Late Pleistocene earthquake-triggered moraine dam failure and outburst of Lake Zurich, Switzerland

M. Strasser; C. Schindler; F. S. Anselmetti

doi:10.1029/2007jf000802

Climate change and the global pattern of moraine-dammed glacial lake outburst floods

10.5194/tc-2017-203 ◽

2017 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Stephan Harrison ◽

Jeffrey S. Kargel ◽

Christian Huggel ◽

John Reynolds ◽

Dan H. Shugar ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Ice Age ◽

Dam Failure ◽

Glacial Lake ◽

Glacier Recession ◽

Outburst Floods ◽

Glacial Lake Outburst Floods ◽

Lake Formation ◽

Recent Climate ◽

Moraine Dam Failure

Abstract. Despite recent research identifying a clear anthropogenic impact on glacier recession, the effect of recent climate change on glacier-related hazards is at present unclear. Here we present the first global spatio-temporal assessment of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) focusing explicitly on lake drainage following moraine dam failure. These floods occur as mountain glaciers recede and downwaste and many have an enormous impact on downstream communities and infrastructure. Our assessment of GLOFs associated with the collapse of moraine-dammed lakes provides insights into the historical trends of GLOFs and their distributions under current and future global climate change. We observe a clear global increase in GLOF frequency and their regularity around 1930, which likely represents a lagged response to post-Little Ice Age warming. Notably, we also show that GLOF frequency and their regularity – rather unexpectedly – has declined in recent decades even during a time of rapid glacier recession. Although previous studies have suggested that GLOFs will increase in response to climate warming and glacier recession, our global results demonstrate that this has not yet clearly happened. From assessment of the timing of climate forcing, lag times in glacier recession, lake formation and moraine dam failure, we predict increased GLOF frequencies during the next decades and into the 22nd century.

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Review of moraine dam failure mechanism

Geomatics Natural Hazards and Risk ◽

10.1080/19475705.2019.1652210 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

pp. 1948-1966 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Robin Neupane ◽

Huayong Chen ◽

Chunran Cao

Keyword(s):

Failure Mechanism ◽

Dam Failure ◽

Moraine Dam Failure

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Climate change and the global pattern of moraine-dammed glacial lake outburst floods

The Cryosphere ◽

10.5194/tc-12-1195-2018 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 12 (4) ◽

pp. 1195-1209 ◽

Cited By ~ 64

Author(s):

Stephan Harrison ◽

Jeffrey S. Kargel ◽

Christian Huggel ◽

John Reynolds ◽

Dan H. Shugar ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Ice Age ◽

Dam Failure ◽

Glacial Lake ◽

Glacier Recession ◽

Outburst Floods ◽

Glacial Lake Outburst Floods ◽

Lake Formation ◽

Recent Climate ◽

Moraine Dam Failure

Abstract. Despite recent research identifying a clear anthropogenic impact on glacier recession, the effect of recent climate change on glacier-related hazards is at present unclear. Here we present the first global spatio-temporal assessment of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) focusing explicitly on lake drainage following moraine dam failure. These floods occur as mountain glaciers recede and downwaste. GLOFs can have an enormous impact on downstream communities and infrastructure. Our assessment of GLOFs associated with the rapid drainage of moraine-dammed lakes provides insights into the historical trends of GLOFs and their distributions under current and future global climate change. We observe a clear global increase in GLOF frequency and their regularity around 1930, which likely represents a lagged response to post-Little Ice Age warming. Notably, we also show that GLOF frequency and regularity – rather unexpectedly – have declined in recent decades even during a time of rapid glacier recession. Although previous studies have suggested that GLOFs will increase in response to climate warming and glacier recession, our global results demonstrate that this has not yet clearly happened. From an assessment of the timing of climate forcing, lag times in glacier recession, lake formation and moraine-dam failure, we predict increased GLOF frequencies during the next decades and into the 22nd century.

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Reconstruction of a flood resulting from a moraine-dam failure using geomorphological evidence and dam-break modeling

Catastrophic Flooding ◽

10.4324/9781003020325-9 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 181-200

Author(s):

P. A. Carling ◽

M. S. Glaister

Keyword(s):

Dam Break ◽

Dam Failure ◽

Moraine Dam Failure

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Genesis and provenance of a new Middle Pleistocene diamicton unit at Happisburgh, NE Norfolk, UK

Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society ◽

10.1144/pygs2015-367 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 61 (1) ◽

pp. 25-35 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Richard G. Hodkin ◽

Jonathan R. Lee ◽

James B. Riding ◽

Jenni A. Turner

Keyword(s):

Debris Flows ◽

Mass Movement ◽

Dam Failure ◽

Middle Pleistocene ◽

Intense Rainfall ◽

Outburst Flood ◽

Trigger Mechanism ◽

Water Saturated ◽

Seasonal Melting ◽

Moraine Dam Failure

Glacigenic deposits at Happisburgh, NE Norfolk, record the earliest known expansion of glaciers into lowland eastern England during the Quaternary. The sequence comprises two regionally extensive till units, the Happisburgh Till and Corton Diamicton members of the Happisburgh Glacigenic Formation, deposited during separate ice advances, and intervening glacilacustrine and outwash deposits laid down during ice-marginal retreat. During 2012, a new diamicton unit was discovered within the intervening sorted sediments and its significance is outlined here. Sedimentological and structural evidence suggests, tentatively, that the diamicton forms a small debris fan generated subaerially by a series of water-saturated hyperconcentrated or debris flows. The precise trigger mechanism for these flow deposits remains unclear, but may relate to seasonal melting of surface or buried ice followed by mass-movement, or to more abrupt geological events including periods of intense rainfall, moraine dam failure or a glacier outburst flood.

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An approach for estimating the breach probabilities of moraine-dammed lakes in the Chinese Himalayas using remote-sensing data

Natural Hazards and Earth System Science ◽

10.5194/nhess-12-3109-2012 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 12 (10) ◽

pp. 3109-3122 ◽

Cited By ~ 51

Author(s):

X. Wang ◽

S. Liu ◽

Y. Ding ◽

W. Guo ◽

Z. Jiang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Remote Sensing ◽

Decision Making ◽

Expert Knowledge ◽

Remote Sensing Data ◽

Dam Failure ◽

Outburst Flood ◽

First Order ◽

Trigger Mechanisms ◽

Very High ◽

Moraine Dam Failure

Abstract. To make first-order estimates of the probability of moraine-dammed lake outburst flood (MDLOF) and prioritize the probabilities of breaching posed by potentially dangerous moraine-dammed lakes (PDMDLs) in the Chinese Himalayas, an objective approach is presented. We first select five indicators to identify PDMDLs according to four predesigned criteria. The climatic background was regarded as the climatic precondition of the moraine-dam failure, and under different climatic preconditions, we distinguish the trigger mechanisms of MDLOFs and subdivide them into 17 possible breach modes, with each mode having three or four components; we combined the precondition, modes and components to construct a decision-making tree of moraine-dam failure. Conversion guidelines were established so as to quantify the probabilities of components of a breach mode employing the historic performance method combined with expert knowledge and experience. The region of the Chinese Himalayas was chosen as a study area where there have been frequent MDLOFs in recent decades. The results show that the breaching probabilities (P) of 142 PDMDLs range from 0.037 to 0.345, and they can be further categorized as 43 lakes with very high breach probabilities (P ≥ 0.24), 47 lakes with high breach probabilities (0.18 ≤ P < 0.24), 24 lakes with mid-level breach probabilities (0.12 ≤ P < 0.18), 24 lakes with low breach probabilities (0.06 ≤ P < 0.12), and four lakes with very low breach probabilities (p < 0.06).

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