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Reaching for the high water mark

Until it drained, the depth of this lake on Greenland’s ice sheet reached seven feet (the day before this photo was taken, the spot where University of Washington graduate student Kristin Poinar stood to touch the high water mark was immersed in ice cold water).  This summer, WHOI researchers camped on the ice sheet to study these lakes, which form atop the ice sheet each summer as returning sunlight melts ice and snow.
(Photo by Chris Linder, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)