Passive acoustic data provide a prime source of information on marine mammal distribution and behaviour. Particularly in the Southern Ocean, where ship-based data collection can be severely hampered by weather and ice conditions, passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) of marine mammals forms an important source of year-round information on acoustic presence. Array data can be used to obtain directional information on the species present in the recordings to derive movement patterns. Acoustic arrays furthermore allow spatial comparisons of marine mammal distribution patterns and habitat affinities when the acoustic presence information is linked to local environmental parameters. Here we present two passive acoustic monitoring arrays that have been implemented by the Alfred Wegener Institute’s Ocean Acoustic Lab and serve the investigation of marine mammals on different spatial scales. During the austral summer season 2012/2013 a local scale array of sea ice-based time-synchronized passive acoustic recorders was deployed in Atka Bay, Antarctica. The PASATA (PASsive Acoustic Tracking of Antarctic marine mammals) project investigates coastal local habitat usage and communication ranges of marine mammals by integrating positional information from triangulation of calling animals and information from environmental parameters. For studies on marine mammals over larger spatial scales, 23 passive acoustic recorders were deployed in oceanographic moorings in the Southern Ocean, reaching from the Greenwich meridian throughout the Weddell Sea to the Western Antarctic Peninsula. The inter-disciplinary nature of this mooring array allows combining in-situ oceanographic measurements with passive acoustic data on marine mammal occurrence. It furthermore forms the first basin-wide, long term array, at least in the Southern Ocean. Here, we describe both arrays, the recorder types used, and technical and logistic requirements for PAM in a polar environment.