Mechanisms leading to the 2016 giant twin glacier collapses, Aru Range, Tibet

Gilbert, Adrien; Leinss, Silvan; Kargel, Jeffrey; Kääb, Andreas; Gascoin, Simon; Leonard, Gregory; Berthier, Etienne; Karki, Alina; Yao, Tandong

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-2883-2018

Articles | Volume 12, issue 9

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-2883-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-2883-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 12, issue 9

Research article

| Highlight paper

|

07 Sep 2018

Research article | Highlight paper |

| 07 Sep 2018

Mechanisms leading to the 2016 giant twin glacier collapses, Aru Range, Tibet

Adrien Gilbert, Silvan Leinss, Jeffrey Kargel, Andreas Kääb, Simon Gascoin, Gregory Leonard, Etienne Berthier, Alina Karki, and Tandong Yao

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Final revised paper (published on 07 Sep 2018)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 15 Mar 2018)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Review', Martin Truffer, 28 May 2018
- AC1: 'Response to Reviewers', Adrien Gilbert, 02 Jul 2018
RC2: 'Good results, sensitivity experiments needed, poor narration', Irina Rogozhina, 03 Jun 2018
- AC2: 'Response to Reviewers', Adrien Gilbert, 02 Jul 2018

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Adrien Gilbert on behalf of the Authors (02 Jul 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (18 Jul 2018) by Arjen Stroeven

RR by Irina Rogozhina (10 Aug 2018)

RR by Martin Truffer (13 Aug 2018)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

This paper is very interesting and of high scientific quality. The review comments have been addressed and I recommend publication after some editing. I have two remaining scientific comments:

1) In the Kolka Glacier case, it might not be necessary that water pressures increase to compensate for the added load. If we approximate the overburden pressure by rho g h cos(alpha), where alpha is the surface slope, and the basal stress by rho g h sin(alpha), then an instability would occur for a Delta h if the increased shear stress exceeds the increased shear strength. That would happen for tan(alpha) > tan(phi), where phi is the friction angle.

2) A picture is worth a thousand words: Would it be possible to publish the picture in the response to reviewers? I found it hugely insightful, especially the way it shows the lateral margin of the detachment zone.

The language in the manuscript is much improved, but can still use a bit of editing. Long and convoluted sentences that have to be read multiple times to understand are still common. As a rule of thumb, most sentences three lines and longer would benefit from splitting. Some editorial comments:

p.1,l.24: delete 'later'
p.1,l.25: on -> under; for -> under
p.1,l.25-27: consider splitting into two sentences
p.1,l.28-30: awkward sentence
p.2,l.2-4: consider splitting this sentence
p.2,l.20-23: dito
p.3,l.6: fix parentheses for citation
p.4,l.14: delete 'that reads'
p.4,eqn 4: dh/dt should be a partial derivative, same on next page
p.5,l.3: delete 'using'
p.5,l.5: delete 'in this case'
p.5,l.12: that -> the
p.5,l.27: by -> with
p.6,l.20: delete 'initially' (start already implies initially)
p.6,l.30-31: I don't understand this, how is debris thickness inferred?
p.7,l.11: 'as such show under normal conditions' -> 'thus would normally show'
p.7,l.30: buttresses -> buttress
p.7,l.31: steady-state-conditions -> steady-state conditions,
p.8,l.2: comma after 'stress'
p.9,l.22: on -> of
p.9,l.23: comma after '2016'
p.10,l.13-16: split and reword sentence
p.10,l.21: least-affected -> least affected
p.10,l.25: therefor -> therefore
p.10,l.32: delete 'r'
p.10,l.33: delete 'this' and 'using'
p.10,l.34: delete 'for instance notorious'
p.11,l.20: Though -> While
p.11,l.21: delete 'but'
p.12,l.1: soft-bed -> soft bed
p.12,l.23: lower than THE driving stress
p.14,l.32: only A few ..
p.15,l.12: shear-rate -> shear rate
Fig. 2 caption: delete 'vertical component of' (emergence velocity is the vertical component)
Fig.5 caption: ... with black hatched lines showing temperate areas. The inset highlights ...

Martin Truffer

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ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (21 Aug 2018) by Arjen Stroeven

AR by Adrien Gilbert on behalf of the Authors (23 Aug 2018) Author's response Manuscript

Short summary

In Tibet, two glaciers suddenly collapsed in summer 2016 and produced two gigantic ice avalanches, killing nine people. This kind of phenomenon is extremely rare. By combining a detailed modelling study and high-resolution satellite observations, we show that the event was triggered by an increasing meltwater supply in the fine-grained material underneath the two glaciers. Contrary to what is often thought, this event is not linked to a change in the thermal condition at the glacier base.