BBC: Global warming killing penguin chicks

[Abraham3]

BBC News - Climate change is 'killing Argentina's Magellanic penguin chicks'

 

[SSDD]

BBC News - Climate change is 'killing Argentina's Magellanic penguin chicks'

More flawed modeling masquerading as science. It never ends with you people does it?

No actual research...no need to observe....lets just make a model and call the results fact.

"We simulated the effects of breeding synchrony on chick mortality in storms. We simulated the proportion of chicks likely to die in a storm on a given day by the hatching spread: for 13 days (the mean for 1983–1986) and 27 days (the predicted value for the early 2080s, based on an increase of 0.15 days per year; see results)."


Then to tie these simulated chick deaths to climate change they say "Climate models predict that the frequency and intensity of storms will continue to increase." Except study after study is finding that the frequency and intensity of storms has not increased as the failed models claim. So we have a simulation justifying itself by gloaming onto another failed model.

How stupid do you have to be to take any of this seriously?

 

[ScienceRocks]

Poor chicks I feel sad that they made a mistake.

 

[SwimExpert]

Oh noooooooooooooooo! SAVE THE PENGUIN EGGS!!

I loves me a good omelette.

 

[Abraham3]

BBC News - Climate change is 'killing Argentina's Magellanic penguin chicks'

More flawed modeling masquerading as science. It never ends with you people does it?

No actual research...no need to observe....lets just make a model and call the results fact.

"We simulated the effects of breeding synchrony on chick mortality in storms. We simulated the proportion of chicks likely to die in a storm on a given day by the hatching spread: for 13 days (the mean for 1983–1986) and 27 days (the predicted value for the early 2080s, based on an increase of 0.15 days per year; see results)."


Then to tie these simulated chick deaths to climate change they say "Climate models predict that the frequency and intensity of storms will continue to increase." Except study after study is finding that the frequency and intensity of storms has not increased as the failed models claim. So we have a simulation justifying itself by gloaming onto another failed model.

How stupid do you have to be to take any of this seriously?

Let's have a look and see. Here is the full text of the article.

Penguin chicks in Argentina are dying as a direct consequence of climate change, according to new research.

Drenching rainstorms and extreme heat are killing the young birds in significant numbers.

The study, conducted over 27 years, looked at climate impacts on the world's biggest colony of Magellanic penguins, which live on the arid Punta Tombo peninsula.

Well, now here's an odd thing. Were they running models for 27 years? Maybe that was in model years. See, Sidd, it wasn't all an exercise in modeling. They'd been studying these chicks for a long time. The chicks were dying from weather at a growing pace. the chicks conundrum - can't swim to cool off and can't get warm under Mom and Dad - makes them something of a canary in a coal mine. So, like I said, it wasn't a model. Chicks were dying and they were dying from weather.

The research has been published in the journal Plos One.

"They are turning their nests into swimming pools and they really don't like to be wet”
-- Prof Dee Boersma
University of Washington

About 200,000 pairs of these penguins make their nests on the peninsula every year.
They reside there, in desert-like conditions, from September until February to hatch their young.
However, the life of a newborn chick is perilous, to say the least.

Downy death
They are too big for their parents to sit on top of and keep warm, but too young to have waterproof feathers.
As a result, they are particularly vulnerable to rainstorms. If they get drenched they usually die, despite the attentions of their despairing parents.
They can also succumb to extreme heat, as they cannot cool off in the water like the others penguins.

The new analysis of data from Punta Tombo indicates that climate change is having an increasing impact on the chicks.
While on average, around 40% of the youngsters that die every year succumb to starvation, changes in the climate killed an average of 7%. Warming 'killing penguin chicks'

"Climate variability in the form of increased rainfall and temperature extremes, however, has increased in the last 50 years and kills many chicks in some years," the authors write in the report.

In two years it was the most common cause, accounting for half the dead chicks in one year, and 43% in another.

"It's the first long-term study to show climate change having a major impact on chick survival and reproductive success," said lead author Prof Dee Boersma, from the University of Washington.

The number of storms at the breeding site in the first two weeks of December, when the chicks are less than 25 days old, has increased between 1983 and 2010.

See, Sidd. This isn't modeling. No one has mentioned a model yet. This is real dead birds and real weather records.

"Penguins live in the desert and what's really happening with these rain storms - they are turning their nests into swimming pools and they really don't like to be wet," said Prof Boersma.

Problems with ice
As well as more downpours, the researchers believe that altered fish behaviour is contributing to the rising numbers of deaths.
Over the 27-year period, the penguin parents have arrived at the breeding site later and later in the year, probably because the fish they eat are arriving later too.
The scientists say that the later in the year that the eggs are hatched, the more likely it is the chicks will still be at the vulnerable, downy stage Warming 'killing penguin chicks'when the storms arrive in November and December.

Again, these are more factual observations. This is not modeling. Many species have been altering many behavioral schedules due to a warming world. And this puts out of synch groups of predator/prey/food species that had formerly acted together. This has led to numerous undesirable consequences - these deaths are of course one of them.

"The birds are coming back later and on average laying their eggs three days later than they did a decade ago, so they have a shorter breeding season and that cuts down the amount of time they have to raise their chicks," said Prof Boersma.
This year, though, the problem was heat, with several days over 30C.
In the longer term, the outlook for this species in the face of a changing climate is not good, say the researchers.
"We're going to see years where almost no chicks survive if climate change makes storms bigger and more frequent during vulnerable times of the breeding season as climatologists predict," said co-author, Dr Ginger Rebstock, also from the University of Washington.

In a separate study, also published in Plos One, researchers found that changes in sea-ice were having an impact on Adelie penguins in the Ross Sea area of Antarctica.
The authors found that under normal conditions, the penguins were successful at finding food at relatively low sea-ice concentrations and should be able to cope with predicted future changes.
However, the researchers say that these penguins will have significant problems coping with infrequent, extreme environmental events such as the presence of giant icebergs.
"Our work shows that Adelie penguins could cope with less sea-ice around their summer breeding grounds," said lead author Dr Amelie Lescroel from the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).
"However, we also showed that extreme environmental events, such as the calving of giant icebergs, can dramatically modify the relationship between Adelie penguins and sea ice."
"If the frequency of such extreme events increases, then it will become very hard to predict how penguin populations will buffer future sea ice changes."
***********************************************************************
I recall reading the text that you quoted - about simulations - but now I don't find it. Did you take a second link?

 

[Abraham3]

Oh noooooooooooooooo! SAVE THE PENGUIN EGGS!!

I loves me a good omelette.

Your Mommy never let you have a pet, did she.

 

[westwall]

Then there was the cold that killed the penguins. Bet you didn't hear about that one did you....


Cold weather kills more than 500 penguins in South Africa

The chicks were covered only with down feathers and succumbed to the cold, wet weather that hit Bird Island.








Cold weather kills more than 500 penguins in South Africa | MNN - Mother Nature Network

 

[westwall]

BBC News - Climate change is 'killing Argentina's Magellanic penguin chicks'

Whaaaa, what's this? Oh it was COLD that killed the penguins. Not warming..... Interesting....


Now, you might be wondering: Penguins swim. They love the water. They live in cold places, like the Antarctic. And now they're dying of hypothermia after a heavy rain? How can that be?

"You have to really know penguins to understand why," says Boersma. "Chicks are covered in down. Their juvenile plumage ... doesn't even really come in to protect them at all until they are older than 40 days. So until they get some of their juvenile plumage, they're not waterproof — at all."

And local weather records show that things had been changing for years. "There's more rainfall," Boersma says, "and more of these severe storms and that's what can kill penguin chicks — if the storm comes when they are more vulnerable."

And they are more vulnerable. Here's why: Usually, the penguins hatch their young at the same time, over the course of about two weeks in December. But now, for some reason that still eludes Boersma, the birds are hatching over a six-week period. So the period of time when chicks are vulnerable to storms has stretched out.

Moreover, the hatch is now taking place later in the year — at a time when there are more storms in Patagonia.


Though quiet here, Magellanic penguins are widely known as "jackass penguins" for their honking and braying.


Though quiet here, Magellanic penguins are widely known as "jackass penguins" for their honking and braying.

iStockphoto

The penguins are struggling with this new climate. In one year, half the hatchlings died in storms. On a few occasions, chicks have also died from heat waves. As Boersma points out, even as storms are getting bigger and more frequent, summertime heat waves are more common too. She notes that these effects are predicted by climate scientists. Warmer air temperatures mean not only hotter weather but more evaporation from the Atlantic, which puts more moisture in the air and thus creates wetter storms. "It's these climate change events that penguins didn't have in the past," says Boersma, with an urgency born of living with these creatures for almost half her life. "And it's not like penguins can adapt."



Changing Climate In Argentina Is Killing Penguin Chicks : NPR

 

[Abraham3]

And so changes in seasonal timing and increased precipitation are killing those chicks: A very real consequence to AGW.

 

[skookerasbil]

They're lucky......saves them from that stupid march they have to do. And if they don't do the march, they hang around with Mom and starve to death.

This is good news.

 

[skookerasbil]

And so changes in seasonal timing and increased precipitation are killing those chicks: A very real consequence to AGW.

s0n......you need some real responsibilities in life. Anybody sitting around worrying about this shit is doing it wrong.

 

[Abraham3]

Says the man who spends every waking moment typing "No one is listening" into his computer.

 

[skookerasbil]

Says the man who spends every waking moment typing "No one is listening" into his computer.

Wrong as usual........

Im always saying, "nobody cares" which is 100% accurate.

 

[joshuah]

How many penguins are being killed by the record expansion of Antarctic sea ice?

 

[flacaltenn]

Abraham


You need to ignore this study and consider it major OIL propaganda.. Large funding from ExxonMobil..
You dont want to be a tool do you? :whistle:

PLOS ONE: Climate Change Increases Reproductive Failure in Magellanic Penguins

 

[flacaltenn]

And so changes in seasonal timing and increased precipitation are killing those chicks: A very real consequence to AGW.

Hate to do this to you Abe, but try ro think with me here. If the climate is warming down there, why are the adults arriving four days LATER on average. If climate is their clue for migration --- shouldnt they be arriving EARLIER ? My distrust here is high, and the additional precipt may NOT BE a result of a simple AVERAGE 0.5degC increase. I'd need to look at the weather patterns for the past 30 yrs to VERIFY the incresed precipt is due simply to temperature. Right now --- its a witchdoctory assertion.

 

[Abraham3]

I hate to do this to you and do your best to keep up, but...

from the article:

As well as more downpours, the researchers believe that altered fish behaviour is contributing to the rising numbers of deaths.

Over the 27-year period, the penguin parents have arrived at the breeding site later and later in the year, probably because the fish they eat are arriving later too.

 

[westwall]

And so changes in seasonal timing and increased precipitation are killing those chicks: A very real consequence to AGW.

Didn't read the story did you... The breeding cycle has been extended and the researchers DON'T KNOW WHY! And it is COLD. Not hot. Do try and keep up.

 

[SwimExpert]

I hate to do this to you and do your best to keep up, but...

from the article:

As well as more downpours, the researchers believe that altered fish behaviour is contributing to the rising numbers of deaths.

Over the 27-year period, the penguin parents have arrived at the breeding site later and later in the year, probably because the fish they eat are arriving later too.

If the article says it's right, the article is right. And it's not question begging at all.

 

[Abraham3]

You're becoming quite the one-trick pony.