Glacier Retreat in Eastern Himalaya Drives Catastrophic Glacier Hazard Chain

Abstract

Cryospheric responses to climate warming include glacier retreat, altitude-dependent thermal instability, and abundant meltwater, which increase the frequency of catastrophic glacier hazard chain (CGHC) events. Here we investigated the formation mechanism of a special CGHC event in 2018, in the Sedongpu Glacier, Eastern Himalayas, China. Based on the multi-source remote sensing, seismic signal analysis, and numerical simulation, we conducted long-term retrospective analysis and co-event process reconstruction. The results show that the event could be divided into two phases. First, the hanging glacier with a volume of 8.5 x 106 m3 collapsed onto the downstream trunk glacier. Next, similar to 1.17 x 108 m3 eroded materials from the impacted glacier transformed into debris flow and traveled downstream 8 km. During the cascading process, ice-rock avalanche momentum and glacier velocity are key factors in determining CGHC formation and eventual volume. Our study helps better understand the domino effects of the CGHC disaster. Glacier instability in cryosphere is significantly influenced by global warming. The glacial lake outburst floods are the most widely studied and catastrophic events resulting from this instability, but they are not the only ones. In recent years, increasing catastrophic glacier hazard chain (CGHC) events have reminded us of disasters during climate warming, especially in the Himalayas region. Here, we report a typical CGHC event in the Eastern Himalayas, where the retreated glaciers are widely distributed. Based on our observations and simulations, we completed the retrospective analysis of CGHC through its formation conditions, evolution process, and specific kinematic process. These analyses help us understand the driving mechanism, the volume-increasing effect, and the super-fluidity of CGHC. Our findings help improve such hazard chain identification and mitigation in the Eastern Himalayas and glacierized environments elsewhere in the world. New insights of Ice-rock avalanche hazard chain on retreated hanging glacier in Eastern Himalaya Erosion process on the trunk glacier led to a volume-increasing and super-fluidity of catastrophic glacier hazard chain (CGHC) The pre-evolution and formation of CGHC were closely related to climate warming