About a year ago, a Volcano Watch article described changes at Lake Waiau, the tiny lake just below Mauna Kea’s summit that is Hawaii’s only alpine lake. Despite Lake Waiau’s small size — normally about 1.7 acres — it plays an important part in local ecology and in Hawaiian culture. The article noted that the lake has been shrinking at an alarming rate. Over the past year, this decrease in lake size has continued, and the lake is now almost gone.
Office of Mauna Kea Management rangers, working cooperatively with the Department of Land and Natural Resources, Division of Forestry and Wildlife, which manages the Mauna Kea Ice Age Natural Area Reserve, have been monitoring the lake closely and have tracked this remarkable reduction in lake size with repeat photography.
HVO has been watching these changes, as well, as part of our broad mission to monitor Hawaii’s active, and recently active, volcanoes. HVO scientists have compiled numerous high-resolution satellite images to document the surface area of the lake since about 2000.
The results are compelling. Prior to 2010, the lake surface area fluctuated between about 1.2 and 1.7 acres, with the variability presumably caused by recharge from winter storms balanced by loss caused by evaporation. Sometime in early 2010, however, the lake surface area began to shrink and, by late September 2013, had declined to 0.03 acres— about 2 percent of its normal surface area.
Geography professor Donna Delparte, formerly of University of Hawaii at Hilo and now at Idaho State University, has also been monitoring the recent changes. Her group has made detailed measurements of lake geometry using advanced techniques, such as laser scanning and photogrammetry. Prior to 2010, the maximum depth of the lake was about 3 yards, but today the lake is less than 1 foot deep. This means the current volume of the lake is less than 1 percent of its normal, pre-2010, value.
Using air photos to extend the time series of lake surface area back to the 1950s, we see no other drops of such scale. Historical photographs taken through the past hundred years, and written reports dating to the early 1800s, give no indication of the lake ever being as small as it is today. This suggests that the current reduction in size is unprecedented in modern times, but we cannot say this with absolute certainty, because there were large time gaps between the recorded observations in the 1800s and early 1900s. Nevertheless, the reduction in lake size we see today appears to be highly unusual.
What could be driving such dramatic change? An obvious culprit would be the ongoing drought in Hawaii that began in 2008. The Mauna Kea Visitor Center Weather Station shows very little precipitation for several consecutive months in early 2010, which may have been a trigger for the level drop that was sustained by low precipitation over the subsequent few years. The National Drought Mitigation Center shows the drought across Hawaii intensified in early 2010, consistent with this local weather data.
Could other factors be contributing to the potentially unprecedented nature of these changes? Lake Waiau is a “perched” water body, in which water is held in a depression by an impermeable substrate. This substrate consists of layers of silty clay, interbedded with ash layers, and it has been proposed that permafrost also underlies the lake.
It has also been proposed that permafrost surrounds the lake and provides a catchment that directs water into the lake. Could changes in the presumed permafrost have altered the water balance in the lake over the past few years? So far, there is no hard evidence to support this possibility, but we cannot yet count it out. We simply don’t know at this point, and more research needs to be done. If you have historical photos of the lake you are willing to share, contact HVO at askHVO@usgs.gov.
Given its cultural significance and its uniqueness, the disappearance of Lake Waiau would be a great loss for Hawaii. The future is far from certain for Lake Waiau, and DLNR, rangers and scientists will continue to watch this situation closely.
Kilauea activity update
A lava lake within the Halemaumau overlook vent produced nighttime glow visible via HVO’s webcam during the past week. A single deflation-inflation cycle occurred during the week, as of Thursday, and the lava lake level fell, then correspondingly rose again.
On Kilauea’s east rift zone, a breakout from the Peace Day tube above the pali was active early in the week, but no activity was observed Thursday. The Peace Day flow, which started Sept. 21, 2011, is no longer active. The Kahaualea 2 flow, fed from a spatter cone on the northeast edge of the Puu Oo crater, is now the only active flow. The Kahaualea 2 flow continues to advance slowly across old flows and into the forest. Its tip was 4 miles northeast of Puu Oo when mapped Thursday.
No earthquakes were reported felt on Hawaii Island during the past week.
Visit hvo.wr.usgs.gov for Kilauea, Mauna Loa and Hualalai activity updates, recent volcano photos, recent earthquakes and more; call 967-8862 for a Kilauea summary; email questions to askHVO@usgs.gov.
Volcano Watch is a weekly article and activity update written by scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.