In parts of Alaska, water is replacing ice as glaciers thin and retreat. Three proglacial lakes are forming in the voids left by a trio of retreating glaciers. The three lakes have more than doubled in size over 40 years.
The lakes are also changing in other ways. One lake (the darker blue waterbody on the right side of the image) appears much bluer in 2024, indicating that the lake is receiving less fine-grained glacial sediment, or “glacial flour,” from meltwater streams. As the lake receives less sediment, it will turn darker blue allowing more light to penetrate the water and aid aquatic life and fishery development.
