January is the peak of the Antarctic summer. This makes it the most active month for exploration, scientific milestones, and significant climate events. So, for fun, I want to offer a list of significant events in Antarctica for January over the past century or more. I covered some of the events before, and I’ve included links to more in-depth information.
I put together this brief, likely incomplete list using AI queries and web sources, checked it against what I know personally and other sources. Have fun exploring these!
Historical Antarctic Milestones
- First Crossing of the Antarctic Circle (January 17, 1773): Captain James Cook became the first person to sail across the Antarctic Circle (66° 33′ South) while commanding the Resolution and Adventure. Though he didn’t see land, his journal entry at 11:15 AM that day noted they were “undoubtedly the first… that ever cross’d that line”.
- First Sightings (January 1820): Humans first saw land or evidence of it in Antarctica in late January 1820. On January 28, a Russian expedition led by Fabian von Bellingshausen sighted the continental ice shelf. Two days later, on January 30, British navigator Edward Bransfield sighted the Trinity Peninsula, a portion of the Antarctic Peninsula below South America.
- Discovery of the South Magnetic Pole (January 16, 1909): Sir Ernest Shackleton‘s main party based in the Ross Sea region failed to reach the geographic South Pole. A separate team led by Professor Edgeworth David successfully located the South Magnetic Pole for the first time in the northern Transantarctic Mountains.
- Scott Reaches the South Pole (January 1912): In one of history’s most poignant moments, Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his four companions reached the South Pole on January 17, 1912. Their triumph was short-lived. They discovered the Norwegian flag left by Roald Amundsen, who beat them by 33 days. Scott famously wrote in his diary that day, “Great God! This is an awful place”.
- The Endurance Trapped (January 1915): Ernest Shackleton’s ship, the Endurance, became permanently stuck in the pack ice of the Weddell Sea on January 19, 1915. This led to one of the most famous survival stories in history.
- Ernest Shackleton died of a heart attack on January 5, 1922. It happened on board a ship, the Quest, bound for Antarctica on his fourth expedition to the region. He was only 47 years old at the time of his death.
- First Continental Crossing (January 1958): Sir Edmund Hillary reached the South Pole on January 4, 1958 as part of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition. The main party, led by Sir Vivian Fuchs, arrived on January 19. They eventually completed the first-ever overland crossing of the continent.
Modern Events
- Record Melting & Heatwaves: January often sees record-breaking temperatures. In January 2020, Antarctica recorded its warmest January ever, contributing to significant melting across the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Similar major melt events were observed in January 2005 and 2023.
- The wreck of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship, the Endurance, was discovered on March 5, 2022. The Endurance22 expedition, organized by the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust, made the discovery at a depth of 3,008 meters (approximately 9,869 feet) at the bottom of the Weddell Sea. The wreck was located roughly four miles south of the last position recorded by the ship’s captain, Frank Worsley, in 1915. Despite being underwater for 107 years, the ship is in a “brilliant state of preservation.” The cold water and absence of wood-eating parasites kept the timber intact, and the name “Endurance” is still clearly visible across the stern.
- Iceberg Calving: In January 2025, a major iceberg (A-84) broke away from the George VI Ice Shelf. This event allowed researchers from the Schmidt Ocean Institute to study a newly exposed seafloor ecosystem that thrived beneath an ice shelf.
- Drilling Milestones (January 2025): The European Beyond EPICA project reached a historic milestone by drilling a 2,800m ice core that contains ice more than 1.2 million years old. Ice cores provide a detailed climate record of greenhouse gases, making this achievement a rare, high-resolution view of the impact of our modern fossil-fuel civilization on the global climate.
- “Iceberg Earthquakes” (January 2026): Recent seismic data reveal that massive glaciers, like the Thwaites “Doomsday” Glacier, experience glacial earthquakes triggered by the capsizing of giant icebergs.
Annual Traditions
- Moving the South Pole: Every January 1, staff at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station physically move the marker for the geographic South Pole to account for the annual 10-meter shift of the ice sheet.
- Icestock: New Year’s Eve and day staff in McMurdo Station hold an outdoor concert dubbed Icestock at the station. Informal garage bands practice many weeks, added to their six-day work week, to entertain denizens of the remote U.S. outpost at the bottom of the world.
