Inventory and classification of the post Little Ice Age glacial lakes in Svalbard

• Main Authors: Wieczorek, Iwo, Strzelecki, Mateusz Czesław, Stachnik, Łukasz, Yde, Jacob Clement, Małecki, Jakub
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2022
• Subjects: Arctic; Svalbard; Glacial Lake; Climate change; glacier; Global warming
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2021-364; https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2021-364/

Rapid changes of glacial lakes are among the most visible indicators of global warming in glacierized areas around the world. The general trend is that the area and number of glacial lakes increase significantly in high mountain areas and polar latitudes. However, there is a lack of knowledge about the current state of glacial lakes in the High Arctic. This study aims to address this issue by providing the first glacial lake inventory from Svalbard, with focus on the genesis and evolution of glacial lakes since the end of the Little Ice Age. We use aerial photographs and topographic data from 1936 to 2012 and satellite imagery from 2013 to 2020. The inventory includes the development of 566 glacial lakes (total area of 145.91 km 2 ) that were in direct contact with glaciers in 2008–2012. From the 1990s to the end of the 2000s, the total glacial lake area increased by nearly a factor of six. A decrease in the number of lakes between 2012 and 2020 is related to two main processes: the drainage of 197 lakes and the merger of smaller reservoirs into larger ones. The changes of glacial lakes show how climate change in the High Arctic affect proglacial geomorphology by enhanced formation of glacial lakes, leading to higher risks associated with glacier lake outburst floods in Svalbard.