Adélie Penguin Population In Antarctica Suffering Through Climate Change

For nearly 45,000 years, Antarctica's Adélie penguins have survived ecological changes, adapting to glacial expansions and sea ice fluctuations driven about by climate change. Penguins remained resilient through changes, but new research suggest that in the 21st-century, the climate may pose an existential threat to these species.

Continued warming of Antarctica
due to climate change may lead to decline of 60% of Adelie penguin: Study pic.twitter.com/RP7jwfYU02

— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) July 1, 2016

In a study published in Scientific Reports, lead oceanographer Megan Cimino said that up to 60 percent of the current Adélie penguin habitat in Antarctica would no longer be livable for colonies by the end of the century -- the West Antarctic Peninsula is among the most rapidly warming regions on Earth, and the penguin population has declined by nearly 80 percent.

"It is only in recent decades that we know Adélie penguins population declines are associated with warming, which suggests that many regions of Antarctica have warmed too much and that further warming is no longer positive for the species," Cimino said in a statement.

However, The Independent noted that in places where climate change is less rapid, the population of these species have been steady or increasing. One area where these penguins are present is at the Cape Adare, a peninsula in the East Antarctic with less drastic change in climate. The region, off the coast of the Ross Sea is said to be among the earliest known penguin occupations and the largest known Adelie penguin rookery in the world.

A place where an isolated population which was previously widespread survives is called a refugia -- and it seems that the patterns of climate change has led scientists to believe that the there could still be refugium of penguins in the future, as there was a likely one in the past. However, it seems that the surviving penguins may be concentrated in the south for the next hundred years.