PenguinTracker
PenguinTracker / Colonies / Cape Evensen (offshore rocks)

Cape Evensen (offshore rocks)

Penguin breeding site · Southwest Antarctic Peninsula · CCAMLR 48.1

Cape Evensen (offshore rocks) is a known penguin breeding site in the Southwest Antarctic Peninsula, at 66°09'S 65°43'W. Adélie penguins have been recorded here.

RegionSouthwest Antarctic Peninsula
CCAMLR subarea48.1
Species recorded1
Sea ice within 100 km191 days a year, median
Site codeEVER
Position66°09'S 65°43'W
Decimal-66.1579, -65.7205
Distance to pole2,651 km
Populationnot published — see below

Species recorded here

Adélie penguinPygoscelis adeliae

The sea around this site, 1979–2024

0901802703661979 · 360 days1980 · 327 days1981 · 300 days1982 · 265 days1983 · 195 days1988 · 177 days1989 · 44 days1990 · 129 days1991 · 260 days1992 · 227 days1993 · 231 days1994 · 197 days1995 · 233 days1996 · 199 days1997 · 189 days1998 · 183 days1999 · 180 days2000 · 128 days2001 · 216 days2002 · 228 days2003 · 143 days2004 · 220 days2005 · 232 days2006 · 151 days2007 · 124 days2008 · 117 days2009 · 121 days2010 · 142 days2011 · 190 days2012 · 136 days2013 · 196 days2014 · 172 days2015 · 228 days2016 · 256 days2017 · 154 days2018 · 215 days2019 · 191 days2020 · 191 days2021 · 169 days2022 · 1 days2023 · 77 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 26 ocean cells within 100 km, this site carries sea ice for a median of 191 days a year, peaking at a median 96.0% concentration. The fitted change is -26.5 days per decade, but it does not hold when the record is refitted from 1988 onward, so it is not quotable — the satellite before that date reads low at the coast, and every site here is coastal.

74 other known breeding sites lie within 200 km of this one, and the cells this measurement averages over reach 100 km — so this record and theirs are not independent readings of the sea. Thinned so that no two overlap, the 728 measurable sites in this archive become 56 places.

In the 2023 ice year — the last one this archive holds — the sea ice here lasted 77 days, which is this site's 3rd shortest season of 41 and below its own median of 191. 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 EVENSEN (OFFSHORE
Cape Evensen (offshore rocks) in Antarctic Polar Stereographic. Rings are 60°, 70° and 80°S.
Cape Evensen (mainland)Fish IslandsDarbel IslandIslet 1 km west of Lavo…VernadskyPalmerYelchoN112 KM
Within 225 km. Blue dots are other breeding sites, orange are stations.