Supraglacial lake

The retreating glaciers of the Himalaya produce vast and long lived lakes, many kilometres in diameter and scores of metres deep.

[3] A proliferation of supraglacial lakes preceded the collapse of the Antarctic Larsen B ice shelf in 2001,[citation needed] and may have been connected.

[4] Sediments are dominated by coarser (coarse sand/gravel) fragments, and the accumulation rate can be immense: up to 1 metre per year near the shores of larger lakes.

In fact, satellite photos show that since the 1970s, when satellite measurements began, supraglacial lakes have been forming at steadily higher elevations on the ice sheet as warmer air temperatures have caused melting to occur at steadily higher elevations.

[6] However, satellite imagery and remote sensing data also reveal that high-elevation lakes rarely form new moulins there.

[7] Thus, the role of supraglacial lakes in the basal hydrology of the ice sheet is unlikely to change in the near future: they will continue to bring water to the bed by forming moulins within a few tens of kilometers of the coast.

Water collecting on the ice surface has the opposite effect, due to its high albedo as described in a previous section.