Commonwealth Bay is an open bay about 48 km (30 mi) wide at the entrance between Point Alden and Cape Gray in

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest co ...

. It was discovered in 1912 by the

Australasian Antarctic Expedition The Australasian Antarctic Expedition was a 1911–1914 expedition headed by Douglas Mawson that explored the largely uncharted Antarctic coast due south of Australia. Mawson had been inspired to lead his own venture by his experiences on Ernes ...

under

Douglas Mawson Sir Douglas Mawson OBE FRS FAA (5 May 1882 – 14 October 1958) was an Australian geologist, Antarctic explorer, and academic. Along with Roald Amundsen, Robert Falcon Scott, and Sir Ernest Shackleton, he was a key expedition leader duri ...

, who established the main base of the expedition at Cape Denison at the head of the bay. Named by Australasian Antarctic Expedition after the Commonwealth of Australia. Commonwealth Bay Antarctica

Katabatic Wind

The bay is listed in both the ''

Guinness Book of World Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...

'' and the Eighth Edition of the '' National Geographic

Atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of maps of Earth or of a region of Earth. Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats. In addition to presenting geograp ...

'' as the windiest place on Earth with winds regularly exceeding per hour and an average annual wind speed of per hour. Storms are caused by katabatic wind, a concentrated flow of cold air moving along the steep surface of the ice shield towards the sea. The air flow is accelerated by the increasing gradient of the surface of ice and the cliff monolith at Cape Denison. In the summer there are periods of relative calm but during winter storms are especially strong and long lasting, and can start and end unexpectedly. An abrupt start and end of storm might be accompanied by powerful whirlpools and expressive short-lived and fast-moving clouds at the coast line. Despite the extreme weather, the coast of Commonwealth Bay is an important breeding area for Antarctic petrels,

emperor penguin The emperor penguin (''Aptenodytes forsteri'') is the tallest and heaviest of all living penguin species and is endemic to Antarctica. The male and female are similar in plumage and size, reaching in length and weighing from . Feathers of ...

s, and

Adelie penguin Adelie or Adélie may refer to: * Adélie Land, a claimed territory on the continent of Antarctica * Adelie Land meteorite Adelie Land is a meteorite discovered on December 5, 1912, in Antarctica by Francis Howard Bickerton (1889-1954), a membe ...

s which means that there are also

Leopard seals The leopard seal (''Hydrurga leptonyx''), also referred to as the sea leopard, is the second largest species of seal in the Antarctic (after the southern elephant seal). Its only natural predator is the orca. It feeds on a wide range of prey inc ...

Adelie penguin population crash

The population of a colony of Adelie penguins here has crashed from 160,000 to 10,000, since 2011. A giant iceberg the size of Rome got stuck, and the colony is now effectively landlocked.

References

External links

''Life On Commonwealth Bay''
by

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was est ...

journalist Pauline Askin
Commonwealth Bay photographs
on

Flickr Flickr ( ; ) is an American image hosting and video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was a popular way for amateur and professiona ...

Bays of George V Land Extreme points of Earth {{GeorgeVLand-geo-stub