I pulled together a quick live Sustain What event today zooming out from the latest dramatic glacial lake outburst flood generated in Suicide Basin up in the mountains above Juneau, Alaska. That’s pretty far from most of us, but the challenge posed when glaciers block rivers and suddenly disgorge vast volumes of water extends to the Himalalyas, where millions of people live downstream of such deadly dynamics.

This webcast starts with my overview of current events, I include this video snapshot I made from the many great National Weather Service, U.S. Geological Survey and university resources (juneauflood.com) focused on GLOF monitoring and warning along the Mendenhall River and glacier basin.

I then segue to a rebroadcast of Deadly Himalayan Glacial Outburst Flood Foretold, With More Coming - my 2023 Sustain What conversation on a far more devastating outburst flood in Sikkim India with South Asian scientists and journalists (and US water-focused journalist Keith Schneider), including a researcher who predicted one such catastrophic flood two years before it unfolded.

Here’s that 2021 paper led by Ashim Sattar: Future Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) hazard of the South Lhonak Lake, Sikkim Himalaya.

Even more presciently, the Himalaya-based journalist Ramesh Bhushal wrote thie 2020 feature:

Glacial lakes become more deadly as Himalayan ice melts

Researchers map the most dangerous lakes and call on China and Nepal to work together to reduce the threat of catastrophic flooding

I follow journalists and scientists who tend to get ahead of threats and hope you do, too.

Here’s more on Juneau’s chronic summer flood threat situation. There’s a fantastic Story Map on the threat here:

Alan Gerard posted a great piece on Balanced Weather explaining how much federally funded science goes in to identifying, tracking and warning of such hazards:

To keep track of the situation in Juneau go to KTOO public media’s livestream:

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