Rapid worldwide growth of glacial lakes since 1990

• Published in: Nature Climate Change
• Main Authors: Shugar, DH, Burr, A, Haritashya, UK, Kargel, JS, Watson, CS, Kennedy, MC, Bevington, AR, Betts, RA, Harrison, S, Strattman, K
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Nature Research 2020
• Subjects: Glacial lakes; sea level rise; climate change; natural hazards; glacier*
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10871/122688; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0855-4

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Nature Research via the DOI in this record Data availability: The complete lakes database is available at https://nsidc.org/data/HMA_GLI/versions/1 (ref. 73). Code availability: Our Google Earth Engine script is available at https://code.earthengine.google.com/31a9acd31b65796a47f2823572c3307c Code availability: Scripts for Monte Carlo estimation of volume from lake area is available at https://github.com/mkenn/GlacialLakeMC.git (ref. 74). Glacial lakes are rapidly growing in response to climate change and glacier retreat. The role of these lakes as terrestrial storage for glacial meltwater is currently unknown and not accounted for in global sea level assessments. Here, we map glacier lakes around the world using 254,795 satellite images and use scaling relations to estimate that global glacier lake volume increased by around 48%, to 156.5 km3, between 1990 and 2018. This methodology provides a near-global database and analysis of glacial lake extent, volume and change. Over the study period, lake numbers and total area increased by 53 and 51%, respectively. Median lake size has increased 3%; however, the 95th percentile has increased by around 9%. Currently, glacial lakes hold about 0.43 mm of sea level equivalent. As glaciers continue to retreat and feed glacial lakes, the implications for glacial lake outburst floods and water resources are of considerable societal and ecological importance. NASA Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)