Seismic ground vibrations give advanced early-warning of subglacial floods
Abstract Glacier runoff and melt from volcanic and geothermal activity accumulates in glacier dammed lakes in glaciated areas around the world. These lakes eventually drain, creating hazardous subglacial floods that are usually only confirmed after they exit the glacier and reach local river systems...
Published in: | Nature Communications |
---|---|
Main Authors: | , , , , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
2020
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-15744-5 http://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15744-5.pdf http://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15744-5 |
id |
crspringernat:10.1038/s41467-020-15744-5 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
crspringernat:10.1038/s41467-020-15744-5 2023-05-15T16:21:43+02:00 Seismic ground vibrations give advanced early-warning of subglacial floods Eibl, Eva P. S. Bean, Christopher J. Einarsson, Bergur Pàlsson, Finnur Vogfjörd, Kristin S. 2020 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-15744-5 http://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15744-5.pdf http://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15744-5 en eng Springer Science and Business Media LLC https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 CC-BY Nature Communications volume 11, issue 1 ISSN 2041-1723 General Physics and Astronomy General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology General Chemistry journal-article 2020 crspringernat https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-15744-5 2022-01-04T16:51:07Z Abstract Glacier runoff and melt from volcanic and geothermal activity accumulates in glacier dammed lakes in glaciated areas around the world. These lakes eventually drain, creating hazardous subglacial floods that are usually only confirmed after they exit the glacier and reach local river systems, which can be many tens of kilometres from the flood source. Once in the river systems, they travel rapidly to populated areas. Such delayed detection represents a potentially lethal shortcoming in early-warning. Here we demonstrate how to advance early-warning potential through the analysis of four such floods in a glaciated region of Iceland. By comparing exceptional multidisciplinary hydrological, GPS and seismic ground vibration (tremor) data, we show that array analysis of seismic tremor can be used for early location and tracking of the subglacial flood front. Furthermore the timing and size of the impending flood can be estimated, prior to it entering the river system. Advanced warnings of between 20 to 34 hours are achieved for large (peak discharge of more than 3000 m 3 /s, accumulation time of ~ 5.25 years) to small floods (peak discharges from 210 to 380 m 3 /s, accumulation times of ~ 1.3 years) respectively. Article in Journal/Newspaper glacier Iceland Springer Nature (via Crossref) Nature Communications 11 1 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Springer Nature (via Crossref) |
op_collection_id |
crspringernat |
language |
English |
topic |
General Physics and Astronomy General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology General Chemistry |
spellingShingle |
General Physics and Astronomy General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology General Chemistry Eibl, Eva P. S. Bean, Christopher J. Einarsson, Bergur Pàlsson, Finnur Vogfjörd, Kristin S. Seismic ground vibrations give advanced early-warning of subglacial floods |
topic_facet |
General Physics and Astronomy General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology General Chemistry |
description |
Abstract Glacier runoff and melt from volcanic and geothermal activity accumulates in glacier dammed lakes in glaciated areas around the world. These lakes eventually drain, creating hazardous subglacial floods that are usually only confirmed after they exit the glacier and reach local river systems, which can be many tens of kilometres from the flood source. Once in the river systems, they travel rapidly to populated areas. Such delayed detection represents a potentially lethal shortcoming in early-warning. Here we demonstrate how to advance early-warning potential through the analysis of four such floods in a glaciated region of Iceland. By comparing exceptional multidisciplinary hydrological, GPS and seismic ground vibration (tremor) data, we show that array analysis of seismic tremor can be used for early location and tracking of the subglacial flood front. Furthermore the timing and size of the impending flood can be estimated, prior to it entering the river system. Advanced warnings of between 20 to 34 hours are achieved for large (peak discharge of more than 3000 m 3 /s, accumulation time of ~ 5.25 years) to small floods (peak discharges from 210 to 380 m 3 /s, accumulation times of ~ 1.3 years) respectively. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Eibl, Eva P. S. Bean, Christopher J. Einarsson, Bergur Pàlsson, Finnur Vogfjörd, Kristin S. |
author_facet |
Eibl, Eva P. S. Bean, Christopher J. Einarsson, Bergur Pàlsson, Finnur Vogfjörd, Kristin S. |
author_sort |
Eibl, Eva P. S. |
title |
Seismic ground vibrations give advanced early-warning of subglacial floods |
title_short |
Seismic ground vibrations give advanced early-warning of subglacial floods |
title_full |
Seismic ground vibrations give advanced early-warning of subglacial floods |
title_fullStr |
Seismic ground vibrations give advanced early-warning of subglacial floods |
title_full_unstemmed |
Seismic ground vibrations give advanced early-warning of subglacial floods |
title_sort |
seismic ground vibrations give advanced early-warning of subglacial floods |
publisher |
Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-15744-5 http://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15744-5.pdf http://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15744-5 |
genre |
glacier Iceland |
genre_facet |
glacier Iceland |
op_source |
Nature Communications volume 11, issue 1 ISSN 2041-1723 |
op_rights |
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-15744-5 |
container_title |
Nature Communications |
container_volume |
11 |
container_issue |
1 |
_version_ |
1766009702882213888 |