Using satellite images, scientists at the British Antarctic Survey were able to see that sea ice in the central and eastern Bellingshausen Sea region last year broke up long before the start of the birds’ fledgling period, when penguin chicks would have developed their waterproof feathers.
The research, published Thursday in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, found that more than 90% of emperor penguin colonies in Antarctica could be “quasi-extinct” by the end of the century if global warming continues at its current pace. “We have never seen emperor penguins fail to breed, at this scale, in a single season,” Peter Fretwell, a geographic information scientist at the British Antarctic Survey and the study’s lead author, said in a statement. “The loss of sea ice in this region during the Antarctic summer made it very unlikely that displaced chicks would survive.”
