Inventory and classification of the post Little Ice Age glacial lakes in Svalbard

Wieczorek, Iwo; Strzelecki, Mateusz Czesław; Stachnik, Łukasz; Yde, Jacob Clement; Małecki, Jakub

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2021-364

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https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2021-364

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11 Jan 2022

| 11 Jan 2022

Status: this discussion paper is a preprint. It has been under review for the journal The Cryosphere (TC). The manuscript was not accepted for further review after discussion.

Inventory and classification of the post Little Ice Age glacial lakes in Svalbard

Iwo Wieczorek, Mateusz Czesław Strzelecki, Łukasz Stachnik, Jacob Clement Yde, and Jakub Małecki

Abstract. Rapid changes of glacial lakes are among the most visible indicators of global warming in glacierized areas around the world. The general trend is that the area and number of glacial lakes increase significantly in high mountain areas and polar latitudes. However, there is a lack of knowledge about the current state of glacial lakes in the High Arctic. This study aims to address this issue by providing the first glacial lake inventory from Svalbard, with focus on the genesis and evolution of glacial lakes since the end of the Little Ice Age. We use aerial photographs and topographic data from 1936 to 2012 and satellite imagery from 2013 to 2020. The inventory includes the development of 566 glacial lakes (total area of 145.91 km²) that were in direct contact with glaciers in 2008–2012. From the 1990s to the end of the 2000s, the total glacial lake area increased by nearly a factor of six. A decrease in the number of lakes between 2012 and 2020 is related to two main processes: the drainage of 197 lakes and the merger of smaller reservoirs into larger ones. The changes of glacial lakes show how climate change in the High Arctic affect proglacial geomorphology by enhanced formation of glacial lakes, leading to higher risks associated with glacier lake outburst floods in Svalbard.

Received: 30 Nov 2021 – Discussion started: 11 Jan 2022

Publisher's note: Copernicus Publications remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims made in the text, published maps, institutional affiliations, or any other geographical representation in this preprint. The responsibility to include appropriate place names lies with the authors.

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Iwo Wieczorek, Mateusz Czesław Strzelecki, Łukasz Stachnik, Jacob Clement Yde, and Jakub Małecki

Status: closed

RC1:
'Comment on tc-2021-364', Anonymous Referee #1, 24 Jan 2022

As my current knowledge, the detailed and comprehensive inventories and quantification of the changes of glacial lakes in Svalbard is are not reported up to now. A long time (1936-2020) area/number changes process of different types of glacial lakes were described using multi-remote sensing data in this paper. So, this is an original paper on an interesting topic of glacial lakes inventory and classification in Svalbard. However, there are some apparent deficiencies in current version, I think the manuscript should be substantially improved at least in methodology and discussion before publication.

(1) More detailed information about the remote sensing data used are suggested to provide, e.g., the spatial resolution of the remote sensing data, the source data of vectorised data from Norwegian Polar Institute, the coverage of the archival aerial photos taken during the 1936–1938 (I suggest showing the coverage boundaries for the remote sensing data that do not cover the entire area of Svalbard in Figure 1).

(2) As it is also mentioned in the manuscript, identifying the types of glacial lakes (e.g., glacial erosion lakes bedrock-dammed lakes, etc.) is usually difficult by remote sensing data. Can the authors provide further operated rules (or discussions) for identifying the types of glacial lakes?

(3) The paper does not mention the minimum area size of glacial lake. However, the minimum area size of glacial lake is possible to impact the lake number and area recorded in a given time phase (e.g., 1936-1938, 1990s, etc.) since the spatial resolution of the remote sensing data were used.

(4) Lake area errors of each glacial lake and region are suggested supplementing which usually determined by the spatial resolution of the remote sensing data and the methodology of glacial lake inventory.

(5) To outstand the differences and new insights of glacial lake in the High Arctic, extensive and intensified discussions are encouraged to compare the inventory methods, changes, potentially dangerous of glacial lakes in the High Arctic with those of glacial lakes in high mountain area in Discussion section.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2021-364-RC1
- AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Iwo Wieczorek, 19 Feb 2022
  
  Thank you for your valuable feedback. We believe that it will substantially help to improve the quality of our work. We will respond to your comments and suggestions as soon as possible.
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2021-364-AC1
RC2:
'Comment on tc-2021-364', Adam Emmer, 17 Feb 2022

This study of Iwo Wieczorek and colleagues aims at creating lake inventory of Svalbard, analysis of their spatial and evolution patterns. Such studies are – in my opinion – needed for several reasons (enhanced understanding to the post-LIA glacier and lake dynamics, enhanced GLOF hazard identification and risk management) and may be of interest for readers of The Cryosphere. The authors compile and analyze remote sensing data going back to 1938, i.e. beyond the satellite era, which is an advantage compared to similar studies done recently around the globe. However, the authors do not exploit these data in needed detail, or fail to present their results in a well-arranged and systematic way, and so the study looks more like a preliminary version of a future paper. For instance, not even basic statistics are provided for location (e.g. elevation, position in the lake-glacier system) and characteristics (e.g. area, geology, lake-glacier interaction) of individual lake dam types in individual steps in time. The authors briefly mention an impressive number of past GLOFs which they do not further elaborate on at all. The methodology is partly unclear and not enough details are provided for individual steps mentioned in 3.2, fairly limiting replicability of the work done. The integration of existing data with newly created data is not presented or discussed. The section on GLOF risk (better use susceptibility here) assessment is overall weak and needs to be improved substantially (analysis of past GLOFs could help you to derive indicators of potential future GLOFs). Discussion section needs some work (please discuss your data and methods, interpret your observations, comapre your observations with other regions, ...). Finally, I’m not a native English speaker, but I feel that the writing would benefit from careful proofreading and language polishing.

- - -

L1: I found the use of the LIA slightly misleading since you go back to 1930s (and actually there is not so much gained from the 1930s images)

L13: in Section 3.1, you present that some lake inventory is available from the NPI

L13: maybe ‘formation’ is more suitable than ‘genesis’

L19-20: this is not really supported by your results

L24: attention to

L32: this definition is unusual; if a glacier is gone (not present anymore), a lake is no more defined as a glacial lake?

L36-37: see also https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2020.107178

L39-43: this becomes weak considering existing lake inventories of NPI

L63: in general, more details are needed to make your methodology replicable; for instance – what is the minimum lake mapping size in different existing NPI inventories? How were they done? How are they methodologically compatible with your approach? Did you orthorectify the 1930s images? If yes, what digital elevation model was used? Did you manually delineate each lake in each analyzed period?

L68: please cite these data properly

L91-113: maybe a flowchart would work better than this description which is confusing in places

L92: what landscape conditions?

L94: it is not clear how lakes which are ice-distal or became ice-distal during the analyzed period are treated

L103: there are four decades between the end of the LIA and 1930s images; maybe you could change your wording

L131: please provide details about the DEM (acquisition date, resolution) and cite it properly

L136: dam material

L138-140: this is not clear to me

L141: this section is methodologically weak and should be substantially revised or left out

L153: please consider providing at least some descriptive statistics of characteristics of individual lake dam types

L176: this is confusing; please consider arranging your writing in this section chronologically

L181-182: this is not corresponding to what is shown in Fig. 7F

L197-198: how do you know these were GLOFs or fast drainages? For instance, you have no data in between 1938 and 1990s; is there any geomorphological evidence of past GLOFs? 183 GLOFs in one decade sounds exaggerating

L199-200: this is very interesting, but more analyses and data about these assumed GLOFs are needed

L205: how do you know that the dam has a low stability?

L205-206: what is the basis for this assumption?

L201-211: please support your statement by data / analysis or avoid

L218-225: referencing needed

L226: potential instability

L232: what seasonal variability? This is not analyzed in the study

L242: are located

L255 often have

L258: the majority of world’s GLOFs actually originated from ice-dammed lakes (see https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2016.07.001)

L259: please support your hypothesis with data / references

L270-271: clearly, this is a difference between high mountain and high latitude regions

Figures: most of your figures show spatial distribution of lakes, however, the evolution in time and trends are not visible from those; please consider enhancing your figures in a way that also evolution trends and patterns could be easily distilled; to save some space, Figs 4-6 could be merged (one map)

Fig. 1: please consider displaying basic topography

Table 3: please consider presenting lake counts as well as total lake areas for all studied periods

Table 4: decrease of lake counts from 2008-12 to 2013-19 (!); this surprising disappearance of 300 lakes in one decade and subsequent appearance of 100 new lakes are not discussed by the authors

- - -

To sum up, I’m convinced this study needs substantial revisions before it can be considered for publication. Considering current length of the text (less than 300 lines), there is certainly a room for improvements. I encourage the authors to revise their manuscript and I’m happy to review the revised version of this study, if requested to do so.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2021-364-RC2
- AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Iwo Wieczorek, 19 Feb 2022
  
  'Thank you for your valuable feedback. We believe that it will substantially help to improve the quality of our work. We will respond to your comments and suggestions as soon as possible.
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2021-364-AC2

Status: closed

RC1:
'Comment on tc-2021-364', Anonymous Referee #1, 24 Jan 2022

As my current knowledge, the detailed and comprehensive inventories and quantification of the changes of glacial lakes in Svalbard is are not reported up to now. A long time (1936-2020) area/number changes process of different types of glacial lakes were described using multi-remote sensing data in this paper. So, this is an original paper on an interesting topic of glacial lakes inventory and classification in Svalbard. However, there are some apparent deficiencies in current version, I think the manuscript should be substantially improved at least in methodology and discussion before publication.

(1) More detailed information about the remote sensing data used are suggested to provide, e.g., the spatial resolution of the remote sensing data, the source data of vectorised data from Norwegian Polar Institute, the coverage of the archival aerial photos taken during the 1936–1938 (I suggest showing the coverage boundaries for the remote sensing data that do not cover the entire area of Svalbard in Figure 1).

(2) As it is also mentioned in the manuscript, identifying the types of glacial lakes (e.g., glacial erosion lakes bedrock-dammed lakes, etc.) is usually difficult by remote sensing data. Can the authors provide further operated rules (or discussions) for identifying the types of glacial lakes?

(3) The paper does not mention the minimum area size of glacial lake. However, the minimum area size of glacial lake is possible to impact the lake number and area recorded in a given time phase (e.g., 1936-1938, 1990s, etc.) since the spatial resolution of the remote sensing data were used.

(4) Lake area errors of each glacial lake and region are suggested supplementing which usually determined by the spatial resolution of the remote sensing data and the methodology of glacial lake inventory.

(5) To outstand the differences and new insights of glacial lake in the High Arctic, extensive and intensified discussions are encouraged to compare the inventory methods, changes, potentially dangerous of glacial lakes in the High Arctic with those of glacial lakes in high mountain area in Discussion section.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2021-364-RC1
- AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Iwo Wieczorek, 19 Feb 2022
  
  Thank you for your valuable feedback. We believe that it will substantially help to improve the quality of our work. We will respond to your comments and suggestions as soon as possible.
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2021-364-AC1
RC2:
'Comment on tc-2021-364', Adam Emmer, 17 Feb 2022

This study of Iwo Wieczorek and colleagues aims at creating lake inventory of Svalbard, analysis of their spatial and evolution patterns. Such studies are – in my opinion – needed for several reasons (enhanced understanding to the post-LIA glacier and lake dynamics, enhanced GLOF hazard identification and risk management) and may be of interest for readers of The Cryosphere. The authors compile and analyze remote sensing data going back to 1938, i.e. beyond the satellite era, which is an advantage compared to similar studies done recently around the globe. However, the authors do not exploit these data in needed detail, or fail to present their results in a well-arranged and systematic way, and so the study looks more like a preliminary version of a future paper. For instance, not even basic statistics are provided for location (e.g. elevation, position in the lake-glacier system) and characteristics (e.g. area, geology, lake-glacier interaction) of individual lake dam types in individual steps in time. The authors briefly mention an impressive number of past GLOFs which they do not further elaborate on at all. The methodology is partly unclear and not enough details are provided for individual steps mentioned in 3.2, fairly limiting replicability of the work done. The integration of existing data with newly created data is not presented or discussed. The section on GLOF risk (better use susceptibility here) assessment is overall weak and needs to be improved substantially (analysis of past GLOFs could help you to derive indicators of potential future GLOFs). Discussion section needs some work (please discuss your data and methods, interpret your observations, comapre your observations with other regions, ...). Finally, I’m not a native English speaker, but I feel that the writing would benefit from careful proofreading and language polishing.

- - -

L1: I found the use of the LIA slightly misleading since you go back to 1930s (and actually there is not so much gained from the 1930s images)

L13: in Section 3.1, you present that some lake inventory is available from the NPI

L13: maybe ‘formation’ is more suitable than ‘genesis’

L19-20: this is not really supported by your results

L24: attention to

L32: this definition is unusual; if a glacier is gone (not present anymore), a lake is no more defined as a glacial lake?

L36-37: see also https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2020.107178

L39-43: this becomes weak considering existing lake inventories of NPI

L63: in general, more details are needed to make your methodology replicable; for instance – what is the minimum lake mapping size in different existing NPI inventories? How were they done? How are they methodologically compatible with your approach? Did you orthorectify the 1930s images? If yes, what digital elevation model was used? Did you manually delineate each lake in each analyzed period?

L68: please cite these data properly

L91-113: maybe a flowchart would work better than this description which is confusing in places

L92: what landscape conditions?

L94: it is not clear how lakes which are ice-distal or became ice-distal during the analyzed period are treated

L103: there are four decades between the end of the LIA and 1930s images; maybe you could change your wording

L131: please provide details about the DEM (acquisition date, resolution) and cite it properly

L136: dam material

L138-140: this is not clear to me

L141: this section is methodologically weak and should be substantially revised or left out

L153: please consider providing at least some descriptive statistics of characteristics of individual lake dam types

L176: this is confusing; please consider arranging your writing in this section chronologically

L181-182: this is not corresponding to what is shown in Fig. 7F

L197-198: how do you know these were GLOFs or fast drainages? For instance, you have no data in between 1938 and 1990s; is there any geomorphological evidence of past GLOFs? 183 GLOFs in one decade sounds exaggerating

L199-200: this is very interesting, but more analyses and data about these assumed GLOFs are needed

L205: how do you know that the dam has a low stability?

L205-206: what is the basis for this assumption?

L201-211: please support your statement by data / analysis or avoid

L218-225: referencing needed

L226: potential instability

L232: what seasonal variability? This is not analyzed in the study

L242: are located

L255 often have

L258: the majority of world’s GLOFs actually originated from ice-dammed lakes (see https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2016.07.001)

L259: please support your hypothesis with data / references

L270-271: clearly, this is a difference between high mountain and high latitude regions

Figures: most of your figures show spatial distribution of lakes, however, the evolution in time and trends are not visible from those; please consider enhancing your figures in a way that also evolution trends and patterns could be easily distilled; to save some space, Figs 4-6 could be merged (one map)

Fig. 1: please consider displaying basic topography

Table 3: please consider presenting lake counts as well as total lake areas for all studied periods

Table 4: decrease of lake counts from 2008-12 to 2013-19 (!); this surprising disappearance of 300 lakes in one decade and subsequent appearance of 100 new lakes are not discussed by the authors

- - -

To sum up, I’m convinced this study needs substantial revisions before it can be considered for publication. Considering current length of the text (less than 300 lines), there is certainly a room for improvements. I encourage the authors to revise their manuscript and I’m happy to review the revised version of this study, if requested to do so.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2021-364-RC2
- AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Iwo Wieczorek, 19 Feb 2022
  
  'Thank you for your valuable feedback. We believe that it will substantially help to improve the quality of our work. We will respond to your comments and suggestions as soon as possible.
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2021-364-AC2

Iwo Wieczorek, Mateusz Czesław Strzelecki, Łukasz Stachnik, Jacob Clement Yde, and Jakub Małecki

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Feb 2022	159	27	9	195
Mar 2022	60	30	3	93
Apr 2022	55	18	0	73
May 2022	25	19	1	45
Jun 2022	24	20	2	46
Jul 2022	11	6	0	17
Aug 2022	13	8	0	21
Sep 2022	8	7	2	17
Oct 2022	16	9	1	26
Nov 2022	17	19	2	38
Dec 2022	20	11	0	31
Jan 2023	14	21	1	36
Feb 2023	28	19	1	48
Mar 2023	19	10	0	29
Apr 2023	10	10	1	21
May 2023	15	11	2	28
Jun 2023	17	10	0	27
Jul 2023	12	13	4	29
Aug 2023	8	10	2	20
Sep 2023	18	10	2	30
Oct 2023	37	2	0	39
Nov 2023	14	5	3	22
Dec 2023	17	2	0	19
Jan 2024	13	6	0	19
Feb 2024	34	12	1	47
Mar 2024	30	20	2	52
Apr 2024	19	4	6	29
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Short summary

Glacial lakes development around the World has been observed since the end of the Little Ice Age. The whole process is especially rapid in Arctic region what shows last researches. One of the last regions which still has not been covered by data about changes of glacial lakes is the Svalbard Archipelago (Norway). We used remote sensing materials and methods to provide information's about changes of glacial lakes and to show major activity of glacial lakes outburst floods.


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Inventory and classification of the post Little Ice Age glacial lakes in Svalbard

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