Climate change effects on emperor penguins

• Published in: Revista de Iniciación Científica
• Main Authors: Casilda Saavedra, Taibah Alhatem
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Spanish
• Published: Universidad Tecnológica de Panamá 2019
• Subjects: climate change; temperature; population; emperor penguin; Science (General); Q1-390; Antarctic; Arctic; Antarc*; Antarctica; Aptenodytes forsteri; Climate change; Emperor penguins
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.33412/rev-ric.v4.2.2157; https://doaj.org/article/838b33a3fb18440e9fe2002b85b1f369

Climate change is one of the major issues affecting our mother Earth. The change in climate include both the change in temperature and the change in precipitation. Both of these parameters are very crucial to animals and plants where they depend on them for their survival. Climate change has so many negative impacts on the biodiversity of the Earth especially in the Arctic and Antarctic continents. The rise in temperature decreases the ice coverage which in return reduces the population of the wildlife. The ice coverage is crucial to the biodiversity living in Antarctica where they depend on it for their survival. It’s very important for their feeding, breeding, and habitat. However, with the reduction of ice, many animals are becoming close to extinction. One of those species that were negatively impacted by climate change is emperor penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri). These penguins require very low temperatures in order to breed and populate. Very high temperatures for these penguins could result in decreased population rate around Antarctica. An analysis was done of emperor penguin population data found in different research papers in conjunction with temperature anomalies data in Antarctica from 1983 to 2005 from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The results indicated that there was an inverse relationship between the temperature and the penguin’s population. It was shown through the analysis conducted that the temperature impacted the penguins negatively throughout the years since the temperature was rising. It decreased their breeding population and chicks count dramatically in all the parts of Antarctica tested.