Volume, evolution, and sedimentation of future glacier lakes in Switzerland over the 21st century

Ongoing climate change and associated glacier retreat is causing rapid environmental change, including shifts in high-alpine landscapes. Glacier lakes, which can form in topographical depressions left behind by glacier retreat, are prominent features within such landscapes. Whilst model-based estimates for the number and area of future glacier lakes exist for various mountain regions across the world, the exact morphology and temporal evolution remain largely unassessed. Here, we leverage a recently released, measurement-based estimate for the subglacial topography of all glaciers in the Swiss Alps to provide an estimate about the number, size, time of emergence, and sediment infill of future glacier lakes. The topographical information is based on 2450 km of measured ice thickness profiles, whilst the temporal evolution of glaciers is obtained from a glacier evolution model forced with an ensemble of climate projections. We estimate that up to 683 potential lakes with an area > 5000 m(2) and a depth > 5 m could emerge across the Swiss Alps if glaciers were to disappear completely, with the potential to hold a total water volume of up to 1.16 [1.05, 1.32] km(3) (numbers and 95 % confidence interval). For a middle-of-the-road climate scenario, we estimate that about 10 % (0.12 [0.04, 0.18] km(3)) and 48 % (0.56 [0.26, 0.67] km(3)) of this volume could be realized by 2050 and 2100, respectively. In a first-order assessment, we also estimate that ca. 45 % of the newly emerging glacier lakes (260 out of 570) will be transient features, i.e. will disappear again before the end of the century owing to refilling with sediments released by glacial erosion and proglacial sediment transport.

Automated summary

Ongoing climate change and glacier retreat in the Swiss Alps are expected to lead to the emergence of hundreds of potential glacier lakes. These lakes, if they were to form, could hold a significant volume of water, but a portion of them will be transient features that disappear before the end of the century due to sediment infill.