Dam type and lake location characterize ice-marginal lake area change in Alaska and NW Canada between 1984 and 2019

Rick, Brianna; McGrath, Daniel; Armstrong, William; McCoy, Scott W.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-297-2022

Articles | Volume 16, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-297-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-297-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 16, issue 1

Research article

|

25 Jan 2022

Research article |

| 25 Jan 2022

Dam type and lake location characterize ice-marginal lake area change in Alaska and NW Canada between 1984 and 2019

Brianna Rick, Daniel McGrath, William Armstrong, and Scott W. McCoy

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-297-2022-supplement

Data sets

Multi-decadal Glacial Lake Inventory in the Alaska Region between 1984 and 2019 B. Rick and D. McGrath https://doi.org/10.18739/A2MK6591G

Short summary

Glacial lakes impact societies as both resources and hazards. Lakes form, grow, and drain as glaciers thin and retreat, and understanding lake evolution is a critical first step in assessing their hazard potential. We map glacial lakes in Alaska between 1984 and 2019. Overall, lakes grew in number and area, though lakes with different damming material (ice, moraine, bedrock) behaved differently. Namely, ice-dammed lakes decreased in number and area, a trend lost if dam type is not considered.