02-11 Glacial Lakes

Hard to believe that the Great Lakes of North America are the world’s largest glacial lakes. Formed during the ice age. Glaciers as they melt leave huge depressions in the earth, which fill with water.
The updated story from scientists studying glacial lakes is that they are today about 50% larger than they were 50 years ago. It’s another climate change story.
We have some beautiful glacial lakes in Canada, and the photo shows one of the most striking. Lake Garabaldi in British Columbia. And as long as what might be called the “artificial dam” holds, they are not going to send flood waters crashing to a lower level. And what keeps it a lake might just be a lot of ice and rock. Not stable, which is what the concern is all about.
This photo on the other hand is Lake Palcococha in Peru. Now we have a more dangerous situation because in Peru we have large population settlements at the lower levels of the Andes mountain range.
Peru is a special story because floods from glacial lakes have taken the lives of over 30,000 people in the past. And the force of an outburst from a glacial lake wipes out whole villages. Nothing is left.
The question for societies vulnerable to melting glaciers is where the water goes. I remember clearly our visit to Ushuaia in Argentina, and their concern was the rapid melting of a glacier in the area which provides their total water supply.
And in Iceland, all the talk was about their melting glaciers, which is a major tourist attraction. But in Iceland and Argentina we are not talking about threats to human lives.
The vulnerable areas of the world are the Andes in South America, and people living in Bhutan and Nepal. The Himalayas are full of glacial lakes.
One of our most memorable cruises was to Alaska and the opportunity to get close to a glacier. They are all melting. Let’s call them dynamic bodies of ice. And the beautiful lakes melting glaciers are creating are a threat.