A team from Great Britain spent four weeks on Khumbu Glacier, the world's highest glacier, on Mount Everest. They were collecting the rates of melt and were expecting small ponds and puddles. Instead, they found a lake. Duncan Quincey, the leader of the field study and a scientist at the University of Leeds, said that they knew there were lakes present on top of the glacier, but they have now observed that the ponds on the lower eastern section of the glacier had joined to form a lake the size of several football fields.

As the glacier continues to melt, the team has hypothesized that it will ultimately become disconnected from the Khumbu Icefall, giving rise to a fresh set of risks and challenges for mountaineers attempting to reach the summit of Everest. "We don't know how long that will take," says Quincey. "But what we do know is that right now things are changing fast."

The team will return to Everest in May 2016 for additional data collection.