Researchers Explain Arctic Lake Disappearance

The Arctic lake has disappeared, leaving behind ice and clouds in the region. The pool of water drained through cracks in the underlying ice July, 29. Researchers at UW Applied Physics Laboratory said that ice melts at the Arctic every summer.

"Every summer when the sun melts the surface the water has to go someplace, so it accumulates in these ponds. This doesn't look particularly extreme," said Jamie Morison, a polar scientist at the UW Applied Physics Laboratory and principal investigator since 2000 of the North Pole Environmental Observatory.

The research team even posted an explanatory page to answer some of the questions about the presence of a Lake at the North Pole.

Buoys are placed on the ice floes to collect data on weather, ice and ocean levels. The "lake" scientists said, is just about two feet deep, normal for the month of July. The buoy seen in the pictures was kept on the floating ice in April 2013. Morison then placed a camera at a distance of about three football fields from the buoy. Since April, the ice floe that had both the cameras has drifted 375 miles south.

"The picture is slightly distorted," said Axel Schweiger, who heads the Applied Physics Laboratory's Polar Science Center, according to a press release. "In the background you see what looks like mountains, and that's where the scale problem comes in - those are actually ridges where the ice was pushed together."

However, scientists said that the disappearing lake at Arctic wasn't uncommon and they would reappear as a part of a natural cycle. Morrison also pointed out that the width of the ice this summer would reach 2012's minimal Arctic ice records.

"I think it's going to be pretty close to last year," he said.

The sea-ice in the region hit a record low during the summer of 2012 and researchers think that the sea-ice this year may be pretty fragile.