Оценка прорывоопасности озер Антарктических оазисов с использованием композитных индексов на основе территориальных детерминант

Abstract

Lake outbursts floods is belonging to the hydrometeorological hazards. They occur as a result of destruction of snow-ice or earth dams and are most typical for lakes of alpine and polar regions. Glacial lakes outbursts floods (GLOF) are widely spread on water bodies of Antarctic oases. Methods for GLOF’s hazard assessment include monitoring, component analysis, point-by-point estimates, etc.) often overestimate the degree of the GLOF’s hazard compare to the real situation. The article presents the first experience of using the method of constructing composite indices (CI) based on territorial determinants for assessing the GLOF’s hazard. The case study of using of CI on water bodies located in the Larsemann Hills Oasis (Brocknes Peninsula, East Antarctica) is presented in the article. The study is based on the incito data obtained by the authors and the archival materials of the Russian Antarctic Expedition (RAE) in 2008–2021, collected in the PAULAS database. The calculations of CI show that the results are generally consistent with the in-cito measurements. The results are presented as maps showing the degree of GLOF’s hazard and the most vulnerable sections of the routes connecting wintering stations to the airfield. The intervals of changes for most of the considered criteria, used for CI calculation, were determined by expert method, and, therefore, largely depended on the experience of researchers and their understanding of the natural processes. The future studies will be supposed to refine and possibly supplement the list of criteria. Nevertheless, in the conditions of shortage of water level field measurements, the considered method can be used to assess the GLOF’s hazard of poorly studied and unstudied water bodies not only of Antarctic oases, but also of high-mountain glacial lakes.