Antarctica Webcam Live
The Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, Casey, Davis and Macquarie Island — four windows onto the most extreme continent on Earth. Live 24/7.
Four official research-station cameras
NOAA operates a live camera at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, updated every 15 minutes; the Australian Antarctic Division runs official webcams at Casey and Davis research stations, plus Macquarie Island, the subantarctic outpost between Tasmania and Antarctica.
South Pole — a station rebuilt three times to survive its own success
Named for Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott, who reached the South Pole within weeks of each other in 1911 and 1912, the Amundsen-Scott station has been continuously occupied since 1956, making it one of the longest-running human presences anywhere in Antarctica. Its first structure sank nearly two metres into the ice within three years; its second, a 50-metre geodesic dome built in 1975, was eventually crushed by decades of accumulating snow and dismantled in 2009. The current elevated station, completed in 2008, sits on adjustable stilts specifically engineered to let snow scour beneath it rather than bury it — a direct design response to watching two previous versions slowly disappear.
Sitting at 2,835 metres on the polar plateau, the station drifts roughly 10 metres a year as the ice sheet beneath it moves, and its population swings from around 150 in the relatively mild summer down to as few as 40 people who winter over through six months of continuous darkness and temperatures that can fall below -80°C. It remains the only research station located at the geographic pole itself, rather than on the coast.
What the four cameras show
Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station
NOAA · Geographic South PoleLive image, updated every 15 minutes, from the roof of the Atmospheric Research Observatory at the South Pole.
Watch live →Casey Station
Australian Antarctic DivisionLive image and time-lapse from Casey, an Australian research station on the East Antarctic coast.
Watch live →Davis Station
Australian Antarctic DivisionLive image from Davis, nicknamed the "Riviera of the South" for its comparatively mild climate.
Watch live →Macquarie Island
Australian Antarctic DivisionLive image from Macquarie Island, a subantarctic UNESCO World Heritage site between Australia and Antarctica.
Watch live →Macquarie Island exists because the Indo-Australian and Pacific tectonic plates collided and pushed a slice of oceanic crust and upper mantle rock above sea level — rock that normally sits several kilometres beneath the ocean floor. UNESCO lists it as the only place on the planet where this process is actively observable on dry land, giving geologists a walkable cross-section of material most of the world will only ever study by drilling.
Beyond the four cameras
Casey Station: home to unusually dense moss beds nearby, earning the area an unofficial nickname, "the Daintree of Antarctica."
Davis Station: set in the ice-free Vestfold Hills, mild enough by Antarctic standards to have earned its "Riviera" nickname.
Macquarie Island: home to the entire global population of royal penguins during nesting season, alongside seals and albatross.
One station sits exactly at the bottom of the planet and drifts ten metres a year without ever leaving the pole; another sits on rock that used to be six kilometres underwater. Antarctica's research stations don't just study extremes — several of them are built directly on top of one.
When to watch
Southern hemisphere summer, November-February: for continuous daylight at the South Pole and peak wildlife activity at Macquarie Island.
About these stations: Amundsen-Scott sits at the geographic South Pole; Casey and Davis lie on the East Antarctic coast; Macquarie Island sits roughly halfway between Tasmania and Antarctica.
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