The temperature trends don't bode well for the penguins: colony locations are warming up four times faster than the average increase in Antarctica (0.3 ºC per year, as opposed to the already-rapid 0.07 ºC per year).

Learn how a decade of monitoring reveals why Antarctic penguins are breeding earlier than ever, and what those shifts may signal about life in one of the world’s fastest-warming regions.

In Antarctica, penguins do not lay their eggs at random. Their breeding cycles are precisely timed with the seasons, so chicks hatch when conditions are best to favour their survival. Such careful synchronisation is crucial in one of the most inhospitable regions on the planet,

One of the most worrying factors is that Gentoo Penguins are among the most adaptable to the warming Antarctic temperatures, thanks to the variety of their diet. Other species, such as Chinstrap and Gentoo, rely on arctic krill, which are much more susceptible to the climate crisis.