August 13, 2025
2 Min read
Why the explosions of the ice lake like that of Alaska can occur more often
The melting in an explosion of the ice lake floods Juneau, in Alaska. Such events are likely to occur more often while climate change destabilizes ice and glacial lakes are filled with more cast iron water
Mendenhall glacier in the Tongass National Forest near the city of Juneau, Alaska, July 6, 2021.
Salwan Georges / The Washington Post via Getty Images
The merger of a glacial explosion near Juneau, Alaska, floods the nearby districts, and those responsible urge certain residents of the city by 30,000 to evacuate.
The cast iron water rushes downstream from the suicide basin, a pool of water contained by the Mendenhall glacier. Wednesday morning, at 6:00 am, local time, the Mendenhall river was in a major flood stadium. At 16.17 feet (4.93 meters) and on the water, the water level had exceeded the record stadium of the flood of 15.99 feet (4.87 m) which struck during a florciary flood of August 2024, according to the National Weather Service.
The river and Lake Mendenhall, which are both downstream of the glacier language, are under a flood warning. The NWS predicts that the Mendenhall river will escape up to 16.75 feet (5.11 m) around 8 a.m. on Wednesday.
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The flood explosion floods occur when the ice dams holding the glacial lakes fail, allowing a sudden release of water. They are unpredictable and occur without warning. A study in 2023 revealed that, worldwide, 15 million people live in areas that could flood. More than half of people in risk areas are in India, Pakistan, China and Peru. And with a climate of warming, the ice becomes more unstable and the glacial lakes are developing – a 2020 study based on satellite imagery revealed that, between 1990 and 2018, the volume of water contained in the glacial lakes had increased by 48%.
The suicide pool has already flooded. In fact, according to the NWS, the basin has published a lighting flood at least once a year since 2011. These floods have now established a record of three years in a row: in 2023, the river climbed at 14.97 feet (4.56 m) after an explosion, a record exceeded a year later in the flood of August 2024. Some residents had to evacuate by inflatable boat in the middle of the night The explosion of 2024, according to the American Red Cross. Now, only a year after this disaster, the river sets a new record.
This is a threat that glaciologists in mountain regions around the world are trying to better understand, said Fabian Walter, now the main scientist at the Swiss Federal Institute for Research on Forest, Snow and WSL Landscape, in an interview with American scientist In 2020. “These glacial mountain faces were more or less stable,” said Walter. “And now, with climate change, all stability changes.”
