Global Warning: Brutal lessons from an Antarctic summer

[jeffreyi]

What can dying penguins tell us about the future of the planet? Meredith Hooper spent a 'ferocious' summer in Antarctica and discovered a living experiment going horribly wrong

http://environment.independent.co.uk/climate_change/article2876800.ece

or

http://tinyurl.com/2kamwx



I'm getting so I can't read this stuff.

Apologies if a dupe.

[kdmorris]

1. How horrible!

I cried when I read this:

"The real penguin losses in Antarctica are happening on the Antarctic Peninsula, where the greatest warming is occurring. Bill describes landing on the low, ice-enclosed Dion Islands during last winter's cruise in Marguerite Bay. In 1948, 21-year-old Bernard Stonehouse, surveying for the British with a husky team over dodgy sea ice, discovered an emperor penguin colony on the Dions, the furthest north these penguins breed.

Bill arrived at dawn one August morning. Washed pink sky, pearly grey ice, soft-focus light. He found just nine lonely pairs. Since Bernard made the first studies of an estimated 500 birds, the colony has been little visited. Outside influences can't be discounted. There can be no protective fences around vulnerable bird populations to exclude helicopters or passing yachts. But for Bill, the sight of those remnant pairs of emperors at a critical period of their brooding phase was deeply symbolic. "It was the saddest sight. They won't survive. They were the only known emperor penguin colony on the Antarctic Peninsula."

Those 9 pairs of penguins will not survive the winter. More specifically, the male penguins and the chicks. In winter, while the females make the long trek back to the sea, the male penguins generally huddle together for warmth, taking turns being on the inside. I can't see there being enough warmth to keep 9 penguins alive.

:cry: