“Thousands of emperor penguin chicks drowned when the sea-ice on which they were being raised was destroyed in severe weather.”
And for some context on what ‘thousands’ means relative to the global population of emperor penguins :
“But the Brunt population, which had sustained an average of 14,000 to 25,000 breeding pairs for several decades (5-9% of the global population), essentially disappeared overnight.”
“Research suggests the species might lose anywhere between 50% and 70% of its global population by the end of this century, if sea-ice is reduced to the extent that computer models envisage.”
But I do take issue with the claim that we "might lose between 50% and 70% of the global population" because of reduced sea ice as overly simplistic extrapolation [1].
As much as birds (like many animals) seem to return to the same place (typically where they themselves were born)--and, on a side note, I would love to know how they do this--they also seem capable of adapting. It seems relatively likely that a good number of them have moved to the nearby colony mentioned just based on numbers.
So even if sea ice does reduce dramatically by the end of the century, it doesn't automatically follow that penguin populations will similarly decline. Stability of ice (April-December) is important but declining sea ice just moves that further south (to a point). Proximity to food sources is also key.
I actually kind of wish we'd just stop with "computer modeling". Part of the reason we have so many climate change deniers (IMHO) is just how bad climate model predictions have been.
Sources? You seem to have read the number and automatically assumed it's a straight line extrapolation.
As far as I'm aware the climate models have been fine and - corrected, but not majorly disproven; it's the reporting on them that looks at the most extreme extrapolations to whip up hysteria (and so it gets ignored and so the extreme cases become more likely).
Sources? because they really really haven't.
On page 7, they have a bunch of scenarios based on various GHG emissions. From what I can tell, we're above all of them on the GHG emissions front, and under all of them on the actual temperature changes. Yet this carbon brief site says it matches exactly what has happened, so don't know what they're going off of.
I’m sorry, are you familiar with their computer models? How do you know they are overly simplistic?