Mystery of Aligned Lakes

A look at a map of the North Slope from Barrow to Prudhoe Bay reveals the curious fact that nearly all the lakes are elongated with their longer dimensions parallel to one another in a northwest-southeast direction. Not all scientists agree upon the reasons, but a rather compelling hypothesis credits the prevailing winds.

Curiously, the prevailing winds are from the northeast and blow across the shorter dimension of the elongated lakes. Our common sense suggests that wind and wave action should tend to enlarge a lake in the direction of the wind, but experiments with water tanks and wind devices demonstrate the opposite effect. Wind forces on the surface of a shallow lake cause crosswind water circulation patterns. The resulting wave action could be responsible for thawing and eroding the frozen tundra on the sides of the lake that are at right angles to the wind.