Climate Change Means Death for Penguins and Their Babies: Scientists

Baby and adult penguins alike are in peril due to extreme weather caused by climate change, two extensive studies reveal this week.

According to two groups of researchers who published separate reports in the journal PLOS ONE on Wednesday, a combination of extreme rainstorms and heatwaves are killing off Magellanic penguin chicks in Argentina, while changing sea ice patterns are making it harder for Adelie penguins in Antarctica to forage for food.

In the Argentina study, researchers showed over the course of 27 years that climate change was the root cause on average of 7% of increasing chick deaths. However, on some years the average shot up to between 43% to 50%.

“We’re going to see years where almost no chicks survive if climate change makes storms bigger and more frequent during vulnerable times of the breeding season, as climatologists predict,” said Dr. Ginger Rebstock, from the University of Washington, from the Argentina study.

“It’s the first long-term study to show climate change having a major impact on chick survival and reproductive success,” said lead author Dee Boersma, a biology professor at the University of Washington.