Subglacial Lakes, Antarctica

To the untrained eye, Antarctica may look like a giant piece of solid ice that rarely changes, but scientists studying the continent have long known better. The icy surface is dynamic, with glaciers and "streams" of ice flowing toward the ocean.

Image of the Day Land Snow and Ice

A Great Freeze Over the Great Lakes

Ice cover surpassed 80 percent for the first time in 20 years.

Image of the Day Water Snow and Ice Sea and Lake Ice

Lakes Drain under Antarctic Ice Sheet

Throughout Antarctica, broad ribbons of ice known as ice streams shed large quantities of ice into the ocean.

Image of the Day Land Water Snow and Ice

New York’s Finger Lakes

A late fall snowstorm frosted the hills of the Finger Lakes region of central New York in early December, 2004. Shapes of the snow-covered hills are accented by the low Sun angles, and contrast with the darker, finger-shaped lakes filling the region’s valleys. The steep, roughly parallel valleys and hills of the Finger Lakes region were shaped by advancing and retreating ice sheets that were as much as 2 miles deep during the last ice age (2 million years to about 10,000 years ago). River valleys were scoured into deep troughs; many are now filled with lakes. The two largest lakes, Seneca and Cayuga, are so deep that the base of their lakebeds are below sea level.

Image of the Day Land Snow and Ice

Ice on the Great Lakes

The extent of ice on North America's Great Lakes is past its annual peak, but remains above the average maximum extent.

Water Snow and Ice Sea and Lake Ice

Shades of Blue on the Greenland Ice Sheet

When it comes to the blue hue of meltwater lakes, darker means deeper; satellites can help scientists discover just how deep.

Image of the Day Heat Water Snow and Ice

Ice Covers the Great Lakes

Image of the Day Land Snow and Ice Sea and Lake Ice

The Icy Origins of the Finger Lakes

Huge sheets of ice carved out the U-shaped valleys that hold New York’s Finger Lakes. When they retreated north about 10,000 years ago, glaciers left deposits of gravel that dammed streams and caused the depressions to become lakes.

Image of the Day Land Water

Acadia National Park

Mountains and hills roll right up to the Atlantic Ocean in this rocky landscape that became the first national park east of the Mississippi River.

Image of the Day Land Water

Icy Lake Erie

Lake Erie is usually the first to freeze over because it is shallower than the other Great Lakes.

Image of the Day Atmosphere Temperature Extremes Sea and Lake Ice