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Scientists have discovered two subglacial lakes that lie 800 meters beneath the Greenland Ice sheet. This discovery is the first on in the island nation.

The two discovered lakes are spread around 10 square kilometers in surface area. Scientists doubt that these might be three times larger than what they appear now. The study has been conducted by Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) at the University of Cambridge.

Researchers used airborne radar measurements to reveal the lakes that lied underneath ice sheet.

Researchers noted that such subglacial lakes could influence the flow of the ice sheet and hence resulting in global sea level changes.

“Our results show that subglacial lakes exist in Greenland, and that they form an important part of the ice sheet’s plumbing system,” said lead author and former SPRI researcher Dr. Steven Palmer, according to Red Orbit. He presently works at the University of Exeter. “Because the way in which water moves beneath ice sheets strongly affects ice flow speeds, improved understanding of these lakes will allow us to predict more accurately how the ice sheet will respond to anticipated future warming.”

These newly discovered lakes don’t resemble those lakes that were detected beneath Antarctic ice sheets. Researcher believe the lake was formed by some other phenomenon.

“While nearly 400 lakes have been detected beneath the Antarctic ice sheets, these are the first to be identified in Greenland,” the university said in a press release. “The apparent absence of lakes in Greenland had previously been explained by the fact that steeper ice surface in Greenland leads to any water below the ice being ‘squeezed out’ to the margin.”

The developments of this research are published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.