A check on runaway lake drainage
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. In recent years, scientists have observed more lakes forming toward the center of the ice sheet — a region that had been previously too cold to melt enough ice for lakes to form. The expanding range of lakes has led scientists to wonder whether Greenland will ultimately raise global sea levels higher than previously predicted. Now researchers at MIT, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), and elsewhere have found that while...