Global warming may be shrinking Alaska’s lakes.

On a day of near-record high temperatures in Anchorage, a dramatic announcement from scientists in the United Kingdom, 2005 was the warmest year on record in the Northern Hemisphere. The news comes in the wake of a new finding by researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Alaska's lakes appear to be draining into the state’s thawing tundra.

The lakes that are being studied are not in Anchorage or the southern part of the state, for that matter. The lakes they are studying are in the northern half of Alaska. And those lakes are disappearing as if someone pulled the stopper out of a bathtub.

Dr. Larry Hinzman (pictured at left) has been studying lakes on Alaska's Seward Peninsula using aerial and satellite photos going back more than five decades.

"And we can see that over these various dates, that these lakes were steadily shrinking in size," said Hinzman, University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Tag : Alaska, Environment.