What happens when glaciers melt?

Glacier experts from NTNU’s Department of Geography are investigating the effects of climate change in collaboration with researchers from eight countries.

Civil protection is an important aspect of the large CryoSCOPE project because melting glaciers can lead to both more floods and more drought.

The new Earth Surface Science group is currently just a small team of researchers, but over the next four years, they will take part in CryoSCOPE, which recently received EUR 7.2 million from EU Horizon. This is equivalent to approximately NOK 81 million.

Pascal Egli, an associate professor at the Department of Geography, will be in charge of the work conducted at NTNU. The research will focus on permafrost, snow and glaciers in Europe and the Indian Himalayas.

“We will continue and expand our work on taking measurements in the field and modelling the behaviour of glaciers,” says Egli.

Floods and droughts in Norway and Switzerland

From 2025 to 2029, the researchers will investigate the impact climate change has on retreating glaciers and natural hazards that may arise as a result: sudden and often violent glacial floods and droughts.

CryoSCOPE is an acronym of ‘CRYOsphere Science Concluding in new Observations and Productive Exploitation’.

Researchers from 14 research institutions in six EU countries, Switzerland, and India will be participating. The main project has a total budget of approximately EUR 9.2 million, or NOK 104 million. EUR 7.2 million comes from the EU, and the rest from Switzerland and partners in India.

NTNU’s share is EUR 684,000, which is equivalent to just over NOK 7.5 million.

Knowledge about complex interactions

The primary goal is to gain greater understanding of the interaction between the cryosphere, atmosphere and climate.

• The cryosphere comprises the frozen portion of the Earth’s surface where water is in solid form.
• The atmosphere is the layer of air that surrounds the Earth.

More knowledge increases the possibility of predicting how a changing climate will affect the cryosphere – and vice versa.

Based on field studies from Norway and Switzerland, Pascal’s group will contribute more knowledge about glacial hydrology, or the water flow from melting glaciers and outburst floods.

The latter are also called jökulhlaups and come from lakes formed from glacial ice, meltwater and rainfall. The water level in glacial lakes can vary rapidly and significantly. They can empty in just a few hours, and jökulhlaups can cause extensive damage on their way downstream.

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Models simulating the behaviour of glaciers

Pascal Egli is from Switzerland and has a PhD in geography, with a focus on geophysics and glacial hydrology, from the University of Lausanne. As an environmental engineer (ETH Zurich), he has worked extensively with natural hazard engineering and modelling, and has experience from fieldwork on numerous alpine glaciers in Norway, Switzerland, Chile, and Nepal.

This summer, he will be in charge of the fieldwork in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan, where researchers from the Gotheca project at NTNU are investigating areas that have active glaciers and are at risk of jökulhlaups.

In the new CryoSCOPE project, they will test a new combination of glacier models and compare the accuracy of the models to extensive data they have collected from glacial fieldwork.

These data include measurements of changes in the water level, discharge of glacial water, weather data, and ice thicknesses.

The models they develop will be based on data from Rembesdalskåka glacier at Hardangerjøkulen in Norway and Grosser Aletschgletscher glacier in Switzerland.

Emergency preparedness and melting glaciers

The goal is to develop better, more efficient models that can simulate glacial behaviour in general, and jökulhlaups in particular.

The CryoSCOPE project also focuses on civil protection and the development of emergency preparedness in regions that are particularly vulnerable. In the human geography part of the NTNU project, the researchers will investigate how melting glaciers affect local communities in Norway, Central Europe, and India. The plan is to interview people who live there about how they experience, respond to, and adapt to the changes that are happening around them.

The importance of knowing how glaciers behave

In Norway, retreating glaciers will lead to a decline in hydropower production, especially during the summer months. Monitoring glacial development is also important for the power companies; they are interested in models that can predict future developments so they can plan their production in the best possible way.

Jökulhlaups still pose a risk, but the danger to people and infrastructure is relatively small due to safety measures and dammed hydropower reservoirs. For example, Rembesdalsvatnet lake next to Rembesdalskåka glacier has been designed to withstand powerful glacial flooding from Nedre Demmevatnet lake.

Glaciers and lakes as test areas

Glaciers and glacial lakes in Norway will be great test areas for the researchers’ glacier models in the CryoSCOPE project.

“They can provide us with knowledge that can be used in other areas, such as places in Pakistan or India, where the safety of the downstream population is more at risk,” says Pascal Egli.

In Switzerland, the risk of dangerous jökulhlaups still exists in a few places, but like in Norway, safety measures have been implemented.

“In recent years, many glaciers have retreated so far that there are few glacial lakes left that pose a flood hazard,” says the associate professor.

Drought is a bigger problem in Switzerland

Pascal Egli says that drought is a much bigger challenge in Switzerland, where the problem is caused by retreating glaciers.

“Climate models predict much warmer and drier summers in the Alps by the end of this century, and most of the glaciers will disappear if these trends continue. The meltwater will then disappear from the alpine river systems. Over the past two summers, we have seen the consequences, with almost dried-up riverbeds in formerly large rivers like the Po in Italy,” says Pascal Egli.

In Switzerland, the Rhône River has not yet suffered from drought due to the large volumes of meltwater from glaciers. However, the researcher predicts this will likely change in the near future.

“Much suggests that the periods of extremely high water flow due to rapid glacier melting are over in many places, because the glaciers are disappearing,” explains Egli.

More frequent and more torrential rain

Both Norway and Switzerland must prepare for more than just floods and droughts. The climate models predict that torrential rain will be both more frequent and more intense.

“If a smaller portion of the precipitation falls as snow, and if rain more frequently falls on snow during winter, it is likely that floods will occur more often and that they will be larger. This will happen, even at higher elevations and in places that have previously tended to be covered in snow all winter,” says Pascal Egli.

At the same time, the risk of flooding from melting snow in the spring may decrease due to less snow in the mountains.

Developing better climate models

The glaciologist believes that the research conducted in CryoSCOPE will benefit practically everyone.

Experts are investigating conditions at multiple locations, because what happens locally at these places has an impact both regionally and globally.

Better understanding of local and regional weather patterns will contribute to better alerts, forecasts and climate models. This will benefit agriculture, power production, water supply and industry, authorities and local populations alike, Egli said.