PenguinTracker
PenguinTracker / Colonies / Cape Anne

Cape Anne

Penguin breeding site · Victoria Land · CCAMLR 88.1

Cape Anne is a known penguin breeding site in the Victoria Land, at 73°37'S 169°51'E. Adélie penguins have been recorded here.

RegionVictoria Land
CCAMLR subarea88.1
Species recorded1
Sea ice within 100 km332 days a year, median
Site codeANNE
Position73°37'S 169°51'E
Decimal-73.6170, 169.8500
Distance to pole1,822 km
Populationnot published — see below

Species recorded here

Adélie penguinPygoscelis adeliae

The sea around this site, 1979–2024

0901802703661979 · 296 days1980 · 332 days1981 · 312 days1982 · 343 days1983 · 322 days1988 · 353 days1989 · 327 days1990 · 329 days1991 · 317 days1992 · 323 days1993 · 360 days1994 · 350 days1995 · 318 days1996 · 289 days1997 · 332 days1998 · 326 days1999 · 299 days2000 · 321 days2001 · 290 days2002 · 348 days2003 · 350 days2004 · 314 days2005 · 312 days2006 · 340 days2007 · 349 days2008 · 342 days2009 · 345 days2010 · 321 days2011 · 339 days2012 · 350 days2013 · 338 days2014 · 346 days2015 · 360 days2016 · 299 days2017 · 341 days2018 · 342 days2019 · 320 days2020 · 310 days2021 · 304 days2022 · 338 days2023 · 365 days198019851990199520002005201020152020DAYS A YEAR WITH SEA ICE OVER 15% WITHIN 100 KM · PALE BARS ARE ICE YEARS THE COVERAGE GATE DROPS
One bar per ice year, 15 February to 14 February. Fixed 0–366 axis.

Averaged over the 40 ocean cells within 100 km, this site carries sea ice for a median of 332 days a year, peaking at a median 100.0% concentration. The fitted change is +3.0 ± 4.9 days per decade, which does not clear its own error bars: no detectable change, and that is the answer rather than a gap.

This site is the one the thinning kept here. 15 other known breeding sites lie within 200 km of it and were set aside with it, so this stretch of coast is counted once rather than 16 times — that is what being one of the 56 independent places means. It does not mean the site is alone. The 728 measurable sites in this archive thin to 56 places.

In the 2023 ice year — the last one this archive holds — the sea ice here lasted 365 days, which is this site's 41st shortest season of 41 and above its own median of 332. It was below the median at 657 of the 728 sites measured here and at 44 of the 56 independent places, which is the most widespread short season in the record: the whole archive is drawn in one frame.

Two limits. This is the sea around the site and never the fast ice on it — at 25 km that is invisible. And the archive ends 2024-12-31, so it is a climate record rather than a current reading.

Why there is no count on this page

Penguins are too small to resolve from orbit. What is visible is the guano stain a colony leaves on the ice, which is why counting from satellite is a colour problem rather than a counting problem — and it is not solved. Our own detector correlates at r = −0.16 against ground counts across eight colonies, which is no relationship at all. Until that is fixed, this site publishes locations and says nothing about numbers. A number we cannot defend would be worse than none.

Nearest breeding sites

Nearest stations

60°SCAPE ANNE
Cape Anne in Antarctic Polar Stereographic. Rings are 60°, 70° and 80°S.
Coulman SouthCoulman NorthMandible CirqueJang BogoN137 KM
Within 274 km. Blue dots are other breeding sites, orange are stations.