A global database of historic glacier lake outburst floods

• Main Authors: Lützow, Natalie, Veh, Georg, Korup, Oliver
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: glacier; Iceland
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2022-449; https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2022-449/

Ongoing atmospheric warming has accelerated glacier mass loss in many mountain regions worldwide. Glacier lakes trap parts of the glacial meltwater and increased by about 50 % in number and area since the 1990s. Some of these glacier lakes may empty catastrophically and pose hazards to mountain communities, infrastructure, and habitats. Such glacier lake outburst floods (GLOFs) have caused millions of dollars of damages and fatalities, and are one of many concerns about future changes in the magnitude, frequency, and impacts of a shrinking mountain cryosphere. Consistently compiled inventories are thus vital to assess regional and local trends in GLOF occurrence, hazard, and risk. To this end, we studied 769 literature and internet sources, and developed a standardised database with 57 parameters that describe and quantify the location, dam type, size, timing, and impacts of GLOFs in nine glaciated mountain regions. Our GLOF inventory also includes details about the lake area before and after the outburst for 391 cases that we manually mapped from optical satellite images since 1984. In total, we compiled 3,151 reported GLOFs that occurred in 27 countries between 850 and 2022 C.E. Most GLOFs have been reported in NW North America (26 %) and Iceland (19 %). However, the reporting density in our inventory varies. During the 20th century alone, the number of yearly documented GLOFs increased 6-fold. Less than one-quarter of all reported cases feature hydrodynamic characteristics such as flood peak discharge or volume, or estimates of loss and damage. Our inventory more than doubles the number of reported GLOFs in a previous global inventory, though gaps in attributes remain. Our data collection process emphasizes the support of local experts in contributing previously undocumented cases, and we recommend applying systematic protocols when reporting new cases. The global database on historic GLOFs is archived at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7330345 and regularly updated at http://glofs.geoecology.uni-potsdam.de/ .