Scientists Are Baffled After Massive Antarctic Lake Has Suddenly Vanished Without Trace

A massive Antarctic lake has unexpectedly gone, vanishing into the ocean with more water than Lake Erie. Satellite images captured its death before and after the 600-750 million-cubic-meter (21-26 billion cubic feet) lake drained through the ice shelf below, and researchers believe it might reveal a lot about the region's ice stability.

The lake in Antarctica that was twice the size of San Diego Bay in California has gone. During the 2019 Antarctic winter, an international team of scientists utilized satellite imaging to confirm the size of the water that flowed through the ice and into the ocean on the Amery Ice Shelf in East Antarctica.

All that is left is a crater where the lake once existed and a shattered ice cover.

Disappearing Lake

Although the experts aren't sure how the lake disappeared in such a short period, the most plausible scenario is that the lake's bottom breaking under the high strain. Their findings were published in the Geophysical Research Letters journal.

In a statement, lead author Roland Warner, a glaciologist with the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership at the University of Tasmania, said, "We believe the weight of water accumulated in this deep lake opened a fissure in the ice shelf beneath the lake, a process known as hydrofracture, causing the water to drain away to the ocean below."

Such an event is rare but not unheard of. However, this one is unusual not only because of the lake's size but also because such water draining through the ice. Such size is uncommon.

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Amery Ice Shelf

The Amery Ice Shelf, which faces the South Indian Ocean, is Antarctica's third-largest shelf, with some parts measuring 1,800 meters (5,900 feet) thick. This lake was located on top of the Amery Ice Shelf, where the ice thickness was around 1,400 meters (4,590 ft). It's very unusual to see lakes drained by hydrofracture, and scientists have found several ice shelves in Antarctica that may be sensitive to it, but it's not likely to happen at such a high ice depth.

The researchers aim to utilize this knowledge, as well as the state-of-the-art satellites that captured the lake's grisly death (aptly dubbed ICESat-2), to learn more about ice shelf deterioration in Antarctica.

In a statement, co-author Helen Amanda Fricker, a glaciologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, stated, "It is amazing to see ICESat-2 reveal us details of processes that are occurring on the ice sheet at such small spatial resolution."

"It's critical to understand the mechanisms that degrade ice shelves because surface meltwater on ice shelves may trigger their collapse, which eventually leads to sea-level rise when grounded ice is no longer held back."

Can We Blame Climate Change?

Even though Antarctica's margins and the rest of the world are now experiencing unprecedented temperatures, the researchers cannot establish that climate change is to blame. It would definitely make sense, given that even the most hostile regions on Earth feel the heat, with recent temperatures in the Arctic Circle reaching 48 degrees Celsius.

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