Recently, the melting of a glacier in southern Chile caused a glacial lake to swell, and then empty suddenly, causing a tsunami of sorts against a river. Fortunately, no one was injured. According to glacier scientist, Gino Casassa, the melting of the Colonia glacier can be blamed on rising world temperatures. The melting of the glacier filled Cachet Lake, and then bored a 5-mile tunnel through the glacier, emptying into the Baker River.
Casassa said that temperatures were unusually high during the recent summer in the Southern Hemisphere, and that events like this occasionally take place during the summer. But are events like this one attributable to global warming? According to Casassa, the answer is yes, "the basic cause is global warming."
The water bored a 5-mile tunnel through the glacier and finally emptied into the Baker River on April 6.
"The remarkable thing is that the mass of water moved against the current of the river," Casassa told The Associated Press by telephone from the Center for Scientific Studies in the southern city of Valdivia. "It was a real river tsunami."
The lake was nearly full again by late Wednesday, he said.