For a City Staring Down the Barrel of a Climate-Driven Flood, A New Study Could be the Smoking Gun
A lawsuit is leaning on the new research that found a global warming fingerprint on the melting glacier threatening to send an outburst flood into Huaraz, Peru.
February 4, 2021
Siphon pipes lead up the mountain to Laguna Palcacocha, a swollen glacial lake in the Andes mountain range in the Ancash Region of Peru on Wednesday, July 12, 2017. The siphons were installed to reduce the volume of the lake and to try and prevent a dam rupture but were damaged in the recent icefall an only two still work. Credit: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
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IMAGE: Historical photographs (first three views) and satellite images show how Lake Palcacocha has grown as the glacier has receded. The lake is now about 34 times its volume in 1970. view more
Credit: Stuart-Smith et al./Nature Geoscience
As the planet warms, glaciers are retreating and causing changes in the world s mountain water systems. For the first time, scientists at the University of Oxford and the University of Washington have directly linked human-induced climate change to the risk of flooding from a glacial lake known as one of the world s greatest flood risks.
The study examined the case of Lake Palcacocha in the Peruvian Andes, which could cause flooding with devastating consequences for 120,000 residents in the city of Huaraz. The paper, published Feb. 4 in