While the future trends in Adélie penguin abundance remain uncertain, our study suggests that ice sheet retreat and the availability of ice-free breeding areas may be overriding factors in determining the millennial scale abundance trends of this species.
Although many climate change projections focus on total ice cover, the team found that the availability of thick ice is not necessarily related to the total ice cover in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
But unless we halt CO2 concentration rise, years like 2016 are guaranteed to be increasingly frequent, and the average availability of sea ice that bears need for hunting can only decline until it is gone with grave impacts for polar bears.
Climate warming is reducing availability of their ice habitat, especially in spring when polar bears gain most of their annual fat reserves by consuming seal pups before coming ashore in summer.
Another example of the indirect effect of climate change is the decrease in body size in polar bears (Ursus maritimus) between 1982 and 2006 in the Beaufort Sea, Alaska, due to the lower availability of sea ice, their optimal habitat (Rode et al. 2010).
To understand this resource and the impact it can have on future exploration, further information is needed on the distribution and availability of the water ice.
In many of the Health Centers visited, staff reported difficulties with the availability of funding for ice and fuel for transportation, resulting in the cancellation or deferment of scheduled immunization outreach activities.
