Dorian Bay & Palmer Station
Today the real Antarctica greeted us. Gone were the sunny skies and calm winds of yesterday. As the ship anchored below the mountainous spine of Wienke Island, freezing temperatures and a frigid windswept Dorian Bay with squalls of horizontal snow.
Hardy souls ready for a morning of exploration scrambled onto the ice edge along the shoreline. Dressed for the weather we traversed the crusty snow to visit colonies of gentoo penguins scattered along the rocky outcroppings poking above the snow. We witnessed a variety of behaviors as these comical flightless birds constructed their nests of small stones. Skuas patrolled the airspace above the colonies looking to swoop in on unattended eggs. And there was courtship and mating happening right before our eyes. It’s early spring here in the Southern Ocean and love is in the air.
During the afternoon conditions were remarkably different as we arrived for a visit to Palmer Station, one of three Antarctic bases run by the United States Antarctic program. Located on Anvers Island, in summer Palmer Station is home to over 40 scientists and support crew conducting a variety of studies from weather and biology, to ecology and oceanography. Across the bay we visited the Adelie penguin colony on Torgersen Island, site of another long-term research project that has continued since the early 1970’s. To our surprise there were also several southern elephant seals sleeping among the penguins.
The data from these studies has shown an alarming rise in winter temperatures of almost 2ºC, one of the highest documented warming trends in the world. With this change there are 90 days less of sea ice each year, which has caused the Adelie penguins hardship since they depend on the sea ice for their food source consisting of plankton. Alarmingly there has been an 80% decrease in the population.
The alarm bells of climate change are ringing here along the Antarctic Peninsula. Hopefully the world is listening.
