Articles | Volume 15, issue 7
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-2983-2023
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-2983-2023
Data description paper
 | 
12 Jul 2023
Data description paper |  | 12 Jul 2023

A global database of historic glacier lake outburst floods

Natalie Lützow, Georg Veh, and Oliver Korup

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Cited articles

Alaska Glacier Dammed Lake Database: https://www.weather.gov/aprfc/gdlMain, last access: 19 October 2022. 
Allen, S. K., Rastner, P., Arora, M., Huggel, C., and Stoffel, M.: Lake outburst and debris flow disaster at Kedarnath, June 2013: hydrometeorological triggering and topographic predisposition, Landslides, 13, 1479–1491, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-015-0584-3, 2016. 
Baretti, M.: Il lago del Rutor (Alpi Graie Settentrionali), Boll. Club Alpino It. N., 14, 43–95, 1880. 
Bazai, N. A., Cui, P., Carling, P. A., Wang, H., Hassan, J., Liu, D., Zhang, G., and Jin, W.: Increasing glacial lake outburst flood hazard in response to surge glaciers in the Karakoram, Earth-Sci. Rev., 212, 103432, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2020.103432, 2021. 
Benn, D. and Evans, D. J. A.: Glaciers and Glaciation, 2nd ed., Routledge, https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203785010, 2010. 
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Short summary
Glacier lake outburst floods (GLOFs) are a prominent natural hazard, and climate change may change their magnitude, frequency, and impacts. A global, literature-based GLOF inventory is introduced, entailing 3151 reported GLOFs. The reporting density varies temporally and regionally, with most cases occurring in NW North America. Since 1900, the number of yearly documented GLOFs has increased 6-fold. However, many GLOFs have incomplete records, and we call for a systematic reporting protocol.
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