Climate warming and stability of cold hanging glaciers: Lessons from the gigantic 1895 Altels break-off

TL;DR

This study uses a new numerical model to analyze the 1895 Altels hanging glacier collapse, revealing that basal water infiltration and a two-phase destabilization process precede the collapse, providing insights into glacier stability under warming conditions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel numerical modeling approach to simulate glacier break-offs, highlighting the role of basal friction reduction and water infiltration in triggering collapses.

Findings

Collapse occurs only with reduced basal friction due to water infiltration.

A two-phase destabilization process precedes collapse: quiescent then active.

Visible signs of destabilization appear just days before the event.

Abstract

The Altels hanging glacier broke off on September 11, 1895. The ice volume of this catastrophic rupture was estimated at $\rm 4.10^6$ cubic meters and is the largest ever observed ice fall event in the Alps. The causes of this collapse are however not entirely clear. Based on previous studies, we reanalyzed this break-off event, with the help of a new numerical model, initially developed by Faillettaz and others (2010) for gravity-driven instabilities. The simulations indicate that a break-off event is only possible when the basal friction at the bedrock is reduced in a restricted area, possibly induced by the storage of infiltrated water within the glacier. Moreover, our simulations reveal a two-step behavior: (i) A first quiescent phase, without visible changes, with a duration depending on the rate of basal changes; (ii) An active phase with a rapid increase of basal motion over a few days. The general lesson obtained from the comparison between the simulations and the available evidence is that visible signs of the destabilization process of a hanging glacier, resulting from a progressive warming of the ice/bed interface towards a temperate regime, will appear just a few days prior to the collapse.