Emperor penguin colonies lost a season's chicks to melting ice, research shows

Emperor penguins suffered their first large-scale breeding failure in 2022, when record-low Antarctic sea ice broke up before chicks could grow waterproof feathers, wiping out the stable platforms they need to breed and moult. 

The finding comes from the Copernicus Ocean State Report, which documents profound changes across the world's seas, from record-breaking heatwaves in the Mediterranean and Black seas to shifts in marine ecosystems and increasingly acidic waters.

"The message is very clear. The ocean is changing rapidly," said Pierre Bahurel, director general of Mercator Ocean International, which runs the European Union's Copernicus Marine Service.

The poles, which cover around 20% of the global ocean surface, are where some of the more dramatic effects are showing. 

The Arctic's combined sea surface and sea-ice surface temperature rose 4.2 degrees Celsius between 1982 and 2024, or around 1 degrees Celsius per decade, according to the 10th annual oceans report. Global sea surface temperatures, by comparison, have risen 0.12 degrees Celsius per decade.

In the Kara Sea north of Siberia, temperatures have climbed by 6.7 degrees Celsius since 1982, or 1.68 degrees Celsius per decade.

Arctic sea ice has shrunk by nearly half a million square kilometres per decade since 1979 – an area the size of Spain every 10 years.

The retreating ice exposes Arctic coastlines to waves, worsening erosion and raising risks for coastal communities and infrastructure, the report warned.

"Arctic sea ice has been declining since the early 80s, leaving around 60% of coastal infrastructure vulnerable to erosion and sea level rise," Karina von Schuckmann, director of the report, said in a briefing.

In April, emperor penguins were upgraded from "near threatened" to "endangered" by the IUCN, the global authority on threatened wildlife. More than 90% of emperor penguin colonies could be near-extinct by 2100 if sea ice loss persists at its current rate.

(With input from AFP)