Declining discharge of glacier outburst floods through the Holocene in central Patagonia

Benito, G. ; Thorndycraft, V.R. ; Medialdea, A. ; Machado, M.J. ; Sancho, C. ; Dussaillant, A.

Resumen: Glacier outburst floods are a major hazard in glacierized catchments. Global analyses have shown reduced frequency of glacier floods over recent decades but there is limited longer-term data on event magnitude and frequency. Here, we present a Holocene palaeoflood record from the Río Baker (Chilean Patagonia), quantifying the discharge and timing of glacier floods over millennial timescales. A catastrophic flood of 110, 000 m3/s (0.11 Sv) occurred at 9.6 ± 0.8 ka, during final stages of the Late Glacial Interglacial Transition, followed by five flood-phases coeval or post-dating Holocene neoglacials. Highest flood frequencies occurred at 4.3–4.4 ka, with 26 floods of minimum discharges of 10, 000–11, 000 m3/s, and 0.6 ka with 10 floods exceeding 4600–5700 m3/s. The largest modern outburst flood recorded surpassed ~3810 m3/s. Thus glacier flood magnitude declines from the order of 0.1 to 0.01 Sv over the Early to Mid Holocene, and to 0.001 Sv in the instrumental record.

Idioma: Inglés

DOI: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2021.106810

Año: 2021

Publicado en: QUATERNARY SCIENCE REVIEWS 256 (2021), 106810 [26 pp]
ISSN: 0277-3791

Factor impacto JCR: 4.456 (2021)

Categ. JCR: GEOGRAPHY, PHYSICAL rank: 12 / 50 = 0.24 (2021) - Q1 - T1
Categ. JCR: GEOSCIENCES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY rank: 48 / 202 = 0.238 (2021) - Q1 - T1

Factor impacto CITESCORE: 7.3 - Agricultural and Biological Sciences (Q1) - Earth and Planetary Sciences (Q1) - Social Sciences (Q1) - Environmental Science (Q1)

Factor impacto SCIMAGO: 1.694 - Archeology (Q1) - Global and Planetary Change (Q1) - Geology (Q1) - Archeology (arts and humanities) (Q1)

Tipo y forma: Artículo (Versión definitiva)