Ice-sheet hydro-fracture not advanced inland by lower-elevation lake drainages in Kalaallit Nunaat

Journal article

Drainage of supraglacial lakes via hydro-fracture is widely argued to be a mechanism for destabilization of grounded ice sheets under climate-warming scenarios because it may accelerate surface meltwater access to the ice-sheet bed. Progress in interrogating this hypothesis has been hindered by the lack of regional observations of hydro-fracture event occurrence, and the lack of observations of regional ice-sheet response to hydro-fracture events. Here, we remedy both deficiencies using a 22-station Global Navigation Satellite System array to discern inter-lake, hydro-fracture-event triggering potential between lakes spanning the mid-to-upper Greenland Ice Sheet ablation zone. In four separate instances, multiple lake hydro-fracture events occur close in time at similar elevations; meanwhile, strain rates across higher-elevation lake basins are unperturbed. Our findings support a simple model for the inland progression of surface-to-bed meltwater pathways beneath lakes: pathway initiation migrates alongside advancing surface melt, but is not accelerated by drainage activity at distant, lower-elevation lakes.

Authors: Stevens, LA; Nettles, M; Larochelle, S; Okal, M; Falconer, E

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Nature Research
• Journal: Nature Communications
• Volume: 17
• Issue: 1
• Article number: 4598
• Publication date: 2026-05-27
• Acceptance date: 2026-04-27
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-73033-z
• EISSN: 2041-1723
• ISSN: 2041-1723
• Language: English