How are penguins affected by climate change?
How are penguins -both in the cold weather and the warm weather- affected by climate change?
How are penguins -both in the cold weather and the warm weather- affected by climate change?
Seventeen species of penguin are distributed over the Southern Hemisphere, from the Antarctic to the Galapagos Islands. The general scientific consensus is that the polar regions are warming faster, and as you would expect, the more southern penguins populations tend to be most affected by climate change. The penguin populations experiencing climate change will be particularly affected if it decreases their food supply (krill, fish, squid).
Emperor penguins (like those featured in March of the Penguins) live very close to the south pole, so I’d expect lots of literature on that species, but the one that keeps popping up in books and scientific papers is the Adelie penguin, also a resident of coastal Antarctica.
For specific examples of cold and warm weather effects, these two books provide a fascinating look at Adelie penguins and the toll climate change is taking on them.
Ferocious Summer, by Meredith Hooper.
This book provides the author’s firsthand account of the Adelie penguins and the effects of climate change. The book is generally available at public libraries.
http://www.amazon.ca/Ferocious-Summer-Merdith-Hooper/dp/1553653696/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267499519&sr=8-1
The Adelie Penguin: Bellwether of Climate Change, by David Ainley.
This book is more dense and absolutely filled with scientific data – it’s basically a collection of scientific papers. This would be an excellent resource for a university level paper on Adelie penguins, and the book would be more likely found in a university library than a public library. (I used this book as a resource for a series of articles on the Adelie penguin.)
http://www.amazon.ca/ADA-Lie-Penguin-Bellwether-Climate/dp/023112306X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267499233&sr=1-1
Hope this helps with your school project or just for casual reading!
Their homes (the snow and ice) are melting and the water is getting warmer killing the fish, their food.
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All due respect to Kate (above) that answer displays a breathtaking ignorance of the facts. It is the Arctic (the North Pole) which is said to be currently at risk from warming – no penguins live there, only polar bears.
The Antarctic (the South Pole) is on the whole getting a little colder at the moment. The two largest (and therefore most representative of environmental effects) populations of penguins – the Macaroni and the Chinstrap are both doing very well, with populations levels in the millions and increasing or stable.
See http://www.antarcticconnection.com/antarctic/wildlife/penguins/chinstrap.shtml
Also http://www.antarcticconnection.com/antarctic/wildlife/penguins/macaroni.shtml
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When people tell you that climate change has / will affect the penguins CHECK THEIR FACTS! There is a big difference between predicting what **may** happen and the facts of what has happened so far. We *may* get hit by an asteroid. We haven’t so far,
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EDIT -
Another example from Rony (below) – what’s an "ice leopard"? Is that a snow leopard that’s stopped moving?
global warming is an increase in the average temperature of the earth’s atmosphere (especially a sustained increase that causes climatic changes)
it increases the average temp of earths atmosphere and melt the polar ice which result in loss of habitat by polar animals like polar bear, ice leopard and penguin
Kate, very few penguins actually live on the ice, in fact none I can think of. I know Emperors lay eggs whilst on ice, but that’s only because the water is too cold for them to feed, so one of the pair swims off north to stock up on food.
Many penguins do not live in Antartica; South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and The Galapagos etc are not noted for cold weather!
As the other poster says, the Antarctic is not being affected anyway.
Warming of the sea surface by as little as several tenths of a degree can pose a serious threat to King penguins. This was shown in a new report by the team of Yvon Le Maho, CNRS senior researcher at the Institut pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien (IPHC, CNRS / University of Strasbourg 1) and a member of the French Academy of Sciences. The researchers tracked more than 450 individual King penguins over nine years in their natural environment, within the Crozet Archipelago.
if you want to know more go to:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080330215330.htm
@Anonymous: "The study was initiated 9 years ago, covering a population of 450 king penguins who had had an 0.8 g electronic tag implanted under their skin." is what your link said. And you think that 9 years of observing 450 penguins is enough to make the statement that a climate change of 0.26 kelvins will have a significant impact on the survival rate of the penguins when the weather there moves over 60 kelvins each year, and the normal variation of average temperature is double what they are quoting? This just does not stand up to scrutiny.
@Rony: Polar Bears are doing well:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y2-pBuandlc/RdMlm6MP29I/AAAAAAAAABI/D1s7PlrDjMk/s320/Polar+Bears.gif
@Kate: Here is how Antarctic ice is doing:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png
They will need to adapt….. or DIE!!! In some cases I suggest bio-reengineering through technology to save dying species. Especially the cute and fuzzy ones