Draining lakes unlikely to worsen Greenland’s contribution to sea levels
Posted by Oceanography News -- ScienceDaily on 3 June, 2015
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Each summer, Greenland's ice sheet -- the world's second-largest expanse of ice, measuring three times the size of Texas -- begins to melt. Pockets of melting ice form hundreds of large, 'supraglacial' lakes on the surface of the ice. Many of these lakes drain through cracks and crevasses in the ice sheet, creating a liquid layer over which massive chunks of ice can slide. This natural conveyor belt can speed ice toward the coast, where it eventually falls off into the sea. Now researchers have found that while warming temperatures are creating more inland lakes, these lakes cannot drain their water locally, as lakes along the coast do, and are not likely to change the amount of water reaching the ground in inland regions....