scholarly journals Large drainages from short-lived glacial lakes in the Teskey Range, Tien Shan Mountains, Central Asia

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 983-995 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiyuki Narama ◽  
Mirlan Daiyrov ◽  
Murataly Duishonakunov ◽  
Takeo Tadono ◽  
Hayato Sato ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Early Summer ◽  
Tien Shan ◽  
Water Volume ◽  
Lake Basin ◽  
Glacial Lakes ◽  
Study Region ◽  
Field Surveys ◽  
Supraglacial Lakes ◽  
Outflow Channel ◽  
Tien Shan Mountains

Abstract. Four large drainages from glacial lakes occurred during 2006–2014 in the western Teskey Range, Kyrgyzstan. These floods caused extensive damage, killing people and livestock as well as destroying property and crops. Using satellite data analysis and field surveys of this area, we find that the water volume that drained at Kashkasuu glacial lake in 2006 was 194 000  m3, at western Zyndan lake in 2008 was 437 000 m3, at Jeruy lake in 2013 was 182 000 m3, and at Karateke lake in 2014 was 123 000 m3. Due to their subsurface outlet, we refer to these short-lived glacial lakes as the “tunnel-type”, a type that drastically grows and drains over a few months. From spring to early summer, these lakes either appear, or in some cases, significantly expand from an existing lake (but non-stationary), and then drain during summer. Our field surveys show that the short-lived lakes form when an ice tunnel through a debris landform gets blocked. The blocking is caused either by the freezing of stored water inside the tunnel during winter or by the collapse of ice and debris around the ice tunnel. The draining then occurs through an opened ice tunnel during summer. The growth–drain cycle can repeat when the ice-tunnel closure behaves like that of typical supraglacial lakes on debris-covered glaciers. We argue here that the geomorphological characteristics under which such short-lived glacial lakes appear are (i) a debris landform containing ice (ice-cored moraine complex), (ii) a depression with water supply on a debris landform as a potential lake basin, and (iii) no visible surface outflow channel from the depression, indicating the existence of an ice tunnel. Applying these characteristics, we examine 60 depressions (> 0.01 km2) in the study region and identify here 53 of them that may become short-lived glacial lakes, with 34 of these having a potential drainage exceeding 10 m3 s−1 at peak discharge.

scholarly journals Large drainages from short-lived glacial lakes in the Teskey Range, Tien Shan Mountains, Central Asia

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiyuki Narama ◽  
Mirlan Daiyrov ◽  
Murataly Duishonakunov ◽  
Takeo Tadono ◽  
Hayato Satoh ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Water Channel ◽  
Early Summer ◽  
Tien Shan ◽  
Glacial Lake ◽  
Lake Basin ◽  
Glacial Lakes ◽  
Field Surveys ◽  
Supraglacial Lakes ◽  
Flooding Events ◽  
Tien Shan Mountains

Abstract. During 2006–2014 in the western Teskey Range, Kyrgyzstan, four large drainages from glacial lakes have occurred. These flooding events caused extensive damage, killing people and livestock as well as destroying bridges, roads, homes, and crops. According to satellite data analysis and field surveys, the volume of water that drained at Kashkasuu glacial lake in 2006 was 198,000 m3, that at Jeruy lake in 2013 was 163,000 m3, and that at Karateke lake in 2014 was 169,000 m3. Due to their tunnel outlet, we refer here to these glacial lakes as a tunnel-type of short-lived glacial lakes that drastically grow and drain over several months. From spring to early summer, such a lake either appears, or in some cases, significantly expands from an existing lake, and then drains during summer. Our field surveys show that these short-lived lakes form when the ice tunnels inside a debris landform get blocked. The blocking is caused either by the freezing of stored water during winter or from collapse of the ice tunnel. The draining occurs through an open ice tunnel during summer. The growth–drain cycle can repeat when the ice-tunnel closure behaves like that on supraglacial lakes on debris-covered glacier. We argue here that the geomorphological conditions in which such a short-lived glacial lake appears are (i) existence of an ice-containing debris-landform (moraine complex), (ii) existence of lake-basin depressions having its water supply on a debris-landform, and (iii) no surface water channel from lake-basin depressions. Using these geomorphological conditions, we examined 60 lake-basin depressions (> 0.01 km2) in this region and identify here 56 of them that are potential locations for a short-lived glacial lake.

scholarly journals Large carnivores and low diversity of optimal prey: a comparison of the diets of snow leopards Panthera uncia and wolves Canis lupus in Sarychat-Ertash Reserve in Kyrgyzstan

Oryx ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 529-535 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kubanychbek Jumabay-Uulu ◽  
Per Wegge ◽  
Charudutt Mishra ◽  
Koustubh Sharma
Keyword(s):  
Canis Lupus ◽  
Tien Shan ◽  
Snow Leopard ◽  
Large Prey ◽  
Field Surveys ◽  
Competition For Food ◽  
Snow Leopards ◽  
Ovis Ammon ◽  
Tien Shan Mountains ◽  
Panthera Uncia

AbstractIn the cold and arid mountains of Central Asia, where the diversity and abundance of wild ungulates are generally low, resource partitioning among coexisting carnivores is probably less distinct than in prey-rich areas. Thus, similar-sized carnivores are likely to compete for food. We compared the summer diets of snow leopards Panthera uncia and wolves Canis lupus in Sarychat-Ertash Reserve in the Tien-Shan mountains of Kyrgyzstan, based on analysis of genetically confirmed scats. Abundances of the principal prey species, argali Ovis ammon and Siberian ibex Capra sibirica, were estimated from field surveys. The diets consisted of few species, with high interspecific overlap (Pianka's index = 0.91). Argali was the predominant prey, with > 50% frequency of occurrence in both snow leopard and wolf scats. This was followed by Siberian ibex and marmots Marmota baibacina. Being largely unavailable, remains of livestock were not detected in any of the scats. In the snow leopard diet, proportions of argali and ibex were in line with the relative availabilities of these animals in the Reserve. This was in contrast to the diet of wolf, where argali occurred according to availability and ibex was significantly underrepresented. The high diet overlap indicates that the two predators might compete for food when the diversity of profitable, large prey is low. Competition may be more intense in winter, when marmots are not available. Hunting of argali and ibex outside the Reserve may be unsustainable and therefore reduce their abundances over time. This will affect both predators negatively and intensify competition for food. Reduction in ibex populations will directly affect the snow leopard, and the wolf is likely to be indirectly affected as a result of increased snow leopard predation of argali.

scholarly journals Seasonal drainage of supraglacial lakes on debris-covered glaciers in the Tien Shan Mountains, Central Asia

Geomorphology ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 286 ◽  
pp. 133-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiyuki Narama ◽  
Mirlan Daiyrov ◽  
Takeo Tadono ◽  
Minako Yamamoto ◽  
Andreas Kääb ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Tien Shan ◽  
Supraglacial Lakes ◽  
Tien Shan Mountains

scholarly journals Onset of calving at supraglacial lakes on debris-covered glaciers of the Nepal Himalaya

2009 ◽  
Vol 55 (193) ◽  
pp. 909-917 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Sakai ◽  
K. Nishimura ◽  
T. Kadota ◽  
N. Takeuchi
Keyword(s):  
Water Temperature ◽  
Water Surface ◽  
Glacial Lakes ◽  
Valley Wind ◽  
Nepal Himalaya ◽  
Field Surveys ◽  
Water Currents ◽  
Ice Melt ◽  
Supraglacial Lakes

AbstractField surveys of supraglacial ponds on debris-covered glaciers in the Nepal Himalaya clarify that ice-cliff calving occurs when the fetch exceeds ∼80 m. Thermal undercutting is important for calving processes in glacial lakes, and subaqueous ice melt rates during the melt and freeze seasons are therefore estimated under simple geomorphologic conditions. In particular, we focus on the differences between valley wind-driven water currents in various fetches during the melt season. Our results demonstrate that the subaqueous ice melt rate exceeds the ice-cliff melt rate when the fetch is >20 m and water temperature is 2–4°C. Calculations suggest the onset of calving due to thermal undercutting is controlled by water currents driven by winds at the surface of the lake, which develop with expanding water surface.

scholarly journals Spatially and Temporally Resolved Monitoring of Glacial Lake Changes in Alps During the Recent Two Decades

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jingsong Ma ◽  
Chunqiao Song ◽  
Yanjun Wang
Keyword(s):  
Glacial Lake ◽  
Water Volume ◽  
High Mountain ◽  
Lake Area ◽  
Glacial Lakes ◽  
Holistic View ◽  
Supraglacial Lakes ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Alps ◽  
The Mean

Climate warming is intensifying the melting of glaciers and the growth of glacial lakes in the Alps, which has a profound impact on the management of water resources and high-mountain hydropower in this region. However, the research on the spatial distribution and temporal evolution of the Alps glacial lakes of various types still lacks a holistic view. In this study, we developed an inventory of Alps glacial lakes of different types and then obtained the annual areas of these lakes from 2000 to 2019 using JRC Global Surface Water and Global Land Analysis and Discovery data at a resolution of 30 m. A total of 498 glacial lakes (>0.01 km2) with the net area of 33.77 ± 6.94 km2 were identified in the Alps in 2019 and are mainly distributed in the western and central Alps. These Alps glacial lakes, with the area ranging 0.01–1.59 km2, are generally dominated by small-sized ones. The comparison of lakes of different types indicated that ice-uncontacted lakes are dominant in number and area, accounting for 59.4 and 58.4%, respectively. In terms of the elevation distribution, almost half of the lakes are concentrated at the altitude of 2,250–2,750 m (a.s.l.). Meanwhile, the mean altitude of small glacial lakes is higher than that of large lakes. The distribution of ice-contacted lakes and supraglacial lakes were more concentrated, and the mean altitude was higher. During the study period, the number, area, and water volume of glacial lakes were increasing, but the expansion varied between different periods. The changing trends of the glacial lake area and volume were consistent and presents in three stages, as the glacial lake expanded rapidly in the first 5 years and in the last 7 years and remained relatively stable between 2005 and 2012. The number and area of glacier-fed lakes increased rapidly, while the non-glacier-fed lakes were relatively stable. The area change rate of supraglacial lakes was the largest (+47%). This study provides a spatially-complete and temporally-consecutive picture of glacial lake changes in the Alps and can be greatly helpful for future research on climate-glacier-lake interactions, glacial lake outburst floods, and freshwater resources in this region.

scholarly journals Formation and Outburst of the Toguz-Bulak Glacial Lake in the Northern Teskey Range, Tien Shan, Kyrgyzstan

Geosciences ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 468
Author(s):  
Mirlan Daiyrov ◽  
Chiyuki Narama ◽  
Andreas Kääb ◽  
Takeo Tadono
Keyword(s):  
Tien Shan ◽  
Glacial Lake ◽  
Lake Basin ◽  
Lake Area ◽  
Outburst Flood ◽  
Field Surveys ◽  
Digital Elevation ◽  
Summer Temperatures ◽  
Satellite Radar ◽  
Northern Tien Shan

In Kyrgyzstan, outburst flood disasters from glacial lakes are increasing. An example is the sudden drainage on 8 August 2019 of the Toguz-Bulak glacial lake in the Tosor river basin of the northern Tien Shan region. In this study, we used remote sensing and field surveys to examine the reasons for the outburst. We found that the lake area changed from 0.021 km² to 0.002 km2 due to the outburst, in which most of the initial 130,000 m3 of water discharged within four hours. In examining the longer-term behavior of this lake, we found that from 2010 through 2019, it appears in June and disappears in September every year. Its maximum area occurs in late July and early August. With the expansion of the lake basin between 2010 and 2019, the lake also increased greatly in size, particularly so in the three years before the outburst, linked to high summer temperatures and the resulting higher inflow of glacier meltwater, finally leading to the sudden drainage in 2019. Before this outburst, a 2-m high moraine dam retained the lake. Continuously inflowing meltwater and the related increasing pressure by the lake water mass eventually broke the moraine dam. Satellite radar interferometry revealed active displacement fringes in the lake basin and moraine dam due to the melting and subsidence of buried ice. An analysis using digital elevation models from 1964 and 2010 also confirms the surface lowering in the lake basin by up to 8.5 m and on the moraine dam by 2 m. Such lowering of the proglacial moraine complex destabilized the moraine dam.

scholarly journals Distribution and recent variations of supraglacial lakes on dendritic-type glaciers in the Khan Tengri-Tomur Mountains, Central Asia

2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 4545-4584 ◽  
Author(s):  
Q. Liu ◽  
C. Mayer ◽  
S. Liu
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Air Temperature ◽  
Lake Area ◽  
Ice Melting ◽  
Glacial Lakes ◽  
Study Region ◽  
Supraglacial Lakes ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Area Limit ◽  
Upper Boundary

Abstract. Supraglacial lakes are widely distributed on glaciers in the Tomur-Khan Tengri Tianshan Mountains, Central Asia. The existence and development of supraglacial lakes play an important role in the ice melting processes and also in the storage and release of glacial melt water. Here we mapped the supraglacial lakes of eight typical debris-covered dendritic-type glaciers around the Tomur-Khan Tengri peaks based on 9 Landsat TM/ETM+ images acquired in the summers of 1990 until 2011. With a lower area limit of 3600 m2 for a conservative identification of glacial lakes, we mapped 775 supraglacial lakes and 38 marginal glacial lakes in total. Our results indicate that supraglacial lakes (area > 3600 m2) in the study region never develop beyond an elevation of about 3850 m a.s.l., 800 m lower than the maximum upper boundary of debris cover (4650 m a.s.l.). The area-elevation distribution shows that lakes are predominantly occured close to the altitude of 3250 m a.s.l., where the clean ice simultaneously disappears. The majority of the supraglacial lakes are found on the Tomur Glacier and the South Inylchek Glacier, two strongly debris-covered dendritic-type glaciers in the region. As for the multi-year variation of lake area, the summer total and mean areas of supraglacial lakes show some variability from 1990 and 2005 but increased noticeably between 2005 and 2011. The mean area of the mapped lakes reached a maximum in 2010. We found that the area of supraglacial lakes is positively correlated to the total precipitation in summer (July to September) but negatively correlated to the mean spring air temperature (April to June). Pre-summer air temperature fluctuations likely have a stronger impact on the different evolution processes of glacial drainage, evolving from unconnected to connected systems, which may lead to the drainage of larger supraglacial lakes and results in shrinkage of the total and mean lake area during the summer.

scholarly journals Water storage and drainage of short-lived lakes in the Teskey Range, Central Asia

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirlan Daiyrov ◽  
Chiyuki Narama
Keyword(s):  
Water Level ◽  
Tien Shan ◽  
Dam Failure ◽  
Eastern Himalaya ◽  
Water Volume ◽  
Kyrgyz Republic ◽  
Glacial Lakes ◽  
Outburst Flood ◽  
Short Period ◽  
Lake Type

Abstract. In the Teskey Range of the Tien Shan (Kyrgyz Republic), four outburst flood disasters from short-lived glacial lakes caused severe damages in the downstream part in 2006, 2008, 2013, and 2014. The short-lived lake grows rapidly and drain within a few months, due to closure and opening of an outlet ice-tunnel in moraine complex at glacier front. The outburst flood of this lake type is a major hazard in this region, it differs from many cases of moraine-dam failure in the eastern Himalaya. To clarify how short-lived lakes store and drain water for short period, we examined its recent changes in water level, area, volume, and discharge with a field survey and satellite data analysis. Korumdu lake appeared and drained within about one month during all summers during 2014–2019 except that in 2016. Water-level data recorded by a data logger and time-lapse camera images show that the lake appeared and expanded suddenly from July to August in 2017–2019. The timing indicates that the lake formed when an outlet ice-tunnel (subsurface channel) drain was blocked by deposition of debris and ice due to ice melting, not by freezing of stored water. Based on calculation of UAV DSMs and water level in 2017, the lake's water volume reached 234,000 m3 within 29 days, and then the water discharged for 17 days at a maximum rate of 0.66 m3/s. The small discharge indicates that the diameter of the outlet ice-tunnel was much smaller than those of four short-lived lakes in the same range that caused large drainages (12–27 m3/s) in 2006, 2008, 2013, and 2014. As the results, the dimensions of the outlet ice-tunnel of short-lived glacial lakes presently are related to the flooding scale. Recent warming temperatures may increase both the size of the tunnels and the basin volumes leading to greater hazard from such lakes in the future. In addition, we investigated the timing of appearance of 160 short-lived glacial lakes in this region using Landsat-7/8, Sentinel-2, and PlanetScope satellite images (2013–2018). We conclude that tunnel closure of 117 lakes was due to deposition of debris and ice during summer. The appearance of a short-lived glacial lake is inevitable in summer when the melting rate is high. The characteristics of this lake type might be shown in another Asian mountain permafrost regions.

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