Arrival Heights are clifflike heights which extend in a north-east–south-west direction along the west side of Hut Point Peninsula, just north of Hut Point in

Ross Island Ross Island is an island in Antarctica lying on the east side of McMurdo Sound and extending from Cape Bird in the north to Cape Armitage in the south, and a similar distance from Cape Royds in the west to Cape Crozier in the east. The isl ...

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

. They were discovered and named by the

British National Antarctic Expedition The ''Discovery'' Expedition of 1901–1904, known officially as the British National Antarctic Expedition, was the first official British exploration of the Antarctic regions since the voyage of James Clark Ross sixty years earlier (1839–1 ...

, 1901–04, under

Robert Falcon Scott Captain Robert Falcon Scott (6 June 1868 – ) was a British Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the Discovery Expedition, ''Discovery'' expedition of 1901–04 and the Terra Nova Expedition ...

. The name suggests the expedition's arrival at its winter headquarters at nearby Hut Point.

Antarctic Specially Protected Area

An area at Arrival Heights was originally protected because its geographical characteristics, such as its elevated position and broad viewing horizon, as well as the volcanic crater morphology, made it useful as a “quiet” (lacking electromagnetic interference) site for atmospheric studies. It has the logistic support of

McMurdo Station McMurdo Station is an American Antarctic research station on the southern tip of Ross Island. It is operated by the United States through the United States Antarctic Program (USAP), a branch of the National Science Foundation. The station is ...

1.5 km to the south, and Scott Base 3 km to the south-east, and continues to be protected as Antarctic Specially Protected Area (ASPA) No.122 (est. 1975) for its value in upper atmospheric research and

boundary layer In physics and fluid mechanics, a boundary layer is the thin layer of fluid in the immediate vicinity of a Boundary (thermodynamic), bounding surface formed by the fluid flowing along the surface. The fluid's interaction with the wall induces ...

air sampling studies.

Atmospheric research

Upper atmospheric research started at Arrival Heights in 1959 with the establishment of an unmanned auroral radar station by the New Zealand's Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) in partnership with Stanford University (USA). This was to coincide with other Antarctic atmospheric research activities as part of the 1957 IGY programme including the establishment of a full geomagnetic observatory, vertical incident ionosonde station and AZA transmitter at Scott Base. Over the next 10–15 years a variety of additional DSIR equipment was added, including an auroral camera along with American scientific investigations. In 1982 a MF-radar was installed by the Physics Department at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand to measure D-region winds in the

ionosphere The ionosphere () is the ionized part of the upper atmosphere of Earth, from about to above sea level, a region that includes the thermosphere and parts of the mesosphere and exosphere. The ionosphere is ionized by solar radiation. It plays ...

. Coincidentally, also in 1982 the first stratospheric

trace gas Trace gases are gases that are present in small amounts within an environment such as a planet's atmosphere. Trace gases in Earth's atmosphere are gases other than nitrogen (78.1%), oxygen (20.9%), and argon (0.934%) which, in combination, make u ...

remote sensing uv/vis grating

spectrometer A spectrometer () is a scientific instrument used to separate and measure Spectrum, spectral components of a physical phenomenon. Spectrometer is a broad term often used to describe instruments that measure a continuous variable of a phenomeno ...

was installed by DSIR, New Zealand to measure

nitrogen dioxide Nitrogen dioxide is a chemical compound with the formula . One of several nitrogen oxides, nitrogen dioxide is a reddish-brown gas. It is a paramagnetic, bent molecule with C2v point group symmetry. Industrially, is an intermediate in the s ...

abundance in the polar atmosphere. With the discovery of the Antarctic

ozone hole Ozone depletion consists of two related events observed since the late 1970s: a lowered total amount of ozone in Earth, Earth's upper atmosphere, and a much larger springtime decrease in stratospheric ozone (the ozone layer) around Earth's polar ...

a cascade of remote sensing instrumentation was installed by the DSIR (known as NIWA from 1992) over the next 10–15 years focusing on taking measurements for stratospheric heterogeneous chemistry and ozone depletion research. In 1988 DSIR started a research programme to obtain in situ flask samples for greenhouse gas and carbon isotope analysis. Both the in situ and remote sensing measurements are an important part in global atmospheric monitoring networks such as GAW and the NDACC. In 2007, the new Arrival Heights Laboratory was built. Ahts sky survey

References

{{Coord, 77, 49, S, 166, 39, E, source:GNIS, display=title Cliffs of Ross Island Antarctic Specially Protected Areas