Today is #WorldPenguinDay EVERYONE!!

Normally I give little snippets of information about all the different species but not this year, NO THIS YEAR I am going to focus only one 1 species: the emperor penguin
1/n

(Photo credit is Sara Labrousse)

So, emperor penguins, in my opinion, are not only the coolest penguin but some of the best birds and, dare I say it, the most amazing animals on the planet. And, the more I learn about them the more concerned I get.
#WorldPenguinDay

The thing about empies is that they require fast ice. That's ice "fastened" to the coastline or to grounded ice bergs (like this pic). They are the only animal that makes its way back SOUTH in the dead of winter to breed and raise their young.
#WorldPenguinDay

They are perfectly adapted for the cold: they're big, have lots of feathers, counter-current heat exchange to keep their little toes from freezing, and the males famously huddle together for warmth in the frigid Antarctic cold.
#WorldPenguinDay

They are also ocean marvels, diving down more than 500m below the surface, for more than 30 minutes (that's the record), though most dives aren't nearly that deep. Their diet can range substantially depending on location but includes fish, squid & krill.
#WorldPenguinDay

Another fun fact is that empies don't necessarily breed every year, which is a way to effectively "buffer" their survival - if times are tough, they can wait it out until the next year, and focus on themselves rather than raising a chick.
#WorldPenguinDay

*This skip-breeding isn't unique to emperor penguins, as it is thought to be a strategy for some long-lived & large-bodied animals to be able to maximize their fitness.
#WorldPenguinDay

Also? These penguins can move around a bit. This is the Beaufort Island emperor penguin colony, which is getting smaller... but the colony directly to the south - Cp Crozier - is growing. I think the birds are moving south.
#WorldPenguinDay

We also have evidence for this from the satellite record: sometimes birds show up, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they can hop up on nearby ice shelves or glaciers when the ice isn't good. They can up and seemingly move house altogether.
#WorldPenguinDay

So, they way I'm describing emperor penguins makes them sound like they should be fine with changes in their environment, right? They can use a lot of the water column, eat several species, take a break from raising chicks...

... move if conditions aren't right... they should be able to adapt to changes? Plus, there's SO MUCH ICE in Antarctica, right?

Well, it's not that simple because of course it's not.
#WorldPenguinDay

My colleagues and I are constantly trying to figure out what is likely to happen with emperor penguins in the future. And so far, no matter how we tweak the models (to include all this stuff from above in the thread)...

... we are still very likely to lose the vast majority of emperor penguin colonies by the end of this century, if we can't get our act together and meet the Paris Agreement objectives: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/gcb.14864
#WorldPenguinDay

To me, this is heart-breaking: to think of an Antarctica without its iconic bird. An ecosystem with far fewer of its pieces than it needs to function properly. We can't let this happen.
#WorldPenguinDay

But the good news is that WE CAN AVOID THIS. It is not yet inevitable. If we stopped emitting carbon dioxide now, the sea ice would continue to change for decades, but emperor penguins could hang in there while the ice recovers/stabilizes.
#WorldPenguinDay

And here's the thing: if we're successful, emperor penguins are only 1 of 1,000s of species & systems that we could ensure would have a chance of survival. So on this #WorldPenguinDay, yes, think of the penguins but also think about the systems in which they live. We can do this.