After a glacial dam outburst destroyed homes in Alaska, a look at the risks of melting ice masses
But the relationship between the changing climate and glacial outburst floods like the one in Juneau is complicated, scientists say.
“The phenomenon itself is caused by climate, but the individual floods don't have anything to do with climate because they're basically just the case where water is filling up a basin and then draining at some point during the summer,” he said.threatening about 15 million peopleBut they're not something many in the U.S. think about — even in Alaska, which is home to the bulk of U.S. glaciers, many of them remote.
“As a glacier is thinning and retreating and changing, you can see some floods are going to stop happening and new ones are going to start happening. It's a variable system,” Labedz said.can mean diminished water supplies in parts of the world and could affect such things as agriculture and tourism.
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