A large amount of water, approximately the size of Ireland, has been found under Greenland's ice sheet, and could offer scientists some answers regarding climate change, according to a report by AFP.
Back in 2011, scientists from the University of Utah crossed the Greenland ice sheet during an expedition to drill ice. They were surprised to find that when they drilled 33 feet into a layer of compressed snow called firn, they found liquid water and ice granules instead of solid ice.
After drilling again just a few miles away, they got the same results, reaching the firn level 81 feet in, according to AFP.
A NASA plane with terrain-mapping radar was flown in to go over the area, along with a snowmobile with radar.
"This discovery was a surprise," Rick Forster, lead author and professor of geography at the University of Utah, said in a statement according to Phys.org. "Instead of the water being stored in the air space between subsurface rock particles, the water is stored in the air space between the ice particles, like the juice in a snow cone."
Both radars confirmed that there was a vast amount of water underneath the ice.
The water covers approximately 27,000 square miles and can be found at depths under the ice from 16 to 160 feet, according to the researchers.
The discovery is important because it might help experts learn how sea levels rise due to ice melting. The discovery could mean that melted ice is being stored under the ice sheets, according to BBC News.
"Of the current sea level rise, the Greenland Ice Sheet is the largest contributor, and it is melting at record levels," Forster said. "So understanding the aquifer's capacity to store water from year to year is important because it fills a major gap in the overall equation of melt water runoff and sea levels."
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