Cosmos
We are taking a look back at stories from Cosmos Magazine in print. In March 2024, we looked at a year on the ice in Antarctica.
Though Captain James Cook was the first European to cross the Antarctic Circle, in 1773, he did not set eyes on the continent itself. In his journal, he wrote he believed there was land to the south – “a country doomed by nature never once to feel the warmth of the Sun’s rays” – but the risks of sailing those icy waters was too great.
“No man will ever venture farther,” he wrote. “Beyond where I have been I shall not envy him the honour of discovery, but I will be bold to say, that the world will not be benefited by it.”
Now, we know that studying Antarctica is key to understanding how our world works and our impact upon it.
Its oceans, for example, profoundly influence global water movement: the circumpolar current is the strongest oceanic current in the world, linking all major oceans. Meanwhile, its reflective ice creates permanent weather systems that help drive global climate systems. Antarctica’s four-kilometre-thick ice sheets contain enough water to rewrite every coastline Cook ever inked, while this same ice holds a record of millions of years of past climate events that allow us to scry into our own future.
Antarctica today is the world’s most important natural experiment, a place to ask and answer enormous questions – to discern patterns in the planet’s weather, to drill telescopes into the ice and capture messengers from violent astrophysical events, to study food webs and the planetary push and pull of currents. It’s a place of collaboration and discovery, where we’re gathering the knowledge necessary to build our collective future.
But what is it like to visit, work on or live in this remarkable frozen place? In this gallery, we take you through a full year in Antarctica – a place that is not at the edge of the world, but the heart of it.
Following the return of summer research crews – up to 5,000 scientists and support staff – cruise lines kick off their season in November, while the winter snow is still fresh on the ground. More than 100,000 tourists visit Antarctica each year. Most cross the Drake Passage from South America – along with albatrosses, fulmars and petrels – to reach the Antarctic Peninsula, where this Zodiac can be seen investigating icebergs in the Lemaire Channel. As visitor numbers swell and days lengthen, animal populations get busy: seals are mating while penguins court, build nests and lay eggs.
Credit: Posnov / Getty Images
Summer has now properly begun, and a rich tapestry of life threads its way through the bright landscape. This month is the height of activity for many species: penguin chicks hatch, both baleen and toothed whales begin to return and seal pups make their debut (like the crabeater seals pictured here). Research stations hum with enterprise as scientists take advantage of the relatively mild temperatures to conduct experiments and gather data, against the surreal backdrop of the midnight sun – with 24 hours of daylight around the summer solstice.
Credit: reisegraf / Getty images
In midsummer the continent is at its balmiest, with temperatures ranging from -2°C to 8°C, though in recent years new temperature records have been set. At this time, gentoo penguin chicks have usually all hatched, creating bustling colonies noisy with squawking young. Research has found that this species is expanding its range south as Antarctica warms. Other penguins are not so lucky. In 2022, as the usually stable sea ice broke up, thousands of emperor penguin chicks died at four of their colonies on the Antarctic Peninsula – one of the fastest warming places in the Southern Hemisphere.
Credit: David Merron Photography
In summer, the Southern Ocean’s abundant krill population – with densities of up to 30,000 individuals per cubic metre – attracts many species of baleen whales: humpback, minke, southern right, sei, fin and blue. Seals and penguins enjoy the krill feast too, while toothed whales like sperm whales and orcas come to hunt. February is also a crucial period for the completion of scientific fieldwork before winter grips this southern land again.
Credit: Michael Nolan
As summer wanes and the nights grow darker and longer, lucky observers may spot the mesmerising displays of aurora australis. These southern lights are the result of charged particles from solar winds hitting the Earth’s magnetosphere, which channels the particles to the poles where they interact with atmospheric gases and trigger a light show.
Credit: Jeff Miller / Getty Images.
The fleeting summer is now giving way to the encroaching cold of winter. As temperatures drop back well below freezing, wildlife becomes less active; penguin chicks leave their colonies to forage, seals disperse and whales begin their long journeys north. Scientists use this window of changing conditions to wrap up their fieldwork and gather valuable data, before preparing to wind down research stations for the winter – such as at the British Antarctic Survey’s Halley VI Research Station. Built on a floating ice shelf in the Weddell Sea, it’s the world’s first relocatable research facility, designed to cope with and study the movement of the ice shelf while also collecting data on space weather, ozone levels and more.
Credit: Sam Burrell / ESA
Brace yourself: as temperatures plummet to daily lows of around -60°C, the continent undergoes a profound transformation, with the last vestiges of wildlife activity giving way to a stark and icy stillness. The interior of the continent is now in constant twilight and darkness. But still, some activity persists: most research stations retain a skeleton crew, called winterovers, to maintain systems and continue long-term research. Some even dive beneath the sea ice during the winter months to collect data on Antarctica’s marine underworld.
Credit: McMurdo Oceanographic Observatory.
As Antarctica enters the depths of winter, female emperor penguins lay their solitary egg, then depart the colony to hunt while males begin the long incubation process on wind-blasted ice shelves. Meanwhile, the roughly 1,000 human winterovers celebrate midwinter with varied traditions that stretch back to the earliest days of human Antarctic exploration. In June 1911 (below, at centre) Robert Falcon Scott celebrated his 43rd birthday during the British Antarctic Terra Nova Expedition. It was his last birthday; he died on the ice the next March on the way back from the South Pole.
Credit: Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge / Getty Images.
As the polar night extends its grip, the southern lights continue to add a touch of magic to the prolonged darkness. Astronomical facilities such as the South Pole Telescope, located at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station, at 2,800 metres altitude, are also looking up. If you ask an astronomer about the perfect place to observe the universe, they’ll tell you: somewhere cold, somewhere dark, somewhere high-altitude, somewhere remote. They’ll tell you: Antarctica. At the South Pole Telescope, the sky conditions are excellent. The lack of sunlight and vastly reduced atmospheric turbulence gives sharper, brighter results than anywhere else on Earth.
Credit: South Pole Telescope
As recently hatched emperor penguin chicks shiver through their first days, beneath the ice other creatures thrive. The Southern Ocean has no decapod crustaceans (crabs and lobsters), but plenty of other interesting cold-adapted creatures from Weddell seals to sea sponges. Invertebrates – such as the scallops pictured here – don’t risk freezing internally in the subzero waters, but the notothenioid fish between them needs the antifreeze proteins in its blood and body fluids to prevent ice crystals forming: a remarkable evolutionary adaptation.
Credit: McMurdo Oceanographic Observatory.
Finally, the winter begins to release its grip and the dark-shrouded landscapes are touched once again by the returning sunlight of spring. Penguins and seals return to their breeding grounds, and people begin to return south too, relieving the overwintering crews of their quiet solitude. Stations open up, and research gains momentum again. Usually, September is also when sea ice reaches its peak extent, but in 2023 scientists reported the lowest area of sea ice on record, 1.75 million square kilometres below the long-term average: a reminder of both the immense impact humans are having on this continent, and the dedication of those working to know it better.
Credit: Martin Harvey / Getty Images.