{"title":"Risk assessment of glacial lake outburst flood in the Central Asian Tienshan Mountains","authors":"Man Chen, Yaning Chen, Gonghuan Fang, Guoxiong Zheng, Zhi Li, Yupeng Li, Ziyang Zhu","doi":"10.1038/s41612-024-00755-6","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Global warming has accelerated alpine glacier melting and led to an increased risk of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs). This paper extracted glacial lake boundaries in the Tienshan Mountains of Central Asia from 1990 to 2023, analyzed their spatiotemporal variations and evaluated their risk levels under current and future scenarios. The results show that glacial lakes are predominantly distributed in the Central and Western Tienshan, accounting for 75% of the total number in the Tienshan region. The number and area of glacial lakes increased by 148% (from 1837 to 4557) and 71.83% (from 119.73 to 205.73 km2) during 1990 to 2023, with moraine lake expansion predominating. In the Western Tienshan, the high or very high risk of GLOF is 3–4 times that of other areas. By the middle of the twenty-first century, GLOF risk will continue to increase, especially in the Western Tienshan. This study can provide scientific foundation for disaster mitigation in the downstream areas.","PeriodicalId":19438,"journal":{"name":"npj Climate and Atmospheric Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":8.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-09-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-024-00755-6.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"npj Climate and Atmospheric Science","FirstCategoryId":"89","ListUrlMain":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-024-00755-6","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"METEOROLOGY & ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Global warming has accelerated alpine glacier melting and led to an increased risk of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs). This paper extracted glacial lake boundaries in the Tienshan Mountains of Central Asia from 1990 to 2023, analyzed their spatiotemporal variations and evaluated their risk levels under current and future scenarios. The results show that glacial lakes are predominantly distributed in the Central and Western Tienshan, accounting for 75% of the total number in the Tienshan region. The number and area of glacial lakes increased by 148% (from 1837 to 4557) and 71.83% (from 119.73 to 205.73 km2) during 1990 to 2023, with moraine lake expansion predominating. In the Western Tienshan, the high or very high risk of GLOF is 3–4 times that of other areas. By the middle of the twenty-first century, GLOF risk will continue to increase, especially in the Western Tienshan. This study can provide scientific foundation for disaster mitigation in the downstream areas.
期刊介绍:
npj Climate and Atmospheric Science is an open-access journal encompassing the relevant physical, chemical, and biological aspects of atmospheric and climate science. The journal places particular emphasis on regional studies that unveil new insights into specific localities, including examinations of local atmospheric composition, such as aerosols.
The range of topics covered by the journal includes climate dynamics, climate variability, weather and climate prediction, climate change, ocean dynamics, weather extremes, air pollution, atmospheric chemistry (including aerosols), the hydrological cycle, and atmosphere–ocean and atmosphere–land interactions. The journal welcomes studies employing a diverse array of methods, including numerical and statistical modeling, the development and application of in situ observational techniques, remote sensing, and the development or evaluation of new reanalyses.