two penguins working on ice with iceberg on backgrounds.

As ice melts, emperor penguins march toward extinction

The flightless birds depend on Antarctica’s frozen sea ice shelves for safety and breeding. But as temperatures rise, the shelves are vanishing.

In the autumn the penguins begin their roughly six-mile journey from the ocean to their Atka Bay breeding grounds. But the warming climate is defrosting the sea ice they need to find mates, breed, and raise chicks.
This story appears in the June 2020 issue of National Geographic magazine.
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