A rapidly draining lake beneath Greenland’s ice sheet unleashed a massive flood—one of the largest ever recorded on the ice sheet—equivalent to nine hours of water flow from Niagara Falls in full spate. The deluge, estimated at 90 million cubic meters of water, fractured the overlying ice with such force that it erupted onto the surface, carving out an 85-meter deep crater spanning 2 square kilometers.
Research led by Lancaster University and published in *Nature Geoscience* reveals the destructive potential of water stored under the ice sheet. The 2014 event in a remote northern region was detected using satellite data from ESA’s Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 (part of the Copernicus Earth observation program) and CryoSat.
“This research highlights the unique value of long-term satellite observations for monitoring Earth’s polar ice sheets, which due to their vast size would otherwise be impossible,” stated coordinating researcher Malcolm McMillan.
The flood’s impact unexpectedly extended far beyond the immediate area. Scientists observed the sudden appearance of a 385,000-square-meter zone of fractured and distorted ice, alongside a visibly water-eroded area covering 6 square kilometers.
“When we first saw it, we thought there was a problem with our data. It was completely unexpected,” commented lead author Jade Bowling. “The existence of subglacial lakes under Greenland’s ice sheet is a relatively recent discovery. As our study shows, there’s still much we don’t know about how they evolve and the impact they can have on the system.”