As you likely know, global warming poses a giant threat to many species across the planet, from undersea creatures (like coral) to land animals (like us humans). Global warming brings with it a host of environmental effects – rising sea levels, melting polar ice, and increasing ocean temperatures, just to name a few (for more info about the effect of climate change on the oceans, see my recent post Coral Calamity).
One recent story in the news described how climate change caused the likely death of over 9000 Emperor Penguin chicks out of the estimated 10,000 born in the Bellingshausen Sea region of Antarctica in 2022. The specific culprit? Melting sea ice that forced the chicks to swim in the cold sea before they had developed their adult waterproof feathers. The loss of Emperor Penguin chicks wasn’t unique to 2022, as previous years had also seen such losses due to sea ice breaking up (1).
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-66492767
Arctic sea ice has been disappearing at unprecedented rates (see the chart below showing Arctic sea ice coverage measured every September since 1979) and is likely only going to continue to do so in the years to come.
What can we do to help prevent sea ice from breaking up? Reducing the emission of greenhouse gases, which contributes to global warming, is the first step; this can help prevent the loss of more penguins, sea ice, and hope to turn around this environmental disaster (2).
Works Cited
(1) https://www.sciencenews.org/article/antarctica-emperor-penguins-endangered-climate
(2) https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/arctic-sea-ice-tipping-point-climate-science
Science with Mandy 
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