As the climate changes and glaciers melt, a lesser-known threat lurks in alpine areas: glacial lake outburst floods. These events happen rapidly, releasing huge amounts of water with little or no warning. Unsuspecting communities lying in the flood path can suffer serious losses.
Researchers seek better ways to predict these outburst floods and mitigate their danger. Take a hike through the Swiss Alps with glaciologist Fabian Walter to learn about this phenomenon and our ongoing efforts to understand it.
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Fascinating. What sort of rates of erosion could result in a valley below a large cyclic glacial outburst?
I'm interest because that is the geology of my valley – the Wye Gorge is a deep incised meander through limestone with at least three cyclic lakes at damming choke-points about 50-100 km downstream of the polar icesheet in the Younger Dryas, and with evidence of overbrimming the valley sides leading to reverse flows draining into another river, the Severn. Orogeny was by homeostatic uplift downstream of the icesheet, then by rebound as the icesheet retreated.
The two rivers are, in effect, braids of a single single river draining what was once a very flat catchment. They arise in the same bog on Plynlimon, and drain into the Bristol Channel with their confluence near Chepstow.
good luck with Russia China or India having anything to do with stopping climate change just a natural progression. ..did I say good luck with third world and second world countries complying with carbon dioxide output ,and carbon monoxide reductions.(Theyd rather eat two meals a day than one)it's a pipe dream… to raise more taxes on us (regular household consumers)for our carbon footprint. big businesses don't care if there taxed ,they just pass it on to smaller people like us it's .all a scam although most people embracing this form of pagan naturalism will embrace the created instead of the Creator . altho they just don't see it like that(.example they want to save whales and trees yet will abort fetuses) but it's the same thing thats going on for thousands of years..climate control is a form of paganism such a DRUIDS that worshiped nature. people today don't want to think they are anything like that, that somehow it's different because it was way back then. And when people look back on history, what do you think they're going to say "oh yeah this is totally different" no . they'll say it's all the same and history shows that. people have been doing this for centuries.problem is no one wants to admit that they're all the same ,they want to think they're different and their ideas are brand new. the more people try to prove they're different is exactly how they prove their all the same.That's the problem with our obsession with freedom ,it's finite, and we don't like that..
These regions have been shaped by catastrophic weather and climatic events over millions of years
If humans choose to live in such places then they should make themselves aware of the associated risk
So nobody has the knowledge,or technology to delete those ice dams before they break?
Send GRETA THUNBERG to protest For this 😂
Been going on for hundreds of thousands of years, nothing to do with your liberal bullshit 😒
Dear Sci. Am. – Global temperatures ARE NOT RISING! Stop being so stupid and start paying attention to actual temperatures and massive snow fall.
Trying to say rainfall caused that no it was the dam breaking
No they are not melting at a fast pace… Its getting colder out you dummy…
You keep pushing your propaganda. Climate changes. Stop scaring people. Shame on you
Scientific American and their glaciologist have lost their credibility by insiting that the natural glacial cycling is caused by that man-made climate change myth. Raw, real observed scientific data, not those garbage "models", do not support this money-making scheme of man-made climate change, so give it a rest already! The ice caps and many glaciers are rebuilding right on their schedule, so…
The problem I have with Climate Change is there's just never enough HYPE ~ Why for example aren't these people raving and foaming at the mouth or hurling woke slogans? Where's Bill Nye the science guy. If this was real he's be in a little corner of the screen ~ Come on MAN !
It's moronic to think we have ANY effect on this planet's global atmosphere.
I turn off every global warming fear porn video and block the channel. Once Al Gore and obastard move away from their beachfront homes there still won't be any credibility to the government bs pushed.
Judging by all the rocks in it's path outbursts have happened hundred of times before.
So according to my government, if I pay enough carbon tax this won't happen anymore?🥴
Global temps have not risen in 6 years your opening is based on false hood.
This has been caused by climate change going back to the beginning of the end of the last ice age The Pacific NW. Georgian Bay in Ontario was the base of a waterfall.
When the St Lawrence River was blocked by ice the lakes drained south through New York State. The City of Winnipeg is at the bottom of a huge lake draining south until it found a way under the ice north. Do people never ask question when writing these stories?
I’ll bet they took a gas powered plane and a gas powered car to get there while wearing petroleum based clothing. So glaciologists are melting the glaciers mostly.
The climate will always be changing. It's up to us to adapt.