ABOARD THE MV ARCTIC SUNRISE, Antarctica (Reuters) – Peering via binoculars from an inflatable motorboat bobbing in frigid waters, polar ecology researchers Michael Wethington and Alex Borowicz scan a rocky outcrop on Antarctica’s Andersson Island for splatterings of red-brown guano that may sign a colony of penguins close by.
The birds have turn out to be excess of an iconic image of the earth’s frozen south. Scientists now use them as key indicators for understanding climate change close to the South Pole – with sure western areas just like the Antarctic Peninsula having undergone speedy warming, whereas East Antarctica stays chilly and capped in ice.
“We are counting penguin nests to perceive what number of penguins are in a colony, producing chicks yearly, and whether or not that quantity goes up or down with the environmental circumstances,” stated Borowicz, of Stony Brook University in New York.
For climate researchers, nothing is simple within the distant and icy reaches of Antarctica. But penguins are simpler to observe than different species as a result of they nest on land and their black feathers and their waste will be noticed in opposition to the white expanse.
“We can use penguins as a bioindicator to see how the remainder of the ecosystem is working,” stated Wethington, additionally of Stony Brook.
Simple counts of particular person penguins alongside different strategies like analyses of satellite tv for pc pictures inform a nuanced story, with some penguins dubbed ‘winners’ as climate change opens new habitats, whereas others are compelled to search colder climes.
WAVE OF ‘GENTOOFICATION’
Gentoo penguins, with vivid red-orange beaks and distinctive white markings on their heads, are partial to open water with out chunks of ice bobbing round.
When temperatures on the Antarctic Peninsula started rising quicker than nearly anyplace else on the planet through the latter half of the twentieth century, gentoo populations expanded southwards in what some scientists name the “gentoofication” of Antarctica.
“Gentoo penguins don’t love sea ice,” stated David Ainley, a biologist with the ecological consulting agency H.T. Harvey & Associates who has been learning penguins for greater than 50 years. “They mostly forage over the continental shelf and don’t go far out to sea.”
As sea ice has decreased alongside the western aspect of the peninsula, gentoos have taken benefit of the hospitable circumstances. But the identical circumstances have been worse for tuxedo-wearing Adelies, who depend on sea ice for breeding and feeding.
“When we discover Adelie penguins, we sometimes know that sea ice is close by,” Wethington stated. “And at any time when we have seen sea ice declining or disappearing altogether, then we’re seeing corresponding Adelie penguin populations decline considerably.”
Though widespread Adelie penguins are rising in quantity general, some populations have fallen by greater than 65 %.
‘SAFE SPACE’
On their January expedition to the area, the Stony Brook scientists discovered that Adelie colonies across the still-icy Weddell Sea had remained secure through the previous decade.
“This peninsula is perhaps a protected house as we see climate change progressing and general warming all through the globe,” Wethington stated.
Heather Lynch, an ecologist at Stony Brook University who helped lead the expedition aboard the MV Arctic Sunrise, stated the findings highlighted the area’s conservation worth.
In 2020, a workforce from the British Antarctic Survey found 11 new emperor penguin colonies from satellite tv for pc pictures, boosting identified emperor penguin colonies by 20 %.
But since 2016 almost each chick has perished within the Halley Bay colony alongside the far japanese aspect of the Weddell Sea, which has lengthy been dwelling to the world’s second largest emperor penguin colony, with some 25,000 breeding pairs gathering yearly.
Scientists suspect the 2016 El Niño occasion modified the ocean ice dynamic within the space, and fear for the penguins as climate change will increase the frequency and severity of El Niño occasions.
While the chicks’ deaths weren’t a direct results of climate change, “there’s a climate change facet to the loss,” stated Peter Fretwell, a geographic info scientist on the British Antarctic Survey.
(Reporting by Gloria Dickie in London; Reporting by Natalie Thomas in Antarctica; Editing by Katy Daigle and Philippa Fletcher)
