A new team of UK specialists is embarking on a 9,000-mile journey to Antarctica to protect a British science base threatened by climate change.
The UK Antarctic Heritage Trust (UKAHT), a Cambridge-based charity, is in its second year of a three-year mission to save Port Lockroy.
Its goal is to restore the site, which has the world’s southernmost Post Office, museum, and more than 1,000 gentoo penguins.
This year’s team will install beams and props to help the buildings withstand increased precipitation and snow loading, as well as monitor the penguins.
The site is more than 80 years old and faces structural deterioration due to rising temperatures and extreme weather on the rapidly warming Antarctic Peninsula.
After initial assessments revealed serious structural weaknesses, last year’s team prepared the site ready for this season’s interventions, which UKAHT said was the charity’s “biggest ever conservation season” at Port Lockroy.