The unstable Antarctic Peninsula

The Antarctic Peninsula, the finger of land that reaches toward South America, is the mildest part of Antarctica, not so much because it’s the continent’s most northerly point (although that helps) but due to the influence of the sea along its long coastline. Relatively warm ocean waters make for unstable sea ice, glacier tongues and ice shelves up and down the peninsula’s west and east coasts.

The east coast of the Antarctic Peninsula is cold, with summer temperatures mostly below freezing and winter getting as cold as minus-25°C, with precipitation rarely above 150 mm a year. But along the peninsula’s warmer west coast, temperatures average above freezing point through summer, and rarely get below minus-10°C in winter. Precipitation averages about 400 mm a year, much of which falls as rain over summer.

Your Antarctic experience will be distinctly different depending on which expedition you choose to join. Head to the Antarctic Peninsula from Ushuaia and you’ll be in the warmest part of the continent whilst, if you opt for an Antarctic expedition from Australia/New Zealand, you’ll experience life in East Antarctica, a comparatively colder and more remote region. Yes, you’ll face colder temps but you’ll also reap the benefits of the cold, in the form of much bigger and more fantastical icebergs.

Things are changing more rapidly on the peninsula than elsewhere in Antarctica. The rate of ice loss from glaciers and ice shelves is steadily increasing, with many ice shelves partially lost or vanished altogether over the past 50 years, changing the shape of the coastline along both west and east coasts. At the same time, many ice shelves have lost volume from their underside from coming into contact with warmer ocean water.

Island weather – not your usual island getaway!

The islands scattered around Antarctica are, on the whole, milder in temperature but not so mild when it comes to wind, snow and rain. Like the Antarctic Peninsula, coastal islands don’t get much warmer than 1°C in summer or cooler than minus 10°C in winter, although Peter I and Alexander Islands, among others, get colder because of the fast ice that usually surrounds them.

Southern oceanic islands such as South Georgia, Kerguelen, Macquarie and Campbell Islands are characterised by cool summers and cooler winters (cold but not as cold as Antarctica), with a much smaller temperature variation from summer to winter – only about 3°C above or below freezing point. They frequently experience rain in summer, snow in winter and strong winds all year round.