Increased outburst flood hazard from Lake Palcacocha due to human-induced glacier retreat

Stuart-Smith, Rupert; Roe, Gerard H.; Li, S.; Allen, Myles

doi:10.1038/s41561-021-00686-4

Cited by 82 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 63 publications

(111 reference statements)

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“…The case is still pending, having been delayed by COVID-19.) Stuart-Smith et al ( 2021 ) performed a probabilistic assessment using a detailed glacier mass-balance model to show that the observed glacier retreat is as likely as not to have been entirely driven by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, and virtually certain to have not arisen from natural variability. Note the glacier retreat and rising lake levels may be considered a slow-onset aspect of climate change, thus not an extreme event per se.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate change attribution and legal contexts: evidence and the role of storylines

Lloyd

Shepherd

2021

Climatic Change

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In a recent very influential court case, Juliana v. United States, climate scientist Kevin Trenberth used the “storyline” approach to extreme event attribution to argue that greenhouse warming had affected and will affect extreme events in their regions to such an extent that the plaintiffs already had been or will be harmed. The storyline approach to attribution is deterministic rather than probabilistic, taking certain factors as contingent and assessing the role of climate change conditional on those factors. The US Government’s opposing expert witness argued that Trenberth had failed to make his case because “all his conclusions of the injuries to Plaintiffs suffer from the same failure to connect his conditional approach to Plaintiffs’ local circumstances.” The issue is whether it is possible to make statements about individual events based on general knowledge. A similar question is sometimes debated within the climate science community. We argue here that proceeding from the general to the specific is a process of deduction and is an entirely legitimate form of scientific reasoning. We further argue that it is well aligned with the concept of legal evidence, much more so than the more usual inductive form of scientific reasoning, which proceeds from the specific to the general. This has implications for how attribution science can be used to support climate change litigation. “The question is”, said Alice, “whether you can make words mean different things.” “The question is”, said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master — that’s all.” (Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland).

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate change attribution and legal contexts: evidence and the role of storylines

Lloyd

Shepherd

2021

Climatic Change

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“…Attribution science comprises methods which generally use counterfactual inquiry to link observed trends or changes in probability or intensity of climate-related events to human influence. Existing methods can quantify the contribution of GHG emissions to specific events, including (1) extreme events, including storms 10 , droughts 11 , heatwaves 12 , or floods 13 , (2) long-term trends in glacier lengths 14 or sea levels, and (3) persistent changes, for instance in mean temperatures or precipitation 15 . Despite the clear relevance of attribution-science evidence, there is limited precedent for courts to base findings of causation on such evidence, partly due to its relative novelty.…”

Section: Challenges To Scientifically Demonstrating Causationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Factors such as subsidence outweigh the effect of human-induced climate change in some regions 30 . 12 cases concern impacts of glacier retreat (Supplementary Table 2), an established consequence of climate change 14 . However, individual glaciers' response to climate change depends on their geographic and climatic settings 31 .…”

Section: Climate Science Evidence In Past Litigationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Filling the evidentiary gap in climate litigation

et al. 2021

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Lawsuits concerning the impacts of climate change make causal claims about the effect of defendants' greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on plaintiffs and have proliferated around the world. Plaintiffs have sought, inter alia, compensation for climate-related losses and to compel governments to reduce their GHG emissions.To date, most of these claims have been unsuccessful. Here, we assess the scientific and legal bases for establishing causation and evaluate judicial treatment of scientific evidence in 73 lawsuits. We find that the evidence submitted and referenced in these cases lags considerably behind the state-of-the-art in climate science, impeding causation claims. We conclude that greater appreciation and exploitation of existing methodologies in attribution science could address obstacles to causation and improve the prospects of litigation as a route to compensation for losses, regulatory action, and emission reductions by defendants seeking to limit legal liability. Main textPlaintiffs have brought over 1,500 climate-related lawsuits worldwide, and the number of claims filed continues to increase 1 . Without effective non-judicial mechanisms providing compensation for climate-related loss and damage, plaintiffs have filed lawsuits seeking financial remedies from high-emitting corporations for losses suffered due to climate change 2 . Robust scientific evidence is critical to the success of such claims 3-5 . For example, claims for compensatory damages must demonstrate a causal link between the defendant's behaviour and the plaintiff's injury. Recognising this, recent literature has drawn on analogous categories of case, such as toxic torts, in which modified causation tests reconcile legal causal analysis with scientific evidence that demonstrates multiple entities' contribution to the risk of harm 5 . However, despite developments in scientific 6 and legal theory 5 on causation and attribution of climate change damages, compensatory-damages claims have been unsuccessful. Other lawsuits challenge inadequate state and corporate climate change mitigation targets and policies 7 . To establish admissibility, these claims may also rely on courts finding that emissions resulting from defendants' policies led to impacts affecting the plaintiffs.A claim must first meet procedural requirements that render it admissible, including 'standing', which establishes that plaintiffs have legally protected interests that entitle them to bring the claim. Demonstrating a connection between defendants' actions and plaintiffs' injuries may contribute to meeting the standing requirement. To date, admissibility has been the primary outcome-determinative obstacle for climate

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“…While not within the scope here to undertake a full systematic climate attribution analyses (Huggel et al, 2020;Stuart-Smith et al, 2021), we discuss the available evidence linking anthropogenic emissions to observed temperature change in the region, the related role this has played in observed glacial retreat, and how this has potentially increased the likelihood and/or magnitude of this event. The nearest weather station at Lhari County has recorded a significant warming rate of 0.5 • C per decade over the last 40 years (Fig.…”

Section: The Potential Role Of Anthropogenic Climate Change On the Process Chainmentioning

confidence: 99%

The 2020 glacial lake outburst flood at Jinwuco, Tibet: causes, impacts, and implications for hazard and risk assessment

Zheng¹,

Mergili²,

Emmer³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Abstract. We analyze and reconstruct a recent Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) process chain on 26 June 2020, involving the moraine-dammed proglacial lake Jinwuco (30.356° N, 93.631° E) in eastern Nyainqentanglha, Tibet, China. Satellite images reveal that from 1965 to 2020, the surface area of Jinwuco has expanded by 0.2 km2 (+56 %) to 0.56 km2, and subsequently decreased to 0.26 km2 (‒54 %) after the GLOF. Estimates based on topographic reconstruction and sets of published empirical relationships indicate that the GLOF had a volume of 10 million m3, an average breach time of 0.62 hours, and an average peak discharge of 5,390 m3/s at the dam. Based on pre- and post-event high-resolution satellite scenes, we identified a large progressive debris landslide originating from western lateral moraine, having occurred 5–17 days before the GLOF. This landslide was most likely triggered by extremely heavy, south Asian monsoon-associated rainfall in June. The time lag between the landslide and the GLOF suggests that pre-weakening of the dam due to landslide-induced outflow pushed the system towards a tipping point, that was finally exceeded following subsequent rainfall, snowmelt, a secondary landslide, or calving of ice into the lake. We back-calculate part of the GLOF process chain, using the GIS-based open source numerical simulation tool r.avaflow. Two scenarios are considered, assuming a debris landslide-induced impact wave with overtopping and resulting retrogressive erosion of the moraine dam (Scenario A), and retrogressive erosion due to pre-weakening of the dam without a major impact wave (Scenario B). Both scenarios yield plausible results which are in line with empirically derived ranges of peak discharge and breach time. The breaching process is characterized by a slower onset and a resulting delay in Scenario B, compared to Scenario A. Evidence, however, points towards Scenario B as a more realistic possibility. There were no casualties from this GLOF but it caused severe destruction of infrastructure (e.g. roads and bridges) and property losses in downstream areas. Given the clear role of continued glacial retreat in destabilizing the adjacent lateral moraine slopes, and directly enabling the landslide to deposit into the expanding lake body, the GLOF process chain under Scenario B can be robustly attributable to anthropogenic climate change, while downstream consequences have been enhanced by the development of infrastructure on exposed flood plains. Such process chains could become more frequent under a warmer and wetter future climate, calling for comprehensive and forward-looking risk reduction planning.

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Increased outburst flood hazard from Lake Palcacocha due to human-induced glacier retreat

Cited by 82 publications

References 63 publications

Climate change attribution and legal contexts: evidence and the role of storylines

Climate change attribution and legal contexts: evidence and the role of storylines

Filling the evidentiary gap in climate litigation

The 2020 glacial lake outburst flood at Jinwuco, Tibet: causes, impacts, and implications for hazard and risk assessment

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