The work was led by Naomi Ochwat, a postdoctoral researcher at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder (CIRES<\/a>). <\/p>\n \u201cWhen we flew over Hektoria in early 2024, I couldn\u2019t believe the vastness of the area that had collapsed,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n \u201cIf we only had one image every three months, we might not be able to tell you that the glacier lost two and a half kilometers (1.6 miles) in two days.\u201d<\/p>\n Triggering Hektoria glacier collapse<\/p>\n An ice plain \u2013 a flat bed below sea level where ice is only lightly grounded \u2013 can leave a glacier just one thinning step from flotation. An earlier paper documented this kind of lightly grounded zone elsewhere in Antarctica.<\/p>\n The grounding line, the point where a glacier stops touching the seafloor<\/a>, can shift quickly with thinning or tides. A clear explanation shows why that zone controls stability.<\/p>\n Once Hektoria thinned enough to float across its ice plain, gravity and buoyancy did the rest. The result was buoyancy-driven calving \u2013 a breakup caused by flotation forces \u2013 that toppled thick blocks forward and cleared the front.<\/p>\n Six glacial earthquakes<\/a> coincided with the largest breakups, a known signal of capsizing icebergs at fast-calving fronts. That pattern matches prior work linking long-period seismic events to mile-scale iceberg capsizes.<\/p>\n Hektoria glacier collapse from space<\/p>\n Satellites tracked a sixfold jump in flow speed as the front destabilized. Laser altimetry showed dramatic thinning, reaching about 262 feet (80 meters) per year on the remaining ice.<\/p>\n The loss did not depend on unusually warm ocean water or surface melt at the time of peak retreat. It followed the removal of local fast ice. This seasonal plate had been damping waves and holding a loose pack of bergs tight.<\/p>\n Back in 2002, a different kind of support vanished when the nearby Larsen B Ice Shelf<\/a> collapsed, after which tributary glaciers sped up and thinned. That response was captured in a landmark analysis that helped scientists connect shelf loss to faster flow.<\/p>\n Seismic stations clinched the state of the ice during the burst of retreat. Forceful signals indicated the front was grounded as it fractured, which means the lost ice directly raised sea level rather than just shifting floaters.<\/p>\n Hektoria is not huge by Antarctic standards, but its setup is common. Ice plains appear beneath several major outlets in Antarctica.<\/p>\n Paleoclimate<\/a> mapping shows that when grounding lines sit on very flat beds, retreats can pulse far faster than most modern records. <\/p>\n One article reported past grounding line rates between 180 and 2,000 feet (55 to 610 meters) per day on flat seafloors.<\/p>\n Speed is the risk multiplier. If similar geometry exists under larger glaciers, short bursts could rapidly remove grounded ice and add to sea level before models expect it.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the same conditions set up in some of the other areas, it could greatly speed up sea level rise from the continent,\u201d said Ted Scambos, the CIRES senior research scientist and coauthor.<\/p>\n Mapping the next risks<\/p>\n Future research now aims to locate other Antarctic glaciers<\/a> sitting on similar flat beds. Scientists are using radar, seismic data, and satellite altimetry to map where ice plains are likely hiding beneath the continent\u2019s ice sheet.\u00a0<\/p>\n These areas are early-warning zones, where a few feet of thinning could cause glaciers to lift off the seafloor and break apart like Hektoria did.<\/p>\n Climate models also need to catch up to this new understanding. Most global projections treat glacier retreat as a steady process, not one that can accelerate tenfold once flotation begins.\u00a0<\/p>\n Including these sudden buoyancy events could shift timelines for future sea-level rise by decades, especially for West Antarctic<\/a> ice streams already near the tipping point.<\/p>\n Two questions now matter most. First, where else the bed remains flat for long distances beneath thinning ice.<\/p>\n Second, how quickly local sea ice and m\u00e9lange return \u2013 or vanish. Ice m\u00e9lange, a jumbled mix of icebergs and sea ice, adds backstress at the glacier front, but when it clears out, the front can fail much faster.<\/p>\n This event also sharpens what glacier models must include. Models should allow for sudden flotation on ice plains, forward toppling of thick slabs, and short-lived surges in motion. <\/p>\n That is not sensational \u2013 it is a straightforward update to how a glacier collapses when the bed gives them a lift.<\/p>\n The study is published in Nature Geoscience<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n Like what you read? Subscribe to our newsletter<\/a> for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.\u00a0<\/p>\n Check us out on EarthSnap<\/a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls<\/a> and Earth.com.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A glacier on the eastern Antarctic Peninsula has just broken speed records. In late 2022, Hektoria Glacier retreated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":683354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[49,48,66],"class_list":["post-683353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=683353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/683354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n<\/a><\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Hektoria-glacier-Antarctica_record-collapse_before-after_NASA_1s.webp\")
<\/a>The rapid loss of Hektoria Glacier\u2019s grounded ice is visible in these images acquired in October 2022 (left) and March 2024 (right) with the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8. The glacier retreated 8 kilometers in November-December 2022, after having lost a 16-kilometer-long section of floating ice earlier that year. Credit: NASA. Click image to enlarge.Why this matters for sea levels<\/p>\n![\"(A)](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/antarctica-Hektoria-Green-glaciers_fastest-collapse-ever_Nature_1s.webp\")
<\/a>(A) Hektoria and Green glaciers before the loss. (B) March 2022 image just after the fast ice break-up at the onset of ice tongue retreat. (C) Landsat image showing HG at the beginning of the period of accelerated calving, with the light purple line indicating the ice front at this time. (D) Image of the collapsed ice plain and the more stable terminus location of Hektoria in March 2023 (green line). Yellow circle highlights part of the region that was lost. Click image to enlarge. Credit: NatureLessons from Hektoria glacier collapse<\/p>\n