Met Screen
Base H - Signy Island Antarctica

  ©Copyright - Crown, expired, photograph - Tickell, W.L.N. (meteorologist) - picture taken 1955 / 56

Meteorology is in some ways the founding science in Antarctica. Right from the first visits and through the Heroic Age, expeditions that visited and/or wintered would take detailed weather observations. Later on, most bases when established would have a weather station as a matter of course.

There are in fact some national bases that have been operational for many years that have only really taken meteorological data and done little or no other science at all, so meteorology can be used as an excuse for a national presence.

These days much standard meteorological data is gathered by automatic weather stations which may be on a base that fulfils other scientific functions or increasingly may be in remote locations.