Water “blisters” trapped beneath the thick interior of Greenland’s ice sheet could provide critical insight into the hydrological network coursing deep below Earth’s second largest body of ice — and how it might be destabilized by climate change, according to a new study.
Water “blisters” trapped beneath the thick interior of Greenland’s ice sheet could provide critical insight into the hydrological network coursing deep below Earth’s second largest body of ice — and how it might be destabilized by climate change, according to a new study.
Each year, thousands of natural meltwater lakes form on the surface of the ice sheet’s high-elevation interior, where ice can be more than a half-mile thick. As these lakes drain, they form large water-filled cavities between the ice and the bedrock.
By combining field observations with mathematical models and laboratory experiments, Princeton University-led researchers discovered that these blisters push the surface of the ice upward, then cause it to gradually drop down as the water permeates into the subglacial drainage system, according to a report in the journal Nature Communications.
Read more at: Princeton University
