PenguinTracker
PenguinTracker / Colonies / Lindsay Islands

Lindsay Islands

Penguin breeding site · Marie Byrd Land · CCAMLR 88.3

Lindsay Islands is a known penguin breeding site in the Marie Byrd Land, at 73°37'S 103°11'W. Adélie penguins have been recorded here.

RegionMarie Byrd Land
CCAMLR subarea88.3
Species recorded1
Sea ice within 100 km345 days a year, median
Site codeLSAY
Position73°37'S 103°11'W
Decimal-73.6094, -103.1829
Distance to pole1,823 km
Populationnot published — see below

Species recorded here

Adélie penguinPygoscelis adeliae

The sea around this site, 1979–2024

0901802703661979 · 329 days1980 · 322 days1981 · 345 days1982 · 354 days1983 · 365 days1988 · 365 days1989 · 365 days1990 · 352 days1991 · 278 days1992 · 327 days1993 · 358 days1994 · 365 days1995 · 338 days1996 · 268 days1997 · 339 days1998 · 312 days1999 · 346 days2000 · 365 days2001 · 287 days2002 · 311 days2003 · 342 days2004 · 366 days2005 · 365 days2006 · 364 days2007 · 360 days2008 · 288 days2009 · 296 days2010 · 315 days2011 · 357 days2012 · 339 days2013 · 289 days2014 · 343 days2015 · 365 days2016 · 317 days2017 · 346 days2018 · 361 days2019 · 351 days2020 · 366 days2021 · 365 days2022 · 294 days2023 · 333 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 30 ocean cells within 100 km, this site carries sea ice for a median of 345 days a year, peaking at a median 98.8% concentration. The fitted change is -0.5 ± 7.2 days per decade, which does not clear its own error bars: no detectable change, and that is the answer rather than a gap.

5 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 333 days, which is this site's 15th shortest season of 41 and below its own median of 345. 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°SLINDSAY ISLANDS
Lindsay Islands in Antarctic Polar Stereographic. Rings are 60°, 70° and 80°S.
Edwards IslandsClark IslandBear PeninsulaEstacion Polar Cientifi…N300 KM
Within 600 km. Blue dots are other breeding sites, orange are stations.