Palmer Station, Arthur Harbor, Anvers Island
Your U.S. tax dollars at work. The Antarctic Research Program of the U.S. National Science Foundation operates three research stations: Amundsen-Scott Station located right over the South Pole, McMurdo Station on the Ross Sea on the other side of Antarctica, and Palmer Station here on the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula. Today we were able to visit Palmer Station. Each ship carrying visitors to the Antarctic Peninsula is allowed one visit per season to the station; it was fortunate for us that the allotted visit came on this trip. Palmer Station is the smallest of the three U.S. Antarctic research stations. There are currently 41 scientists and support staff on base; in winter the population shrinks to about 15. Our tour of Palmer Station introduced us to some of the research projects: e.g. the effect of ozone depletion and elevated levels of ultra-violet radiation on Antarctic vegetation; productivity and diversity of Antarctic marine ecosystems; meteorology (trends in weather and climate) of the Peninsula, and long-term population studies of Antarctic birds and marine mammals. In the latter case we were both observers of and participants in the research. Penguin colonies in the vicinity of Palmer Station have been monitored since 1974. Only such long-term studies can separate year-to-year variation from directional trends that might reflect the effects of driving variables such as climate change. (Observations at Palmer Station show that the Antarctic Peninsula is experiencing the greatest rate of climate warming of any place on earth.) A part of the research is addressing the effect of visitation by people on breeding density and success of Adelie penguins on Torgerson Island. Half of the island is visited by scientists and by people such as us. The other half is protected from visitation. The results show that visits from well-behaved people like us do not interfere with penguin breeding success. In fact, breeding density of Adelie penguins has declined on Torgerson Island (as on other breeding colonies in the area), but equally on the visited and unvisited halves of the island.
We departed, I hope, with the firm belief that our investment in the research being done at Palmer Station and in the Antarctic at large is money well spent.
