Global Warming Is Melting Emperor Penguin Ice Colonies, Putting Them On The Path To Extinction

It is no news that the constant rise of global warming will lead to devastating consequences on not just our lives, but also the flora and fauna. We're already seeing a rise in water levels and ginormous cracks in Antarctica. And next on the verge of extinction are penguins.

Reuters

The Emperor penguins, to be specific are known to build colonies on ice with very particular conditions - it must be locked into the shoreline but close to the sea for easy access to food.

This sea ice is used as the foundation for breeding. And with the rise in temperatures, the sea ice will reduce gradually, eliminating a habitat for the penguins to thrive.

Stephanie Jenouvrier, a seabird ecologist at WHOI and her team has conducted a study by fusing two existing computer model - the first model was a global climate model created by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) that showed projections of formation of sea ice under different climate scenarios. The second was a model of the penguin population itself, calculated how colonies might react to changes in that ice habitat.

She says in a statement, "We've been developing that penguin model for 10 years," says Jenouvrier. "It can give a very detailed account of how sea ice affects the life cycle of emperor penguins, their reproduction, and their mortality. When we feed the results of the NCAR climate model into it, we can start to see how different global temperature targets may affect the emperor penguin population as a whole."

They tested these models in three different conditions - a future where global temperatures increased by 1.5 degrees celsius (which is also the goal set by Paris climate control), one with an increase in two degrees celsius and one where temperature spikes to 5-6 degree celsius.

Reuters

In the first scenario, the study revealed that only 5 percent of sea ice would be lost by the year 2100 - resulting in a 19 percent drop in the number of colonies. However, with a spike of two degrees, the drop numbers spike considerably with the loss of sea ice tripling and a third of the colonies no longer existent. The third scenario is obviously the worse of all as it reveals a complete loss of penguin colonies.

As Jenouvrier says, "Under that scenario, the penguins will effectively be marching towards extinction over the next century. "