Ice Loss and Slope Stability in High-Mountain Regions

• Main Authors: Deline, Philip, Gruber, S, Delaloye, R., Fischer,, L, Geertsema, M, Giardino, M, Hasler, A, Kirkbride, Martin P., Krautblatter, M., Magnin, Florence
• Other Authors: Environnements, Dynamiques et Territoires de la Montagne (EDYTEM), Université Savoie Mont Blanc (USMB Université de Savoie Université de Chambéry )-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Department of Geosciences, Laboratoire GEOSITLAB Dipartimento delle Scienze della Terra, Università degli studi di Torino (UNITO), School of Social and Environmental Sciences, University of Dundee, John F. Shroder, Wilfried Haeberli and Colin Whiteman
• Format: Book Part
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2014
• Subjects: [SDE.MCG]Environmental Sciences/Global Changes; [SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology; [SDE.IE]Environmental Sciences/Environmental Engineering; [SDE.ES]Environmental Sciences/Environmental and Society; [SHS.GEO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Geography; New Lakes; Ice; permafrost
• Online Access: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01896761

International audience The present time is one significant stage in the adjustment of mountain slopes to climate change, and specifically atmospheric warming. This review examines the state of understanding of the responses of mid-latitude alpine landscapes to recent cryospheric change, and summarizes the variety and complexity of documented landscape responses involving glaciers, moraines, rock and debris slopes, and rock glaciers. These indicate how a common general forcing translates into varied site-specific slope responses according to material structures and properties, thermal and hydrological environments, process rates, and prior slope histories. Warming of permafrost in rock and debris slopes has demonstrably increased instability, manifest as rock glacier acceleration, rock falls, debris flows, and related phenomena. Changes in glacier geometry influence stress fields in rock and debris slopes, and some failures appear to be accelerating toward catastrophic failure. Several sites now require expensive monitoring and modeling to design effective risk-reduction strategies, especially where new lakes as multipliers of hazard potential form, and new activities and infrastructure are developed.