Every year the Merzbacher Lake appears, expands, dies in a spectacular death and is reborn the following year. This all occurs in a steep, virtually inaccessible, valley where two glaciers meet in a remote region of the Tien Shan Mountains. To view this spectacle involves a huge amount of time and patience, due to unreliable predictions of when the lake will begin to disappear and to the fact that the process is still poorly understood. There is only a very narrow window in which to see it, as the lake completely empties in a matter of three days. Blink and you could miss it.
Still, compared to other vanishing glacial lakes (examples also exist in Greenland, Iceland and Switzerland) what makes the Merzbacher Lake so unique is the regularity of its timing.
The lake forms during the summer months when rising temperatures cause water from the melted ice to flow into the valley. Here it is collected and held by an ice dam causing a glacial lake. The dam itself is caused by an ice flux from the South Inylchek glacier diverting towards one end of the valley. The rising temperatures of the summer cause the lake to fill extremely quickly. Studies of the lake’s changing water levels have shown that it fills at an amazing 5cm per hour in the summer, reaching an area of 5km2 before it begins its spectacular disappearing act.
- Svake godine, jezero Merzbacher, pojavi se, naraste i nestane spektakularno i ponovo se pojavi slijedece godine. Sve se to dogadja u strmoj, nepristupacnoj dolini, gdje se dva mocna glecera susrecu u zabacenom dijelu Tien Shan planina. Posmatranje tog spektakla zahtjeva mnogo vremena i strpljenja, jer se sve dogadja nepredvidjeno. Pratiti spektakl moguce je samu u vrlo kratkom vremenskom periodu, jer se jezeri isprazni za manje od tri dana.
Poredeci Merzbacher jezero sa slicnim glecerskim jezerima koja nestaju (primjeri kojih postoje na Greenland-u, Iceland-u i Svajcarskoj) ono sto pravi jezero Merzbacher posebno je ponavljane procesa u istom vremenskom periodu.
Jezero se stvara u toku ljetnih mjeseci kada porast temperature izaziva topljenje leda i mjesavina leta i vode puni dolinu. Voda se skuplja i zadrzava ledenom branom formiranom od velikih komada glecera. Brana se stvara kada led iz Juznog Inylcheka skrene i ulazi u dolinu prema Sjevernom Inylchek gleceru i tu se stapa i veze za ledene blokove. porast temperatura u ljetnim mjesecima utice na brzo punjenje jezera. Studije jezera pokazuju izuzetno brzo punjenje od 5cm na sat ljeti, stvarajuci jezero velicine 5x2km prije nego sto spektakularno nestane.
