GLOFs

I know from discussions in school today that a lot of you watched 'Earth : Power of the Planet' last night and that you were all as amazed as I was by the sequence describing the glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF )which occurred thousands of years ago in N America . It was a bit of a coincidence,therefore, to find video footage on the BBC website today about a threated GLOF in Nepal....High in the Himalayas lakes like this one are lengthening by as much as 100m a year. Global warming has produced an average temperature rise of 1.5 degrees C in just 40 years in Nepal and glaciers are melting fast. Many of the lakes which are produced are held back by unconsolidated mounds of debris known as moraines. If these natural dams fail (and history shows that they often do) then millions of gallons of water would sweep down the valleys, anihilating everything in their path.

In a cruel twist of fate, once the waters have gone, the area is likely to suffer drought as the glaciers which fed the meltwater streams will have retreated so much that they no longer release the water on which local communities currently depend. You can watch a video about GLOFs in Nepal by clicking on the photo above.

P.S. GMPAY is 200 postings old today!