In August 2023, residents of Juneau, Alaska, watched as the Mendenhall River swelled to historic levels in a matter of hours. The rushing water undercut the riverbank and swallowed whole stands of trees and multiple buildings.
The source for the flood was not heavy rainfall – it was a small glacial lake located in a side valley next to the Mendenhall Glacier.
Glacier-dammed lakes like this are abundant in Alaska. They form when a side valley loses its ice faster than the main valley, leaving an ice-free basin that can fill with water. These lakes may remain stable for years, but often they reach a tipping point, when high water pressure opens a channel underneath the glacier.
The rapid and catastrophic drainage of lake water that follows is called a glacial lake outburst flood, or GLOF for short. The flood waters race downstream over hours or days and often hit unexpectedly.
In August 2023, residents of Juneau, Alaska, watched as the Mendenhall River swelled to historic levels in a matter of hours. The rushing water undercut the riverbank and swallowed whole stands of trees and multiple buildings.
The source for the flood was not heavy rainfall – it was a small glacial lake located in a side valley next to the Mendenhall Glacier.
Glacier-dammed lakes like this are abundant in Alaska. They form when a side valley loses its ice faster than the main valley, leaving an ice-free basin that can fill with water. These lakes may remain stable for years, but often they reach a tipping point, when high water pressure opens a channel underneath the glacier.
The rapid and catastrophic drainage of lake water that follows is called a glacial lake outburst flood, or GLOF for short. The flood waters race downstream over hours or days and often hit unexpectedly.
Suicide Basin, a glacier-dammed lake, has flooded the Mendenhall River before. Scientists with the Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center examined the glacial lake after an earlier flood.
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