Emperor penguin populations declining faster than expected, say scientists
10 June 2025 15:36
PARIS (AFP) Emperor penguin populations in Antarctica have shrunk by almost a quarter as global warming transforms their icy habitat, according to new research on Tuesday that warned the losses were far worse than previously imagined. Scientists monitoring the world's largest penguin species used satellites to assess sixteen colonies in the Antarctic Peninsula, Weddell Sea and Bellingshausen Sea, representing nearly a third of the global emperor penguin population. What they found was "probably about 50-per cent worse" than even the most pessimistic estimate of current populations using computer modelling, said Peter Fretwell, who tracks wildlife from space at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS).Researchers know that climate change is driving the losses, but the speed of the declines is a particular cause for alarm. The study, published in the journal Nature Communications: Earth & Environment, found that numbers declined 22 per cent in the 15 years to 2024 for the colonies monitored. This compares with an earlier estimate of a 9.5-percent reduction across Antarctica as a whole between 2009 and 2018.Warming is thinning and destabilising the ice under the penguins' feet in their breeding grounds. In recent years some colonies have lost all their chicks because the ice has given way beneath them, plunging hatchlings into the sea before they were old enough to cope with the freezing ocean.Fretwell said the new research suggests penguin numbers have been declining since the monitoring began in 2009.That was even before global warming was having a major impact on the sea ice, which forms over open water adjacent to land in the region. But he said the culprit is still likely to be climate change, with warming driving other challenges for the penguins, such as higher rainfall or increasing encroachment from predators. "Emperor penguins are probably the most clear-cut example of where climate change is showing its effect," Fretwell told AFP. "There's no fishing. There's no habitat destruction. There's no pollution which is causing their populations to decline. "It's just the temperatures in the ice on which they breed and live, and that's climate change."
'Worrying Result' Emperor penguins, aka Aptenodytes forsteri, number about a quarter of a million breeding pairs, all in Antarctica, according to a 2020 study. A baby emperor penguin emerges from an egg kept warm in winter by a male, while the female in a breeding pair embarks on a two-month fishing expedition. When she returns to the colony, she feeds the hatchling by regurgitating and then both parents take turns to forage. To survive on their own, chicks must develop waterproof feathers, a process that typically starts in mid-December.The new research uses high-resolution satellite imagery during the months of October and November before the region is plunged into winter darkness.
Fretwell said future research could use other types of satellite monitoring, like radar or thermal imaging, to capture populations in the darker months, as well as expand to the other colonies.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Al Etihad
a day ago
- Al Etihad
French scientists find new blood type in Guadeloupe woman
21 June 2025 16:08 BASSE-TERRE, FRANCE (AFP)A French woman from the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe has been identified as the only known carrier of a new blood type, dubbed "Gwada negative," France's blood supply agency has announcement was made 15 years after researchers received a blood sample from a patient who was undergoing routine tests ahead of surgery, the French Blood Establishment (EFS) said on Friday."The EFS has just discovered the 48th blood group system in the world!" the agency said in a statement on social network LinkedIn."This discovery was officially recognised in early June in Milan by the International Society of Blood Transfusion (ISBT)."The scientific association had until now recognised 47 blood group Peyrard, a medical biologist at the EFS involved in the discovery, told AFP that a "very unusual" antibody was first found in the patient in resources at the time did not allow for further research, he were finally able to unravel the mystery in 2019 thanks to "high-throughput DNA sequencing", which highlighted a genetic mutation, Peyrard patient, who was 54 at the time and lived in Paris, was undergoing routine tests before surgery when the unknown antibody was detected, Peyrard woman "is undoubtedly the only known case in the world," said the expert."She is the only person in the world who is compatible with herself," he said the woman inherited the blood type from her father and mother, who each had the mutated name "Gwada negative", which refers to the patient's origins and "sounds good in all languages", has been popular with the experts, said ABO blood group system was first discovered in the early 1900s. Thanks to DNA sequencing the discovery of new blood groups has accelerated in recent and colleagues are now hoping to find other people with the same blood group. "Discovering new blood groups means offering patients with rare blood types a better level of care," the EFS said.
Zawya
12-06-2025
- Zawya
Saudi Arabia and Netherlands sign agreements with investments exceeding $114.13mln
AMSTERDAM — Saudi Arabia and the Netherlands have signed a number of agreements and memoranda of understanding (MoU) with investments exceeding SR428 million in Amsterdam. The agreements were inked between a number of Saudi and Dutch companies with the aim to develop and localize modern technologies in the environmental, water, and agricultural fields. Saudi Deputy Minister of Environment, Water, and Agriculture Eng. Mansour Al-Mushaiti attended the ceremony of signing 27 agreements and MoUs during his current visit to the Netherlands from June 10 to 12 in the presence of a number of the Dutch government officials as well as senior executives and business leaders from the public and private sectors. The signing included a MoU between the Saudi National Program for the Development of the Livestock and Fisheries Sector and the Dutch company VigGuard to establish cooperation to localize livestock disease control research. MoUs were also signed between the National Center for Sustainable Agriculture Research and Development, the Dutch Greenhouse Alliance, the Dutch company Hoogendoorn, Hudson River Biotechnology, and Wageningen University, to launch initiatives in the fields of agricultural technology and research, and to establish capacity-building partnerships in the fields of agricultural innovation, greenhouse farming solutions, and green biotechnology. The partnerships also included the signing of a MoU between the National Agricultural Services Company and Delphi to support agricultural innovation. MoUs were also signed between the Makkah Region Development Authority, Van der Hoeven Projects for Protected Agriculture and Horticulture, and Horizon 11 to transfer and localize biotechnology. A MoU was signed between Al-Yasin Agricultural Company and the Cobret Experimental Center to establish a partnership worth up to one million euros to promote biotechnology in control and crop protection. Another MoU was signed between the Saudi Greenhouse Management and Agricultural Marketing Company and Plantae and Certhon with the aim of investing in localizing innovations in the agricultural sector. A memorandum of understanding was signed between the Lehaa Group of Companies for Trade and Agricultural Investment, the Dutch Royal HZPC Group, and the Gal Sahara Potato Production Company, with investments exceeding SR76 million. This will enhance potato production in the Kingdom, in addition to establishing a French fries factory equipped with the latest processing technologies. Eng. Mansour Al-Mushaiti also witnessed the signing of six MoUs between Dafa Agricultural Company and a number of companies specialized in the fields of vegetables, fruits, fertilizers, greenhouses, and software project supply, with investments exceeding SR292 million. It is worth noting that this visit comes within the framework of the plans and vision of the Ministry of Environment, Water, and Agriculture to enhance the global capacity of the Saudi agricultural sector, expand the production and export of local agricultural products, contribute to increasing the volume of trade between the Kingdom and the Netherlands, and strengthen international partnerships, in order to achieve the goals of the Kingdom's Vision 2030. © Copyright 2022 The Saudi Gazette. All Rights Reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (
Al Etihad
11-06-2025
- Al Etihad
Greenland ice melted much faster than average in May heatwave: Scientists
11 June 2025 08:23 COPENHAGEN (AFP) Greenland's ice sheet melted 17 times faster than its average rate during a May heatwave that also affected Iceland, according to a report released by the scientific network World Weather Attribution (WWA) on Arctic region is on the frontline of global warming, heating up four times faster than the rest of the planet since 1979, according to a 2022 study in the scientific journal Nature."The melting rate of the Greenland ice sheet by, from a preliminary analysis, a factor of 17... means the Greenland ice sheet contribution to sea level rise is higher than it would have otherwise been without this heat wave," one of the authors of the report, Friederike Otto, associate professor in climate science at the Imperial College London, told reporters."Without climate change, this would have been impossible," she Iceland, the temperature exceeded 26 degrees Celsius on May 15, an unprecedented occurrence for that time of year on the subarctic island. "Temperatures over Iceland as observed this May are record-breaking, more than 13 degrees Celsius hotter than the 1991-2020 average May daily maximum temperatures," the WWA May, 94 per cent of Iceland's weather stations registered record temperatures, according to the country's meteorological eastern Greenland, the hottest day during the heatwave was about 3.9 degrees Celsius warmer compared to the preindustrial climate, the WWA said."While a heatwave that is around 20 degrees Celsius might not sound like an extreme event from the experience of most people around the world, it is a really big deal for this part of the world," Otto said."It affects the whole world massively," she to the WWA, the record highs observed in Iceland and Greenland this May could reoccur every 100 Greenland's indigenous communities, the warmer temperatures and melting ice affect their ability to hunt on the ice, posing a threat to their livelihood and traditional way of changes also affect infrastructure in the two countries. "In Greenland and Iceland, infrastructure is built for cold weather, meaning during a heatwave ice melt can lead to flooding and damage roads and infrastructure," the WWA said.
