Date Time Lakes on Greenland Ice Sheet can drain huge amounts of water, even in winter Using satellite data to ‘see in the dark’, researchers have shown for the first time that lakes on the Greenland Ice Sheet drain during winter, a finding with implications for the speed at which the world’s second-largest ice sheet flows to the ocean. We don’t yet know how widespread this winter lake drainage phenomenon is, but it could have important implications for the Greenland Ice Sheet, as well as elsewhere in the Arctic and Antarctic Ian Willis The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, used radar data from a European Space Agency satellite to show that even when the heat from the Sun is absent, these lakes can discharge large amounts of water to the base of the ice sheet. These ‘drainage events’ are thought to play a significant role in accelerating the movement of the ice by lubricating it from below.