Penguin Poop Seen From Space Leads To Discovery of New Colonies (sfgate.com) 19
Satellite-mapping technology "that detects stains on the ice from penguin droppings" has revealed there are more Emperor colonies than previously known in fast-warming Antarctica, reports Bloomberg: Eleven new colonies of the species were found, taking the census to 61 across the polar continent, according to a study by scientists at the British Antarctic Survey published Wednesday. The scientists used images from Europe's Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission to locate the flightless birds.
"This is an exciting discovery," said lead author and geographer Peter Fretwell in a statement. "Whilst this is good news, the colonies are small and so only take the overall population count up by 5-10%, to just over half a million penguins..."
The discovery will be used by scientists who are monitoring the birds and raising concerns because they're particularly vulnerable to sea ice melting from climate change... Scientists warned that most of the newly found colonies are in locations likely to be lost as the climate warms and large sections of seasonal ice -- where penguins mate -- risk disappearing. "Birds in these sites are therefore probably the 'canaries in the coal mine'," said Phil Trathan, head of conservation biology at BAS.
"This is an exciting discovery," said lead author and geographer Peter Fretwell in a statement. "Whilst this is good news, the colonies are small and so only take the overall population count up by 5-10%, to just over half a million penguins..."
The discovery will be used by scientists who are monitoring the birds and raising concerns because they're particularly vulnerable to sea ice melting from climate change... Scientists warned that most of the newly found colonies are in locations likely to be lost as the climate warms and large sections of seasonal ice -- where penguins mate -- risk disappearing. "Birds in these sites are therefore probably the 'canaries in the coal mine'," said Phil Trathan, head of conservation biology at BAS.
And new colons. (Score:2)
Lulz!
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Cow farts (Score:2)
And people are blaming cow farts for global warming, oh, 'scuse me, "climate change". Maybe it's all the penguin poop.
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It's cow burps, not cow farts, and the science of the greenhouse effect is really and truly settled. But your attempt at snark is truly horse shit.
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the science of the greenhouse effect is really and truly settled
And yet TFS states that the penguin population increase runs counter to the expected effects of a warming Antarctic climate.
Penguins just pooped all over your settled science.
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And yet TFS states that the penguin population increase runs counter to the expected effects of a warming Antarctic climate.
Uh...there is no population increase. The birds were always there. We just didn't know about them.
I assume you also believe that if we stop testing for Coronavirus, it will go away.
Add that to the count... (Score:2)
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Speaking of penguins (Score:3)
A show and book that talks about this. (Score:1)
Does this mean (Score:2)
we can start eating penguins again?
News for nerds... (Score:2)
They sbould start looking (Score:1)
not news... (Score:2)
I hate to say this, but this is not news. In fact, I used it in a story way back in 2015.
(*A Hotel in Antarctica, Hieroglyph [amazon.com] , William Morrow 1995. Thanks for asking.)
Its just penguin poop (Score:1)
Now it suddenly makes sense, that no extraterrestrials have ever visited us.
Approximately... (Score:2)
Satellite-mapping technology "that detects stains on the ice from penguin droppings" has revealed there are more Emperor colonies than previously known in fast-warming Antarctica, reports Bloomberg
How big is Emperor Penguin poo that you can see it from outer space? Why are we letting these penguins litter this otherwise pristine environment? Its not like their poop will in time fertilize plant life, they are just frozen balls of poop...