Research stations in Antarctica

The Antarctic Treaty (1959)

The Antarctic Treaty was signed on 1 December 1959 by twelve countries, following the International Geophysical Year 1957–1958 during which scientists from all sides had collaborated on the ice. The treaty entered into force in 1961 and has since been expanded into a system of agreements: the Antarctic Treaty System.

The core of the treaty is straightforward: Antarctica is reserved for peaceful and scientific purposes. Military activities, nuclear tests and the storage of radioactive waste are prohibited. Territorial claims are frozen — seven countries claim a sector (Australia, Norway, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Chile, Argentina and France), but these claims are not recognised by most other countries. The treaty has more than 56 signatories. Read more about the continent on the Antarctica page.

How many stations are there?

The COMNAP currently registers around 70 active stations from more than 30 countries. Not all stations are occupied year-round: a distinction exists between year-round stations and summer stations. Year-round stations are staffed 365 days a year, even during the polar winter when temperatures drop far below −50 °C and the sun does not rise for months. Summer stations are used only during the southern summer (November–February), when light shines around the clock.

In winter, around 1,000 people inhabit the entire continent; in summer that figure can rise to 5,000. The largest station is McMurdo (United States), which can accommodate up to 1,000 people in summer and resembles a small town rather than a field camp. The smallest are simple cabins for four to eight people.

Ice cores: the climate archive

One of the most valuable scientific activities in Antarctica is drilling ice cores. Each layer of ice deposited over thousands of years contains trapped air bubbles — direct air samples from the past. Scientists can thus reconstruct the CO₂ concentration, methane concentration and temperature from the moment the snow fell.

The deepest continuous ice record was drilled at the Russian Vostok base: 3,769 metres deep, corresponding to ice layers around 420,000 years old. More recent drilling at the European-Italian Concordia station (EPICA project) set records of more than 800,000 years. Researchers hope in future projects to reach ice older than one million years — well before the current cycle of ice ages. This climate history is directly relevant to understanding present-day warming; read more about timescales on the oceans page.

The ozone layer and the ozone hole

The discovery of the "ozone hole" above Antarctica — a drastic seasonal thinning of the ozone layer — was one of the most significant environmental discoveries of the twentieth century. British researchers at Halley station reported the phenomenon in 1985. The cause: chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that catalytically break down ozone in the stratosphere, amplified by the extreme cold and circular winds of the polar vortex.

Following the Montreal Protocol of 1987 — which banned CFCs globally — the ozone layer began slowly to recover. Models predict full recovery above Antarctica around 2065–2070. Halley station still measures the ozone column annually, providing one of the world's longest unbroken measurement records.

Astronomy and neutrino research

The Antarctic plateau offers unique conditions for astronomical research. The atmosphere is extremely dry and clear, thermal stability is above average, and during the polar night there are months of uninterrupted dark skies. The Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station (United States) is therefore home to several telescopes and detectors.

The most extraordinary instrument is IceCube: a cubic kilometre of frozen detector embedded in the glacier ice. IceCube captures neutrinos — near-massless particles that pass through the entire Earth — and links them to energetic sources in the universe such as blazars and gamma-ray bursts. In 2023 the IceCube team published evidence for a diffuse neutrino background from the Milky Way itself, a breakthrough in multi-messenger astronomy.

Winter on the ice

The winter crew of a year-round station — typically ten to fifty people — lives for six months in complete isolation. Aircraft cannot land during the worst of winter: at McMurdo the temperature limit for landings is around −50 °C. Medical emergencies are the greatest risk: every winter team includes a trained physician, and in rare cases people have been evacuated by emergency flight, as happened at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in 1999.

The psychological and physiological effects of winter isolation are themselves also studied. The European Space Agency (ESA) uses Concordia as an analogue for a Mars mission: the isolation, the darkness, the extreme cold and the limited medical resources closely resemble the conditions a crew would face on the way to the red planet. Compare the extreme isolation with the unpopulated interior of Oceania.

Time zones in Antarctica

Antarctica is the only continent over which all meridians converge: at the South Pole, all time zones are present simultaneously. In practice each station follows the time zone of its home country or nearest logistical hub. McMurdo and Scott Base use New Zealand time (UTC+13 in summer). Concordia uses Central European Time. This variation makes international coordination amusingly complex from a scheduling perspective. More on time zones is on the time zones page.

The future: more stations, fewer CFCs

More and more countries are investing in a presence in Antarctica: China opened its fifth station, Qinling, in 2024. India is expanding its Maitri base. Science is moving towards deeper ice drilling and underwater drones that navigate beneath ice shelves. Meanwhile tourism — more than 100,000 visitors per summer — is increasing pressure on vulnerable coastal zones. The Antarctic Treaty System thus remains one of the most successful examples of international cooperation, comparable to cooperation around the oceans that surround Antarctica — the four oceans that border the continent, including the Southern Ocean.