Satellite photographs of the Antarctic Peninsula Area

• Published in: Polar Record
• Main Author: Swithinbank, Charles
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Cambridge University Press 1970
• Subjects: Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarctic Peninsula; Antarc*; Antarctica; British Antarctic Survey; Polar Record; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/526312/; https://doi.org/10.1017/S0032247400060368

The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) has been receiving regular satellite photo coverage of the Antarctic Peninsula area since 1967. Supplied by courtesy of the United States Environmental Science Services Administration from their National Environmental Satellite Center, the photographs have been used principally to observe the distribution of pack ice to facilitate the passage of the Survey's ships to Antarctic stations. While they are proving of immense importance in sea ice studies, they have also been used to plot the changing position of ice fronts. In the long term the series will provide an unparalleled source of data for climatology, since cloud patterns continually reveal weather systems that cannot be identified from observations coming only from the sparse network of meteorological stations in Antarctica.