Sea ice losses in Antarctica in 2022 during the breeding season of emperor penguins resulted in four of five breeding colonies in Bellingshausen Sea failing completely.
Satellite images show that none of the chicks at those sites survived.
This is the first time that a widespread breeding failure in emperor penguins has been recorded.Aptenodytes forsteri; but if the loss in ice due Climate changeScientists warn that it will not be the last.
“We’ve never seen an emperor-penguin fail to reproduce at this level in a single breeding season. “The loss of sea-ice in this area during the Antarctic summer was very likely to make it unlikely that the displaced chicks will survive,” says Peter Fretwell, a cartographer with the British Antarctic Survey.
“We know that emperor penguins are highly vulnerable in a warming climate – and current scientific evidence suggests that extreme sea ice loss events like this will become more frequent and widespread.”
Around Antarctica there is usually a stable “skirt”, attached to the land, for most of the time. This Fast iceAs it is called, the iceberg forms in April during autumn in the Southern Hemisphere and lasts until high summer, which is January.
The Emperor Penguins lay their eggs on this fast-ice in May or June.
The incubation time for Emperor penguins is approximately 65 days. But the chicks will be helpless until then. fledge – that is, they grow out of their baby fluff into suitable plumage for swimming and diving in the gelid Antarctic waters. This happens usually between December and January.
The breeding season in 2022 began normally. Penguins laid their eggs during the autumn and then incubated them and hatched the chicks into the winter.
Spring brought disaster. The fast ice began to retreat and break up earlier. By summer’s beginning, the Antarctic sea-ice extent was the same as the all time low recorded in summer 2021.
Bellingshausen Sea to the west, near the Antarctic Peninsula, was the region that suffered the most, as some regions experienced a total loss of sea ice.
Each year, Emperor penguins return annually to the same five locations in the Bellingshausen Sea. They lay their eggs there and raise their chicks. These five colonies have a size range from an estimated 650 breeding pairs on average to 3,500 breeding couples.
By December 2022 four of the five sites were gone as the ice upon which they relied began to melt into the ocean. Rothschild Island was the only site with 650 breeding couples where chicks were able to successfully leave their nests. Fretwell’s team did not find any other babies.
Emperor penguin colonies are found all around the Antarctic continent. However, the breeding failure in these few colonies is a concern. Bellingshausen SeaThis is the first of many.
The Antarctic sea ice has never been this thin. Scientists say that if these trends continue, Over 90 percentThe extinction of many emperor penguin colony will occur by the end 21st Century.
This paper reveals the link between ecosystem destruction and sea ice loss. Sea ice is melting at an alarming pace due to climate change. It is likely to be absent from the Arctic in the 2030s – and in the Antarctic, the four lowest sea ice extents recorded have been since 2016,” says physicist Jeremy Wilkinson of the British Antarctic Survey.
The impact of climate changes must be minimized. “There is no more time.”
The research has appeared in Communications Earth & Environment.
