Arctic Lakes Are Disappearing Fast, and Scientists Are Just Figuring Out Why

It is possible for research to prove what we already know. Pollution isn't good for you and exercise is good for you. Sometimes our intuitions are wrong and scientific findings surprise us. There is a phenomenon of disappearing lakes in the northern part of the world.

You might think the lakes would expand. As the tundra thaws, there should be more surface water. New lakes might appear if the existing lakes grow. Scientists have noticed that lakes have gone away. A paper published in this year's edition of Nature Climate Change found widespread lake loss over the past two decades. The scientific team, led by the University of Florida, found that lakes have shrunk or disappeared completely in more than 80% of the region.

Like many climate effects, global warming appears to be happening faster than predicted, and scientists have known that for a long time. The water in the environment is surprising.

The commonsense expectation was that lakes would expand because of the increased meltwater. In the 21st and 22nd centuries, researchers projected that the warming of the planet would cause the polar regions to dry out. It looks like the lakes in the north are going to disappear a century or more sooner than previously thought.

There is a difference between a lake gradually diminishing during a hotter climate and a lake that disappears in a year. After the warmest and wettest winter on record, 192 lakes in northwestern Alaska were completely or partially drained at the end of the summer. In a matter of months, some of the large lakes that were thought to have existed for thousands of years have shrunk dramatically. This phenomenon is called acatastrophic lake drainage.

Why did this happen? The ground is getting more porous. The particles of rock, mineral and organic matter have places between them. There are spaces filled with air or water in the far north. The puddles disappear after a few hours. The landscape in the north is different. Liquid water can't get in because of the solid ice in the pores. The water can flow downward. The northern lakes are disappearing because of the rapid draining of the surface water.

Scientists missed this. Most climate models assume that warming air is the cause of the thaw. Increasing autumn rain is thought to be a factor in the loss of permafrost. The heat comes from the rain. The models in the CMIPs don't include such processes. No matter how sophisticated our models are, we need to observe the natural world.

Critical freshwater for Indigenous communities and a wide range of plant and animal life can be found in the lakes that make up 40 percent of the lowlands. In a troubling feedback loop, the loss of marshy areas that accompany these lakes can lead to an increase in the number of fires. Methane is a greenhouse gas that can create 80 times as much warming as carbon dioxide in the short term. Global warming could be greatly accelerated by rapid release of this methane.

The carbon pollution that is driving global climate change can be stopped.