![Pinterest](https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://uknews.evprotec.com/halley-station-rapid-ice-movement-monitored-under-uk-polar-base/&media=https://uknews.evprotec.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/130980300_img_3299.jpg&description=Image source, BAS Image caption, The UK has had a research station on the Brunt Ice Shelf since 1957 Scientists are closely watching the fast pace of a vast swathe of floating Antarctic ice that hosts a UK base. The Halley station sits on the Brunt Ice Shelf, which has recorded an abrupt acceleration in recent months after calving giant icebergs. There is no immediate concern the rest of the Brunt will break apart and doom the currently unoccupied base. But British Antarctic Survey officials say greater stability must return before extended operations can resume. A decision to cease winter staffing was made seven years ago, with Halley now crewed during only the southern-hemisphere summer season, which begins in November. Forty people are due to visit the station, along with a ship carrying supplies. Prof Dominic Hodgson said he was happy for this work to proceed. "The shelf has given no suggestion that it's about to fragment and pose an imminent danger to our infrastructure," he told BBC News. "And we'll continue to do what we have done for the last few years, which is daily monitoring of the situation to see if any behaviour emerges that we hadn't anticipated." Prof Hodgson, along with BAS colleague Dr Oliver Marsh and remote-sensing expert Prof Adrian Luckman, of Swansea University, have just submitted a report on the status of the Brunt Ice Shelf to online journal The Cryosphere . The Brunt is an amalgam of ice, about 150-200m (500-650ft) thick, that has come off the Antarctic continent and pushed out into the Weddell Sea. This buoyant mass has had an outward speed, historically, of 400-800m a year. But there has been a dramatic acceleration, from about 900m a year at the start of 2023 to 1,500m by August. The data comes from precise GPS measurements around Halley and radar observations by the European Union's Sentinel-1a satellite. The acceleration follows the calving of two major icebergs from the leading edge of the Brunt - a 1,300-sq-km (500-sq-mile) behemot){kind=link}
Scientists are closely watching the fast pace of a vast swathe of floating Antarctic ice that hosts a UK base.
The Halley station sits on the Brunt Ice Shelf, which has recorded an abrupt acceleration in recent months after calving giant icebergs.
There is no immediate concern the rest of the Brunt will break apart and doom the currently unoccupied base.
But British Antarctic Survey officials say greater stability must return before extended operations can resume.
A decision to cease winter staffing was made seven years ago, with Halley now crewed during only the southern-hemisphere summer season, which begins in November. Forty people are due to visit the station, along with a ship carrying supplies.