Ice is the key to the future climate | Polar ice caps are melting fast, with multiple scenarios and surprising consequences | The collapse of mountain glaciers is equally alarming, but in different ways | Rapid permafrost thaw in Arctic regions is leading to unforeseen consequences: especially Methane release.
“We’ve lost our village!”
The disaster in Blatten is only the most recent of an increasing number of catastrophic landslides caused by melting ice and permafrost. As Europe rapidly warms, rain is falling more often than snow, providing the heat and lubrication that brings glaciers to collapse.
Unstable permafrost, melting glaciers are unleashing more deadly Alpine ice slides
A huge chunk of glacier in the Swiss Alps broke off in mid-May, dumping a deadly mash of ice, mud and rock down the mountain, burying most of a mountain village. The village of Blatten had already been evacuated was 90% buried by rubble.
Europe’s Alps and Pyrenees lost 40% of their glacier volume from 2000 to 2023.
Glacier Lake Outburst Floods
Similar to Alpine rockslides but even more insidious are Glacier Lake Outburst Floods (GLOF). While the Batten, Switzerland catastrophe was unprecedented in terms of damage, the frequency of Alpine disasters such as rockslides and glacial lake outburst floods (GLOF) has been increasing. Similar to Alpine rockslides but even more insidious are Glacier Lake Outburst Floods (GLOF).
WHAT CAUSES GLOF:
As glaciers melt at a frenetic pace new lakes back up behind newly formed ice dams in the Andes, Alps and Himalayas. When these dams break, massive torrents rushe downstream, often in a cataclysmic flood. These floods have become more common as global warming causes rapid melting of glaciers around the world.
Glacial floods in high mountain Asia (The “Roof of the World”) projected to triple by 2100.
For the past decade, the valley has filled with rain and meltwater as the glacier recedes. Then the water burrows a tunnel into the ice dam, which eventually breaks through and pouring into the city below.
Tibet 2016 double glacier landslides kill dozens
A glacier in Tibet’s Aru mountain range suddenly collapsed in 2016, killing nine people and their livestock, followed a few months later by the collapse of another glacier. The avalanche of rock and ice carried 60 cubic meters and covered about seven square miles. It was followed by another major collapse months later.
Juneau’s Mendenhall glacier repeats 2023 slide, an ongoing warning with extensive damage to homes
More than 100 homes in Juneau, Alaska, were damaged by flooding in August 2024 after a glacial lake overflowed, sending surging water to nearby neighborhoods in what has become a recurring problem for people in the state’s capital.
Summer flooding is an annual concern for people who live near the Mendenhall Glacier, which last year unleashed flooding that swept away trees and homes, including two buildings that collapsed into the Mendenhall River, which flows through parts of Juneau.
The rapidly melting “third pole” is essential to fresh water for billions.
Glaciers are melting away in all mountain regions on the planet, including the Alps, the Andes and the Himalayas.
Beyond the sadness of incomparable beauty lost, glaciers provide fresh water sources for several billion humans, especially downstream from the Himalayas.
This global catastrophe will manifest itself in two stages:
- Increase in mountain lake water level, followed by extreme flooding (Glacier Lake Outbreak Flood)
- Extreme drought and lack of fresh water on a massive scale, especially Asia.