Glacier lake outburst flood on James Ross Island, Antarctic Peninsula region

• Main Authors: Toshio Sone, Kotaro Fukui, Jorge A. Strelin, Cesar A. Torielli, Convenio Dirección, Nacional Antártico
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Key words; Antarctic Peninsula; James Ross Island; glacier lake outburst flood; climatic; Antarctic; Austral; Lachman; Ross Island; Antarc*
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.616.6101; http://www.polar.pan.pl/ppr28/PPR28-003.pdf

Abstract: A glacier lake outburst flood occurred on James Ross Island, Antarctic Peninsula region, during the 2004–2005 austral summer season. The source lake was located on the Lachman II ice−cored rock glacier, and formed prior to 1980. The size of the lake has been increasing gradually since the 1990s. The lake basin extended to approximately 220 m in length and 160 m in width by the end of February 2005. We observed that the lake had drained by February 2005, and found a deep gully on the south side of the lake rim. It ap− pears that the lake level rose and water overflowed the lake rim here. James Ross Island con− tains a large number of debris−covered glaciers, ice−cored moraines, and rock glaciers with glacier lakes which are dammed by these features or which form upon them. As climatic warming has recently been reported for this region, further glacier lake outburst floods seem likely to occur.