Glaciers are retreating on a near-global scale. It takes only a short drive from Calgary up to the Athabasca Glacier in the Columbia Icefields to see an example of the changing landscape apparent within our lifetime.
A new study led by Dr. Dan Shugar, PhD, with collaborators from governments and universities in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, uses satellite data from NASA and Google Earth Engine to analyze all of the world’s glacial lakes. Published in Nature Climate Change, it is the largest-ever study of glacial lakes in terms of geographic scope.
The study found that the volume of water in glacial lakes has increased by 50.8 cubic kilometres — about 50 per cent — since 1990. To put that number into context, the increase in glacial lake water over the last 30 years is equivalent to the volume of 20 million Olympic-size swimming pools.
Glacial lake volumes around the world currently total approximately 156 cubic kilometres of water. While some of the water from melting glaciers ends up flowing into the oceans, a substantial amount also feeds glacial lakes, which have been growing dramatically over the last several decades. Because of this, communities in areas downstream from these growing glacial lakes are increasingly at risk of destruction due to serious flooding.
World’s largest study of glacial lake water volume reveals dramatic growth since 1990.
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Big data analysis tools allow for expanded study scope
Shugar is an associate professor in the Department of Geoscience, and director of the Environmental Science Program. As the leader of the Water, Sediment, Hazards, and Earth-surface Dynamics (waterSHED) Lab, he works across a variety of landscapes and time frames to understand how the Earth’s surface evolves, particularly as a result of contemporary climate change.
His work on this study began as part of a grant from NASA that focused on using satellite remote sensing and other tools to understand changes in High Mountain Asia.
Initially, he had planned to use NASA’s Landsat data, aerial photos, and declassified spy imagery to examine approximately two dozen lakes over the span of five decades and hand-traced the changes.
Shugar and his former student at the University of Washington Tacoma decided to take advantage of new data analysis tools to scale up the analysis — a decision that would not have been possible a decade ago. “We wrote some scripts in Google Earth Engine, an online platform for very large analyses of geospatial data. We first wrote the code to look at all lakes in High Mountain Asia, and then decided to look at all glacial lakes in the world,” Shugar explains. “From there, we were able to build a scaling relationship to estimate volume based on the area of this large population of lakes.”
This change in the process allowed them to look at the data in five-time steps since 1990 to look at all the glaciated regions of the world except for Antarctica and analyze how the lakes changed over that period.
”Using these cloud-based big data tools was critical,” Shugar says. “We ended up analyzing 254,795 Landsat scenes. A couple of years ago, this project would have been impossible to do on a global scale — there would have been so many terabytes of data that it would have been impossible to download and process all of it.”
Increase in glacial lake volume poses the greatest dangers to downstream communities
The models used to date by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to translate glacier melt into sea-level change assume that water from glacier melt is instantaneously transported to the oceans.
However, Shugar explains, “They know not all water is making it into the oceans immediately. However, until now, there was no data to estimate how much was being stored in lakes or groundwater. That was one of our driving reasons to scale up the study to a global analysis.
“Assuming all of the glacial lakes dumped at once — which is not happening — that 156 cubic kilometres of water spread out evenly across all oceans would raise sea level by about 0.43 millimetres. The sea level component is not large, but it was unknown until now.
“The volume of water being stored is important for a number of reasons,” he continues. “While one is to understand how the climate is affecting glaciers and sea levels, the most important consideration is the change in the risk landscape.”
Glacial lakes, which are often dammed by ice or glacial sediment called a moraine, are not stable like the mountain lakes most are used to seeing. Rather, they can be quite unstable and they can burst their banks or dams, causing massive floods downstream. These kinds of floods from glacial lakes, also known as glacial lake outburst floods or GLOFs, have been responsible for thousands of deaths over the last century, as well as the destruction of villages and infrastructure and livestock.
“This widespread glacial lake expansion represents a threat to communities and ecosystems — something people have not been thinking about in the public climate change discussion,” says Dr Jeffrey Kargel, PhD, senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute and a co-author on the paper.
“Glacial melting is associated with the loss of freshwater and rivers like Colorado. This is a new dimension of the problem that needs to be considered.”
“The big issue is for many parts of the world where people live downstream from these hazardous lakes, mostly in the Andes and in places like Bhutan and Nepal, where GLOFs can be devastating,” Shugar says. “Fortunately, organizations like the UN are doing or facilitating a lot of monitoring work and some mitigation work where they’re lowering the lakes to try and decrease the risks.
“Since we don’t have much in the way of infrastructure or communities that are downstream, the chances of a GLOF having major impacts in North America are fairly low. But we’re not immune to it.”
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
