The spectacular collapse, featured by The Atlantic magazine last year, was captured in more-or-less real time using remote sensing data by an international team of researchers, which included Dr. Stephen Evans, a professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Waterloo and Director of Waterloo’s Geological Engineering Program.
The team analyzed high-resolution remote sensing data from a variety of satellites between 1961 and 2016. Thermo-mechanical modelling of the collapsed glaciers showed how meltwater, due to climate change, initiated the collapse, with ice flows traveling nearly 8 km at speeds of 140 km/hour.
It’s the first detailed documentation of massive surge-like instability in the literature and identifies a new catastrophic hazard associated with mountain glaciers.
Read more at University of Waterloo
Image Credit: University of Waterloo