 76%

Cryospheric melting enhances methane emissions from inland waters on the Tibetan Plateau

Gao

Zhang

Wei

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Inland waters over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) are significant sources of atmospheric methane (CH4), which plays a critical role in the regional carbon cycle. Rapid climate warming on the TP has caused siginficant cryosphere retreating during the past decades, mainly including the glacier melting and permafrost thawing. They are changing inland water status, as evidenced by the increasing river runoff, enpanding lake areas, emerging glacier lakes and permafrost thermokarst lakes. These substantial changes have resulted in enhanced CH4 emissions. The estimated CH4 emissions from inland waters on the TP vary from 1.8–3.4 Tg CH4 yr-1. However, there remains a lack of sufficient CH4 data from glacier lakes, permafrost thermokarst lakes, and river headwaters on the TP, which urgently needs to be systematically measured. Morewover, we highlight the possible impact of on gong warming-induced cryospheric melting on CH4 emissions from inland waters over the TP.

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Ice thickness and morphological analysis reveal the future glacial lake distribution and formation probability in the Tibetan Plateau and its surroundings

Cited by 11 publications

References 105 publications

A comprehensive and version-controlled database of glacial lake outburst floods in High Mountain Asia

A comprehensive and version-controlled database of glacial lake outburst floods in High Mountain Asia

HMAGLOFDB v1.0 – a comprehensive and version controlled database of glacier lake outburst floods in high mountain Asia

Cryospheric melting enhances methane emissions from inland waters on the Tibetan Plateau

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