Université de Fribourg

Estimating glacier-bed overdeepenings as possible sites of future lakes in the de-glaciating Mont Blanc massif (Western European Alps)

Magnin, F. ; Haeberli, W. ; Linsbauer, Andreas ; Deline, P. ; Ravanel, L.

In: Geomorphology, 2020, vol. 350, p. 106913

De-glaciating high mountain areas result in new landscapes of bedrock and debris where permafrost can degrade, persist or even newly form in cases, and of new lakes in glacier bed overdeepenings (GBOs) becoming ice-free. These landscapes with new lakes in close neighborhood to over-steepened and perennially frozen slopes are prone to chain reaction processes (e.g. rock-ice avalanches into...

Université de Fribourg

Recent and future warm extreme events and high-mountain slope stability

Huggel, C. ; Salzmann, Nadine ; Allen, S. ; Caplan-Auerbach, J. ; Fischer, L. ; Haeberli, W. ; Larsen, C. ; Schneider, D. ; Wessels, R.

In: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 2010, vol. 368, no. 1919, p. 2435-2459

The number of large slope failures in some high-mountain regions such as the European Alps has increased during the past two to three decades. There is concern that recent climate change is driving this increase in slope failures, thus possibly further exacerbating the hazard in the future. Although the effects of a gradual temperature rise on glaciers and permafrost have been extensively...