This post was updated on 12/15/2013 to include a video on the discovery

When water gets to or below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, it freezes. It’s as predictable as the lunar cycle. One way to get water to that temperature, among others, is to surround it with other water that is already frozen, otherwise known as “ice.” That’s not the case for water in the 27,000 square mile aquifer scientists discovered in Greenland, which stays in liquid form year-round despite existing in a perpetually frozen landscape.

University of Utah researchers describe the find as a “perennial firn aquifer” because water persists within the firn – layers of snow and ice that don’t melt for at least one season. They believe it figures significantly in understanding the contribution of snowmelt and ice melt to rising sea levels.

“Of the current sea level rise, the Greenland Ice Sheet is the largest contributor – and it is melting at record levels,” says Rick Forster, lead author and professor of geography at the University of Utah. “So understanding the aquifer’s capacity to store water from year to year is important because it fills a major gap in the overall equation of meltwater runoff and sea levels.”

The team used data collected by airborne and ground-penetrating radar to pinpoint the aquifer, and then took core samples on the ground. In 2010, the team drilled core samples in three locations on the ice for analysis. They returned in 2011 to approximately the same area, but at lower elevation. Of the four core samples taken then, two came to the surface with liquid water cascading off the drill despite air temperatures of -4 degrees Fahrenheit.

“This discovery was a surprise,” Forster says. “Although water discharge from streams in winter had been previously reported, and snow temperature data implied small amounts of water, no one had yet reported observing water in the firn that had persisted through the winter.”

The water they discovered is similar to groundwater that would be used for drinking. To help explain why it manages to remain liquid, Forster likens it to “the juice inside a snow cone.”

“The surprising fact is the juice in this snow cone never freezes, even during the dark Greenland winter. Large amounts of snow fall on the surface late in the summer and quickly insulates the water from the subfreezing air temperatures above, allowing the water to persist all year long.”

Greenland’s ice sheet is enormous, covering an area similar in size to the western United States. Were that ice sheet to be lost to climate change, global sea levels would rise about 21 feet. Such a melt would be catastrophic, though it’s unlikely that it would happen all at once. Though the exact role of the aquifer is unknown, scientists believe it may help them more accurately track the movement and temperature of water.

“It might conserve meltwater flow and thus help slow down the effects of climate change. But it may also have the opposite effect, providing lubrication to moving glaciers and exacerbating ice velocity and calving increasing the mass of ice loss to the global ocean,” Forster said.