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 A hut is a small dwelling, which may be constructed of various local materials. Huts are a type of vernacular architecture because they are built of readily available materials such as wood, snow, ice, stone, grass, palm leaves, branches, hid ...

Ross Island Ross Island is an island formed by four volcanoes in the Ross Sea near the continent of Antarctica, off the coast of Victoria Land in McMurdo Sound. Ross Island lies within the boundaries of Ross Dependency, an area of Antarctica claimed by New ...

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 contine ...

. 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 (1839–18 ...

, 1901–04, under

Robert Falcon Scott Captain Robert Falcon Scott, , (6 June 1868 – c. 29 March 1912) was a British Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the ''Discovery'' expedition of 1901–1904 and the ill-fated ''Terra Nov ...

. 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 Electromagnetic interference (EMI), also called radio-frequency interference (RFI) when in the radio frequency spectrum, is a disturbance generated by an external source that affects an electrical circuit by electromagnetic induction, electros ...

) site for atmospheric studies. It has the logistic support of

McMurdo Station McMurdo Station is a United States Antarctic research station on the south tip of Ross Island, which is in the New Zealand-claimed Ross Dependency on the shore of McMurdo Sound in Antarctica. It is operated by the United States through the Unit ...

1.5 km to the south, and

Scott Base Scott Base is a New Zealand Antarctica, Antarctic research station at Pram Point on Ross Island near Mount Erebus in New Zealand's Ross Dependency territorial claim. It was named in honour of Captain Robert Falcon Scott, Royal Navy, RN, leader ...

3 km to the south-east, and continues to be protected as

Antarctic Specially Protected Area An Antarctic Specially Protected Area (ASPA) is an area on the continent of Antarctica, or on nearby islands, which is protected by scientists and several different international bodies. The protected areas were established in 1961 under the Antarct ...

(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 bounding surface formed by the fluid flowing along the surface. The fluid's interaction with the wall induces a no-slip boundary condi ...

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 Immunoglobulin Y (abbreviated as IgY) is a type of immunoglobulin which is the major antibody in bird, reptile, and lungfish blood. It is also found in high concentrations in chicken egg yolk. As with the other immunoglobulins, IgY is a class of ...

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 an ...

. 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 spectral components of a physical phenomenon. Spectrometer is a broad term often used to describe instruments that measure a continuous variable of a phenomenon where the ...

was installed by DSIR, New Zealand to measure

nitrogen dioxide Nitrogen dioxide is a chemical compound with the formula . It is one of several nitrogen oxides. is an intermediate in the industrial synthesis of nitric acid, millions of tons of which are produced each year for use primarily in the producti ...

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 steady lowering of about four percent in the total amount of ozone in Earth's atmosphere, and a much larger springtime decrease in stratospheric ozone (the ozone la ...

a cascade of remote sensing instrumentation was installed by the DSIR (known as

NIWA The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research or NIWA ( mi, Taihoro Nukurangi), is a Crown Research Institute of New Zealand. Established in 1992, NIWA conducts research across a broad range of disciplines in the environmental scien ...

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 Gaw or GAW may refer to: People * Gaw (surname), a Gaelic-language surname Places * Gaw, Myanmar, a town in Thandwe District, Rakhine State * Gaw Township, a township of Rakhine State Other uses * Game & Watch, electronic handheld games ...

and the NDACC. The laboratory has expanded in size since its initial construction in 1959. Two atmospheric research laboratories operate in the Arrival Heights ASPA. These are owned and operated by Antarctica New Zealand and the

United States Antarctic Program The United States Antarctic Program (or USAP; formerly known as the United States Antarctic Research Program or USARP and the United States Antarctic Service or USAS) is an organization of the United States government which has presence in the A ...

. In 2007 Antarctica New Zealand constructed a purpose-built atmospheric research laboratory. It houses both New Zealand and United States instrumentation. Ahts sky survey

References

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