Aug 11, 2021 06:00:00

Designated as an endangered species with the potential to reduce the emperor penguin population by 99%, due to the effects of climate change

Global climate change is so advanced that the Secretary-General of the United Nations has described it as '

a red light for humankind.' It has been reported that the emperor penguin is in danger of extinction due to the melting of Antarctic ice due to the effects of such climate change, and there is a movement to designate it as an endangered species.

The call of the emperor penguin: Legal responses to species threatened by climate change --Jenouvrier ---- Global Change Biology --Wiley Online Library
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.15806

98% of emperor penguin colonies could be extinct by 2100 as ice melts – can Endangered Species Act protection save them?
https://theconversation.com/98-of-emperor-penguin-colonies-could-be-extinct-by-2100-as-ice-melts-can-endangered-species-act-protection-save-them-165468

Emperor penguins live in large herds on ice shelves that straddle the Antarctic coastline and the sea. If this ice shelf is too wide, it will be difficult to secure food in the sea, and if it is too narrow, chicks will be more likely to drown in the sea. Is forming. The researchers warn that climate change is reducing the area of ice shelves, putting the entire species at risk by losing the ice shelves needed for emperor penguins to live.

Antarctic researchers have been tracking penguins herds living in an area called Pointe Géologie since the 1960s. The study reveals that the population of penguins living in Pointe Géologie declined with the rapid shrinkage of ice shelves in the 1970s. After that, the population will not recover significantly until 2020, and it is predicted that the population will decrease further due to the effects of climate change.

Another area called Halley Bay , where a major ice shelf collapse occurred in 2016, kills more than 10,000 chicks in the second largest emperor penguin herd in Antarctica. Things have happened. The number of individuals in this group has not recovered even at the time of writing the article.

Based on the above situation, the research team investigated the impact of penguins herds across Antarctica on ice shelf area reduction. The image below shows how the population of emperor penguins (black, green, yellow, red dots) will decrease if the Antarctic temperature rises by 1.5, 2.6, and 4.3 degrees by 2100. What was shown. If you look at the images, you can see that if the temperature in Antarctica rises by 4.3 degrees, most of the ice shelves will collapse and most herds will lose more than 90% of their populations.

According to the research team, if climate change continues as it is, 98% of the emperor penguin herd will disappear by 2100, and the total emperor penguin population will decrease by 99%. Based on the results of this study, the

United States Department of Fish and Wildlife has proposed to designate the emperor penguin as an endangered species.

The study also shows that if the temperature rise is suppressed to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2100, the decline in emperor penguin populations may be stopped. However, Stephanie Genobrier, a member of the research team, pointed out that global climate change measures have not progressed enough to meet the goal of 'keeping temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius' set forth in the Paris Agreement. We are calling for the implementation of further climate change measures.