GLOF: Lake Outburst Shows Increasing Flash Flood Dangers for India
Another acronym you’ll be hearing more frequently – GLOF – Glacial Lake Outburst Flood. It’s in the news following a disaster in Northern India, in the Himalayan state of Sikkim. Himalayan glaciers are melting at an increased rate, forming new meltwater lakes, or adding to existing ones. These lakes are fundamentally unstable, as they are dammed by ice or debris that can give away unpredictably, as happened this week. Some good explainers below.
2 thoughts on “GLOF: Lake Outburst Shows Increasing Flash Flood Dangers for India”
One need only look to the Colombia River Badlands or Hell’s Canyon on the Snake (maybe even the St Lawrence Seaway) to see just how destructive the flooding can be after an ice dam fails. My thought had/has been though ~ having hiked/floatedthrough/flownover it all many times ~ the build up of the glacial lakes Missoula and Bonneville were over rather extended periods of time, thousand of years, and were upon flooding the size of the great lakes while our melting the glaciers has been really rather fast, less than a thousand years, there’s no massive lakes to drain and that the scale of it would be rather small.
Still destructive. Water is kinda’ like buffalo ~ goes where it wants to go …
One need only look to the Colombia River Badlands or Hell’s Canyon on the Snake (maybe even the St Lawrence Seaway) to see just how destructive the flooding can be after an ice dam fails. My thought had/has been though ~ having hiked/floatedthrough/flownover it all many times ~ the build up of the glacial lakes Missoula and Bonneville were over rather extended periods of time, thousand of years, and were upon flooding the size of the great lakes while our melting the glaciers has been really rather fast, less than a thousand years, there’s no massive lakes to drain and that the scale of it would be rather small.
Still destructive. Water is kinda’ like buffalo ~ goes where it wants to go …
This made the cover of Barrons on-line today …