Antarctica Environmental Consequences

Climate change is change is the change in weather patterns that last for an extended period of time.  Climate change is affecting the Emperor penguins because then Antarctica continent is warming  up, but the northern part just towards South America is warming up the fastest and that's where most of the penguins are found. Since the weather's getting warmer it's causing the ice to melt and making a smaller surface for the penguins to live on, and causing the sea ice season, used for hunting is cut shorter than it used to be. The ice melting is causing the penguins to get separated from each other because once the ice melts enough it breaks away from the mainland. The chicks don't maintain their waterproof feathers until they grow more mature,

Global warming is causing possible extinction in the Antarctic ocean by melting all the ice its raising water levels causing fishing grounds to flow colder water that other species may not be used to and can affect them badly, and leaving seals the live on the ice more of chance

Although solar panels have plenty of benefits they also have a few disadvantages. One of the major disadvantages is that solar panels are not cost effective for some people. The overall cost of the hardware, installation and the panels themselves can be rather expensive and in an area that wouldn’t get

“Antarctica has this mythic weight. It resides in the collective unconscious of so many people, and it makes this huge impact, just like outer space. It’s like going to the moon.” ( John Krakauer) The antarctic is home to lots of different animals. Some of these are Adelie, Gentoo and Emperor penguins. Other animals are Elephant and leopard seals as well as Snow petrel, polar skuas and albatrosses. Penguins are often the favorite.

Climate change is a problem in the world today. Climate change is destroying Antarctica, endangering hundreds of millions of lives, and can be effectively reduced by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Humans do multiple things that affect the continent. For example, oil spills are becoming a major concern. More ship accidents are occurring, and although now we are able to contain oil spills, oil travels. A ship accident might occur thousands of miles far from Antarctica, but the oil does find it’s way to the Antarctic Ocean, affecting sea life. Global warming is also an issue. Antarctica is very sensitive to climate change. Thus, temperatures increase faster. As a result, ice is thinning, which is important for the wildlife. Lastly, dumping things in the ocean can affect sea life negatively. People dump all sorts of things in the oceans: trash, sewage, and useless items. Like oil, trash can travel the sea’s currents and wind up in the Southern Ocean. These items can harm wildlife.

Penguins Are Suffering from Climate Change. Most people in the world can see, agree, and understand that we have global warming and climate change issues that affect both plant and animal around the world. We just need to come together on what needs to be done about global warming and climate change and get it done to save ourselves, animals and the environment that depend on us to do something. The biggest problems have been trying to get an agreement on what needs to be done. A lot of people feel it’s not their problem, important enough or its nothing we can do about it now. In the meantime, there are animals, including penguins, plants and other animals dying out while we are trying to figure it out. For a lot of people the

The ice of Antarctica plays an important part of the global climate, “…the ice cover regulates exchange of heat, moisture, and gases between the surrounding atmosphere and the ocean, which eventually affects the whole Earth” (). The ocean currents created by the Antarctica ice plays a necessary role in the earth’s climate. . “…when the sea ice begins to form, it rejects the brine, which eventually increases the density of the upper ocean water. This water sinks and comes to be known as deep ocean current. These currents carry heat, which affect the climate

According to Forcada and Trathan (2009, p.1), “Penguins are adapted to live in extreme environments, but they can be highly sensitive to climate change, which disrupts penguin life history strategies when it alters the weather, oceanography and critical habitats.” Chinstrap penguins mainly live on the Antarctic Peninsula, where climate change has hit the continent the hardest. (Barbosa, Benzal, León, & Moreno 2012 p.1) Unlike the polar bear, the penguin does not have the luxury of travelling between land and sea in search for a meal. Being a flightless bird, chinstrap penguins live on the ice and hunt in the waters off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. The chinstrap penguins’ main food source is a tiny crustacean named krill. Krill are also affected by ice melting earlier and forming late. When the temperatures increase, the food that krill feed upon die, phytoplankton, die at an increased rate. (Barbosa, et al., 2012 p.4) The krill population is also adversely affected by increased whale and seal activity. (Barbosa, et al., 2012 p.4) When less ice, higher temperatures, less food, and more competition add up, the chinstrap penguin suffers. A starving chinstrap penguin has less of a chance to survive the howling Antarctic winds. If a starving chinstrap penguin manages to make it through the winter, it will be severely impaired during the mating

Please note that you will have 4 minutes to recall the 
facts, and that you will be taking the test immediately.” 
The word Antarctica was shown in italics to make it clear 
that they were only to be asked to recall information about 
Antarctica. Participants in the delayed condition were given 
the same prompt except they were asked to predict their performance after a 30-min delay: “In thirty minutes you will be asked to recall as many facts about Antarctica as you can. What percentage of 
the facts about Antarctica do you think you will be able 
to recall? Please note that you will have 4 minutes to 
recall the facts, and that you will be taking the test in 30 
minutes.” 
Participants were instructed to answer the prompt by telling 
the experimenter a number between 0 and 100. 
Participants in the immediate condition were then given a 
blank sheet of paper and 4 minutes to recall as many facts 
about Antarctica as possible. Participants in the 30-min delay 
condition were given the same test after a 30-min interval, 
which was filled with a series of unrelated distractor tasks 
(e.g., learning and retrieving category-exemplar pairs). It is 
worth noting that participants were not informed of the nature 
of the distractor tasks before making their predictions, a factor 
which may have influenced the accuracy of such predictions. 
Given the purpose of the study, however, we felt it was more 
important to focus instructions on the particular passage that 
was to-be-tested

Even if it seems like something small, the population drop of krill created a much bigger effect. The dropping of the krill population led to a food shortage for the penguins, leading to a population drop of their own. Another problem, the ice melting due to climate change. Climate change, a leading effect, caused by the “greenhouse effect” which refers to warming that happens when heat gets trapped by the atmosphere that radiates from Earth towards space. Some gases block heat and it’s ability to escape causing the planet to overall “heat up”. According to ucar.edu “too little ice and the colony gets more exposed and vulnerable to predation,” (Leifert). This leads to the penguins having less space to stay concealed from predators such as animals like skuas, kelp gulls, and giant petrels. These predators come after the chicks especially as they cannot defend themselves. This lack of ice leading to less protection making the innocent penguins more vulnerable to predators. Another cause, the excessive fishing and the careless efforts to enforce safety while doing so. Fishing efforts over the past couple of years significantly increased. The penguin’s prey such as anchovy and sardine stocks get caught decreasing the penguin’s food supply. According to Science Daily, “As fishing efforts around the globe have multiplied several fold over the last few decades, penguins are now competing with people for enough food,” (Science Daily). With the warm temperatures already

Both species are in the same class but, have different niche in the environment. The emperor penguin can be found in the open ice of Antarctica and they are considered sea-ice obligate species (Fretwell et. al,2014).Emperor penguin, has an advantage in their environment since there are no predators and completion for the resources they eat. Moreover, their body temperature surfaces cool beneath the air temperature since they life in a cold environment (McCafferty et al,2013).In addition, the environment in which Emperor penguin live on is harsh, but they are the only vertebrate species that breed during the Antarctic winter and the reason are not yet known ( Zitterbart et. al,2014).As a result, the climate change in their habitat Emperor penguin are in jeopardy and their population will decline since the

Researchers fear that global warming, and consequently climate change, will impact primarily on the Antarctic species and that the decline of their populations will continue to be unsustainable. Fortunately, some people are implementing conservation efforts to avoid it, but it seems that they are not enough.

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