Every summer, as the air warms up and the sunlight beats down on the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, pools of brilliantly blue melt water are formed across the pristine white landscape. While summer time melting is normal, over the past several decades, the rate of melting has been alarming high and these deep blue lakes are appearing in increasing numbers, higher and higher up on the ice cap.

These pictures, by photographer Timo Lieber, document the phenomenon.

“I’ve always had a passion for the ice, Leiber told The Guardian. “I’d been to Iceland seven or eight times, to Arctic Norway and to Greenland. Greenland’s contribution to global sea-level rise is about three times that of Antarctica. I saw how fast the landscape was changing and wanted to put it into a body of work.”

Photo credit: Timo Lieber