{"id":14989,"date":"2025-06-26T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/?p=14989"},"modified":"2025-06-19T06:01:55","modified_gmt":"2025-06-19T06:01:55","slug":"emperor-penguins-sea-ice-loss-climate-impact-antarctica-peril-june-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/emperor-penguins-sea-ice-loss-climate-impact-antarctica-peril-june-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"As Antarctic sea ice shrinks, iconic emperor penguins are in more peril than we\u00a0thought"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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\n\n Dana M Bergstrom<\/a>, University of Wollongong<\/a><\/em><\/span>\n\n

When winter comes to Antarctica, seals and Ad\u00e9lie penguins leave the freezing shores and head for the edge of the forming sea ice. But emperor penguins stay put.<\/p>\n\n

The existence of emperor penguins seems all but impossible. Their lives revolve around seasons, timing and access to \u201cfast ice\u201d \u2013 sea ice connected to the Antarctic coast. Here, the sea ice persists long enough into summer for the penguins to rear their chicks successfully. <\/p>\n\n

But climate change is upending the penguins\u2019 carefully tuned biological cycles. The crucial sea ice they depend on is melting too early, plunging the chicks from some colonies into the sea before they are fully fledged. <\/p>\n\n

In the latest bad news<\/a> for these penguins, research by the British Antarctic Survey examined satellite images from 2009 to 2024 to assess fast-ice conditions at 16 emperor penguin colonies south of South America. They noted an average 22% fall in numbers across these colonies. That translates to a decrease of 1.6% every year.<\/p>\n\n

This rate of loss is staggering. As the paper\u2019s lead author Peter Fretwell told the ABC<\/a>, the rate is about 50% worse than even the most pessimistic estimates. <\/p>\n\n

\n \"emperor<\/a>\n
\n Emperor penguin colonies can number in the tens of thousands. But these numbers obscure an alarming trend.<\/span>\n Robert Harding Video\/Shutterstock<\/a><\/span>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n\n

Breeding while it\u2019s freezing<\/h2>\n\n

Just like polar bears in the Arctic, emperor penguins are the iconic species threatened by climate change in Antarctica.<\/p>\n\n

Emperor penguins are a highly successful species. They\u2019re the tallest and heaviest penguin alive today. They evolved about one million years ago<\/a>, and are highly adapted to life in one of Earth\u2019s harshest environments. As of 2009, the emperor penguin population was estimated at just shy of 600,000 birds. <\/p>\n\n

Unfortunately, they are now in real trouble, because their breeding habitat appears to be reducing. <\/p>\n\n

At the beginning of every Antarctic winter, the surface of the ocean begins to freeze and sea ice forms. Over March and April, emperor penguins aggregate into raucous breeding colonies along the coast of the ice continent. They need about nine months to care for their chicks, until the young penguins can go to sea and look after themselves.<\/p>\n\n

The males frequently huddle to keep each other warm and their eggs safe. Meanwhile, the females spend months at sea catching krill, squid and fish, returning in July\/August to feed their hungry chicks. When summer finally comes in December, the chicks start to shed their down and grow a dense, waterproof plumage \u2013 like a feathery armour against the intensely cold seas off the icy continent.<\/p>\n\n

Breeding locations are a kind of \u201cGoldilocks\u201d zone. When choosing a home, the penguins have to find a place that is safe but not too far from the fast ice edge where they go to start hunting. <\/p>\n\n

The greater the distance they have to travel, the longer it takes to return to their offspring, and the chicks may miss out on meals. But if a colony is too close to the edge of the fast ice, the risk increases that the ice breaks up before the chicks are ready to go to sea. Although fast ice can cover vast areas of the ocean surface, its edge is exposed to the swell of the Southern Ocean.<\/p>\n\n

In recent years, the fast ice in different parts of Antarctica has been breaking up early, before the chicks have moulted into their adult plumage. Without waterproof plumage, chicks perish because the cold water kills quickly. As this happens more often, the size of a colony shrinks. <\/p>\n\n

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