ИСТИНА

There were events that attracted attention by the grand scale of the glacial catastrophe and its consequences in the North Ossetia (Caucasus Mountains) in 2002. The Kolka Glacier was completely thrown out of its bed and formed a giant water-ice-stone flow, caused destruction and human deaths along the valley of the Genaldon River. The volcanic impact of Mount Kazbek was one of the key factors in this process. The recovery of a new glacier in the empty circus of the Kolka glacier began almost immediately. Currently, three streams of ice have closed in the rear zone of the circus, forming a joint ice massif on the bed. The dimensions of the glacier vary under the influence of both new conditions for the accumulation and melting of ice, and the features of the dynamics of the ice masses filling the vacated bed. This report describes the next stage of the state of the new Kolka glacier - relative stabilization - and analyzes the features of the process of its recovery based on the field observations data, modern space images and the data of changes in summer air temperatures and winter precipitation on the glacier area at the beginning of the 21st century. In recent years, the rate of increase in the area of the glacier does not exceed 0.015 km2 per year. By September 2016, its area reached 1.11 km2, the volume - about 0.044 km3. The conditions for the formation of a new glacier on the empty bottom of the circus differ significantly from the previous ones - when Kolka was restored in after a pulsation on the 1970s. In addition to increase in the summer air temperatures, the thermal balance in the circus has changed due to the increase of the open surface area of the bed and the lateral moraine. At the same time, the growth of the debris cover on the glacier restrains the melting process. Rockfalls and avalanches supply moraine material to the surface of the glacier more intensively than in the 1970s. The conditions of accumulation also changed - the volume of food supplied from the hanging glaciers decreased from the previous 31% to 17%. Fumarolic activity in the crown area of the starboard side of the circus is preserved and this circumstance the restoration of the Kolka glacier.