Ice-Free Crater Lakes on Ungava Peninsula
[link to eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov]
[link to eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov]
These ice-free areas, seen in the top image above, are Pingualuit and Couture craters. The lower image shows just Pingualuit as seen from an airplane on October 12, 2007.

“The crater lakes hold such huge volumes of water in comparison to the surrounding glacial lakes that they’re slower to respond to temperature changes,” explained Reinhard Pienitz, a fresh water lake expert who recently led an expedition to Pingualuit to collect sediment cores. “Pingualuit Crater Lake is always the last to freeze in the winter and the last to melt in the spring.”

Hot summer temperatures in the Arctic made headlines when satellites observed widespread melting across Greenland in July 2012. Meteorological records from Environment Canada show that average temperatures at weather stations near the lakes have been above normal for every month since July.