Understanding the Antarctic Ice Sheet change and the impact on the penguin colony 

The GEO community activity GEOARC (Global Ecosystem and Environment observation Analysis Research Cooperation), works to produce knowledge on the status and trends across different terrestrial and marine ecosystems. One of its activities is the monitoring of the Antarctic ice sheet,  a sensitive element of global climate change. 

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​Penguins are known as an eco-indicator species of the Southern Ocean marine ecosystem. Their distribution of great significance to understand the evolution of the Antarctic ice sheet, ice shelves and Antarctic ecosystem, and to provide scientific support for policy makers to cope with climate change and participate in global governance.

Satellite data have been used to identify the iceberg calving of the Antarctic ice shelves at the continental scale. Based on multi-source satellite imagery, we detected 1786 annual calving events, whose areas were larger than 1 km2, to precisely evaluate the loss of ice shelves and processed the long-time series calving dataset. Satellite data and aerial images were used to identify the location of the penguin colony and population size. Pan-Antarctic emperor penguin colonies were identified in 2000, 2014, and 2018. Variations in the penguin population and colony spatial extent were investigated in 1983, 2012, and 2018.