I don't think is directly attributable to global climate change, but it is weird as hell.
From the BBC
Scientists in Chile are investigating the sudden disappearance of a glacial lake in the south of the country.
When park rangers patrolled the area in the Magallanes region in March, the two-hectare (five-acre) lake was its normal size, officials say.
But last month they found a huge dry crater and several stranded chunks of ice that used to float on the water.
One theory is that an earthquake opened up a fissure in the ground, allowing the lake's water to drain through.
"In March we patrolled the area and everything was normal," Juan Jose Romero from Chile's National Forestry Corporation, Conaf, said.
"We went again in May and to our surprise we found that the lake had completely disappeared. All that was left were chunks of ice and an enormous fissure."
Geologists and other experts are being sent to the area, which is some 2,000km (1,250 miles) south of the capital, Santiago, to investigate.
The region is shaken by frequent earth tremors and one idea is that a strong quake which hit the neighbouring region of Aysen in April opened up the fissure in the bottom of the lake.
A glacier specialist, Andres Rivera, told Chilean newspaper La Tercera that the lake's disappearance seemed to be part of the continual reforming of the landscape.
The Magallanes area "has seen interesting changes in the last few decades," he said, noting that the lake itself had not been there 30 years ago.
7/4 BBC Update: Global Climate Change is the culprit
Global warming 'made lake vanish'
Scientists in Chile have blamed climate change for the sudden disappearance of a lake in the south of the country.
Park rangers who patrolled the area in the Magallanes region in March reported that the two-hectare (five-acre) glacial lake was its normal size.
But two months later they found a huge dry crater and stranded chunks of ice that previously floated on the water.
Experts now say melting glaciers put pressure on an ice wall that acted as a dam, causing it to give way.
Water in the lake flowed out of the breach into a nearby fjord and then out to the sea, said Andres Rivera, a glaciologist with Chile's Centre of Scientific Studies.
Melting ice
Mr Rivera flew on Monday in a navy airplane to take hundreds of photographs of the site, which is some 2,000km (1,250 miles) south of the capital, Santiago.
"On one side of the Bernardo glacier one can see a large hole or gap, and we believe that's where the water flowed through," Mr Rivera said in a navy communique.
"This confirms that glaciers in the region are retreating and getting thinner."
He noted that the lake now appears to be filling up again, probably because of the melting of slabs of ice left on the lake bed.
The advance and retreat of glaciers is part of the normal dynamic of the Patagonian region but climate change was distorting the process, Mr Rivera said.
"This would not be happening if the temperature had not increased," he added.
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