An inventory of ice-marginal lakes over Antarctica from 2017 to 2022 using Sentinel-2 imagery

Ice-marginal lakes in Antarctica are found between the coastal ice-free areas and the Antarctic Ice Sheet, its outlet glaciers, and the ice shelves. Since ice-marginal lakes may play a role in the surrounding environment (e.g., glacier variation and freshwater storage), recent observations of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) from Antarctic ice-marginal lakes suggest that meltwater systems in Antarctica may be more dynamic than previously recognized. However, available lake inventories in Antarctica lack coverage and accuracy, resulting in a limited understanding of the role ice-marginal lakes play in the Antarctic environment. In this study, we developed a comprehensive inventory of ice-marginal lakes in Antarctica by using Sentinel-2 composite imagery obtained during the austral summer months from 2017–2022 for each lake, including information on geographical coordinates, lake area, surface elevation, and lake type. This new inventory includes 417 ice-marginal lakes from 17 regions across Antarctica. Eighty-seven percent of the ice-marginal lakes were in East Antarctica, and their total area was 493.3 ± 1.0 km 2 . This work presents the first comprehensive overview of ice-marginal lakes across Antarctica, emphasizes the need for further understanding of lake formation and evolution in this region, and builds a foundation for future studies of Antarctic hydrology, including ice-marginal GLOFs.