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Firn-partially compacted snow from previous years-potentially has the capacity to store significant amounts of melt water in liquid or frozen form, and thus delay its contribution to sea level rise. Here scientists present direct observations of liquid water within firn in the southern Greenland ice sheet. They find a substantial amount of water in this firn aquifer that persists throughout the winter, when snow accumulation and melt rates are high. This represents a previously unknown storage mode for water within the ice sheet. [Source: Nature Geoscience]
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