Glacier response to the transition from lake- to land-terminating following a glacial lake outburst flood at Jinwu Glacier, southeastern Tibet

Luo, Yunyi; Liu, Qiao; Fu, Yin; Lu, Xueyuan; Yin, Yongsheng; Yang, Jiawei; Zheng, Guoxiong; Lu, Xuyang

doi:10.5194/tc-20-5883-2026

Articles | Volume 20, issue 10

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-5883-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-5883-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 20, issue 10

Research article

|

13 Oct 2026

Research article |

| 13 Oct 2026

Glacier response to the transition from lake- to land-terminating following a glacial lake outburst flood at Jinwu Glacier, southeastern Tibet

Yunyi Luo, Qiao Liu, Yin Fu, Xueyuan Lu, Yongsheng Yin, Jiawei Yang, Guoxiong Zheng, and Xuyang Lu

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-5883-2026-supplement

Data sets

Elevation changes of High Mountain Asia from 2000 to 2016 Fanny Brun et al. https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.876545

Dataset for ``Glacier response to the transition from lake- to land-terminating following a glacial lake outburst flood at Jinwu Glacier, southeastern Tibet'' Y. Luo https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23190897

Short summary

After a glacial lake outburst flood in 2020, Jinwu Glacier in southeastern Tibet lost contact with its lake. Using satellite images, we found that the glacier front slowed by about 44% and showed ice-cliff collapse and a short-lived advance. The study shows that sudden lake drainage can rapidly change glacier behaviour, with implications for how lake-terminating glaciers evolve after outburst floods.