5 days ago
A ‘glacial outburst' is flooding Alaska's capital
Officials in Juneau, Alaska, urged residents to evacuate Tuesday as a nearby glacial meltwater lake overflowed and flooded nearby neighborhoods.
It's an event known as a glacial lake outburst flood — that's when a pool of meltwater that collects at the base of a shrinking glacier suddenly drains or overflows. And it's becoming a familiar event in Alaska's capital city. This is the third year in a row that Suicide Basin, which pools at the edge of Juneau's Mendenhall Glacier, has burst and sent its icy contents surging into the nearby Mendenhall River.
And it likely won't be the last. Climate change is sending summer temperatures skyward, accelerating glacial melting and increasing the risk of sudden floods.
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Juneau's average summer temperatures have risen by about 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit since the 1970s, according to an analysis by the climate science nonprofit Climate Central. And a recent study found that the Juneau ice field — a 1,500-square-mile frozen expanse just north of the city, and home to Mendenhall Glacier — is melting twice as fast today as it was before the year 2010. Between 2010 and 2020, it lost an average of nearly 6 billion metric tons of ice each year.
