Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Chris Turney, leader of the ill fated 2013/14 Ship of fools expedition to the Antarctic, which got stuck in the global warming while trying to retrace the Mawson Expedition, has been urging people to listen to his expert knowledge of Penguin colonies.
More than 150,000 Adélie penguins have perished in a single colony in Antarctica after the grounding of a giant iceberg.
The penguins used to thrive at Cape Denison in Commonwealth Bay, where strong winds blowing off the ice sheet kept a large area of water open near the shore.
But in December 2010 an iceberg bigger than the ACT grounded in the bay, trapping floating sea ice near the coast. The penguins now have to make a round trip of more than 120km to feed in the sea and since 2011 the population has plummeted from 160,000 to just 10,000.
According to new research co-authored by the University of NSW’s Climate Change Research Centre and published in the journal Antarctic Science, the colony could be wiped out within 20 years unless the sea ice breaks up or the iceberg, with an area of about 2900 square kilometres, moves.
…
“Iceberg doesn’t really do it justice,” Professor Turney said. “It’s like a small country, it’s enormous.
“As the planet warms you’re going to get more ice melting. The reality is, more icebergs will be released from Antarctica and just embed themselves along the coastline, and make the travelling distances for some of these colonies even further than they have been.”
Adélie penguins usually return to the colony where they hatched and try to return to the same mate and nest. Professor Turney said the Cape Denison penguins could face a grim future. “They don’t migrate,” he said. “They’re stuck there. They’re dying.“
Read more: Sydney Morning Herald
The abstract of Turney’s study;
The arrival of iceberg B09B in Commonwealth Bay, East Antarctica, and subsequent fast ice expansion has dramatically increased the distance Adélie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae) breeding at Cape Denison must travel in search of food. This has provided a natural experiment to investigate the impact of iceberg stranding events and sea ice expansion along the East Antarctic coast. As part of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition 2013–14, the Adélie penguin colony at Cape Denison was censused to compare to historic counts. Whilst some 5520 pairs still bred at Cape Denison there has been an order of magnitude decline in Adélie numbers in the area in comparison to the first counts a century ago and, critically, recent estimates based on satellite images and a census in 1997. In contrast, an Adélie population on the eastern fringe of Commonwealth Bay just 8 km from the fast ice edge was thriving, indicating the arrival of B09B and fast ice expansion was probably responsible for the observed recent population decline. In conclusion, the Cape Denison population could be extirpated within 20 years unless B09B relocates or the now perennial fast ice within the bay breaks out. Our results have important implications for wider East Antarctic if the current increasing sea ice trend continues.
I have no doubt a natural catastrophe like the Cape Denison Iceberg can have a severe local impact, and I’m not surprised that a lot of birds have died, given the abrupt onset of the disaster. But suggesting penguins “don’t migrate” is ridiculous; if that was the case, there would only be one colony in the whole world, or more likely, there wouldn’t be any penguins at all.
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Antarctic sea is very poor this year compared to recent years. Down to the el nino.
Paul ; Time to get on board Turney may make it this el year. HELLO AND WELCOME to the Ship of Fools; http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-25833307
The Akademik Shokalskiy was receiving sea-ice satellite data and weather forecasts on the area. Expedition co-leader Greg Mortimer said in an interview with the BBC that “the ice situation was very unexpected and (ran) counter to what we had seen on the most recent ice charts and weather forecasts we had”. There Modelling was off a tad, and the are trying to model for 2035 to 2100 say what !!!!!
About three weeks ago another ship of fools left Australia for Antarctica. The head fool gave our ABC (your BBC) an interview telling them what they expect to find there. Firstly would be much warmer water which would have killed off the food that the schools of smaller fish eat thus they will be killed off. Then the whales and penguins that eat them will die. He said it all with a straight face. )
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2016/anomnight.2.11.2016.gif
Must be boiling underneath that surface water.
You’d think that Mr Turney would avoid sticking his head up from behind an iceburg considering all the stick he received last time. Must be a glutton for punishment.
Clive and Tim : What is it are they relying on us all be stupid. The must be
Funny or die ?? Just for laughs…..
http://bit.ly/1R1qtHf
Next thing we will hear is that other colonies of Adelie penguins have miraculously increased in size.
Is this the same Chris Turney of the Akademik Shokalskiy “ship of fools” fame?
Anthony Watts. There are lots of defamatory comments on this site and many of them are on this thread. Some calling Turney a liar in the conduct of his profession without foundation, others make generally defamatory comments about Turney in the conduct of his profession without citations.
It’s way past time for you to take responsibility for your defamatory conduct as author and / or publisher of those defamatory remarks. The place to do that is in an Australian court where actions in Defo have an easier path to a favourable decision than do those brought before US courts.
Funds await an Australian litigant willing to carry this forward and there are a couple of Australian scientists who come to mind.
[Dan, perhaps you should start at home, by weeding out defamatory comments made by Miriam O’Brien of Mt. Beauty, AU, aka “Sou” of “Hotwhopper” at her blog. I’m sure there’s plenty of legal action close to home you can send to court. As for commentators here, I’m not responsible for their opinions. – Anthony]
“Dan
February 14, 2016 at 3:49 am”
Did you forget the /sarc tag?
Come on Dan, you could make a start by signing with your full name.
Dan you don’t know about the “Ship of Fools” incident? It made international news and was fodder for all the comedy shows. Oh and other illustrious defamed climate scientists reported hundreds of thousands of Emperor penguins had died, only to have them turn out stronger than ever somewhere else!! They did the same with a group of polar bears and I believe they also lost a half million caribou (reindeery thingys). These animals rove thousands of miles, well known by school children but not, apparently by the experts, like Turney. Even an Ozzie climate industry association gave him a prize for the impossibly incompetent junket to Antarctica with family, friends, journalists, camera crews whom he put in extreme peril. He got them caught in heavy Antarctic sea ice on a journey to see what global warming was doing to the continent. In bitter cold and stuck in the ice with women, children and journalists, tourists he and they had to be ignominiously rescued by a Chinese research ice breaker’s helicopter and finally an Ozzie research station service ship. He screwed up a year’s research efforts by several nations’ Antarctic stations by diverting resources to rescue this motley lot. He was excoriated by these groups and was, I believe to be sued for 3million bucks as part of the cost to the other expeditions.
I’m going to let you google all this stuff if you know how to do that. Oh, and why would you speak so proudly of your nation’s absence of free speech – you used to have it until you let the Marxbrothers take the helm. Now I know how kangaroo courts got their name.
You think these comments are defamatory, just wait till I get on a witness stand. Or anywhere near a camera.
James Mayeau at your service.
Chris Turney couldn’t find wet if he fell out of a boat.
Dan said:
Chris Turney is the inventor and a founding Director. of Carbonscape.
Carbonscape Directors.
Perhaps Chris Turney could be considered as having a conflict of interest, no?
Did Chris Turney declare his vested interest in sequestering carbon dioxide. No.
He’s an activist seeking to profit from alarmism while having his nose in the public trough while wearing a lab coat. He deserves all the stick he gets.
The “the conduct of his profession” ? . . . don’t make me laugh.
For the Monty Python fans:
Has Chris Turney become the Black Knight of the Climate Change industry?.
Dan the mystery man?
What is Mr Turney’s profession ?
After his performance two summers ago, I doubt you have a clue.
However he does play a great court jester.
Dan, Dan, Dan. I believe you have the word “derogatory”confused with the word “defamation”. You also seem to have invented a new term called “actions in Defo” because no such word, or abbreviation currently exists.
Turney is an idiot. See that right there? That’s called a derogatory opinion. My saying it is not against the law, and Anthony Watt’s isn’t responsible because I said it. Of course, you publicly accusing Anthony Watts of committing a crime…such as defamation, just might be against the law. What’s your last name and location Dan so we can check on the laws that pertain to you authoring defamatory comments here?
But even in Australia-
“Publishing something which might seem defamatory won’t be against the law if:
*- the information is substantially true,
*-the information is published with the consent of the person being defamed, or
*-the information wasn’t very important and it is unlikely that the person’s reputation will actually be damaged.”
There is plenty of evidence that the opinions expressed here about Turney are true, and unless WUWT has some kind of superpower that we’re all unaware of, what is said here about him isn’t very important and isn’t likely that his reputation will actually be damaged. At least, not more than his own actions have already done.
Dan here is my answer I have been around in the North; ( Canada ) for over 70 years and you know what ! the weather has not repeat has not changed one iota. Some days are warmer and some are colder it’s called WEATHER/ ” so cut out the crap. All you so called climate scientists stop taken Tax Payer’s money.
This month a scientific discovery and advance of truly momentous significance was announced – measurement of gravity waves, incontrovertibly validated by the recording at two separate sites the same signal wavetrain from a spinning and colliding pair of black holes.
One wonders if climate pseudoscientists like Turkey ever look with anything like envy on the participants of scientific projects like the gravity wave project, where data is real and shows something unexpected? These people actually saw a huge event occurring a billion years ago / lightyears away. That’s is true science. Satisfaction of real discovery.
Contrast that with the thin diet of Christmas Turkey and colleagues consisting of cooking up fictional “explanations” of why the combined facts of (a) cooling air temps in Antarctica, (b) expanding Antarctic sea ice and (c) cooling Southern ocean, all point somehow to global and Antarctic warming.
Despite their criminal dishonesty one feels a little sorry for such Turkeys. Getting out of bed in the morning for them must be similar to what it is like for, say, a Nigerian phishing scammer/spammer. No prospect of the satisfaction of achieving or building anything real, only parasitic theft by deception.
I’m going to wait a little longer on this gravity waves stuff. Last year we had the Higgs Boson discovered…..or maybe discovered…. and then no more said. They announced the discovery seemingly prematurely because old Higgs was at an advanced age – it looked like the ‘caring thing to do.
The colony of Higgs Bosons got lost in an iceberg.
Gary
Do you think that the recording at two separate sites, at the same time, the same signal wavetrain from a spinning and colliding pair of black holes, could be an artefact? When this wavetrain corresponds almost exactly to what is simulated for such an event? This looks pretty solid to me.
It was a small spacequake.
“It was a small spacequake.”
So….a Little Bang?
But science requires validation, duplication. And when your project has already cost $1.1 BILLION over the span of 40 years with zero evidence that it actually works, well…let’s just say that having it look “almost exactly” like what is simulated for such an event…seems just a tad too perfect.
From the NY Times article-
“Lost in the transformation was three solar masses’ worth of energy, vaporized into gravitational waves in an unseen and barely felt apocalypse. As visible light, that energy would be equivalent to the brightness of a billion trillion suns.
And yet it moved the LIGO mirrors only four one-thousandths of the diameter of a proton.”
Seriously? You called that a small spacequake? It sounds like a cataclysm beyond the comprehension of the human mind…and it moved some Earth mirrors less than an ant fart would. Seems like a lot of time, effort and money just to prove we could “measure” something.
The penguins have been birthing their young on the shores of Antarctica for a long, long time before the continent of Antarctica ever became perpetually covered in snow, ice and/or glaciers.
The penguins chose their “birthing” locale on the barren shores of Antarctica many, many eons ago ….. and the inherited instinct possessed by their descendants dictates that the current population of penguins return to that same “birthing” locale regardless of how many linear feet or miles of sea ice separates said “birthing” locale from the “open” (ice free) water.
penguin symbol replaces panda symbol, sounds good both b&w and the penguins are smaller so that is less ink.
Yes, I can see how “global warming” contributes to more sea ice.
And less sea ice.
The important thing is, it’s our fault penguins are dying.
Dan
February 14, 2016 at 3:49 am
“Anthony Watts. There are lots of defamatory comments on this site and many of them are on this thread…”
It may surprise you to know that Anthony Watts, John Coleman and Joe D’Aleo assisted the ship out of its difficulties with high quality Antarctic weather charts and ice movements that proved to have been very effective. I’ll let you google that too.
Dan the climate also killed this guy ( heat exhaustion ) Explorer Henry Worsley dies attempting Antarctic crossing http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-35398552 P.S. He was also a friend of the Royals that didn’t help him.
From the BBC article that you linked;
‘Initially, it was thought he was dehydrated and malnourished. It was only discovered he was suffering from a serious infection – bacterial peritonitis – when he was treated at Union Glacier base camp.
He was then flown to a hospital in Punta Arenas, Chile, to undergo surgery but died on Sunday.
Peritonitis is inflammation of the peritoneum, the thin layer of tissue that lines the inside of the abdomen. According to the NHS, most cases come from injury or infection in another part of the body.’
B09B first calved in 1987 and has been floating around bumping into stuff along the coastline ever since.
Turney sez;“As the planet warms you’re going to get more ice melting.”
Yes, and as Turney and his Climatist friends continue to lie about climate, their noses will continue to grow longer, and their pants will burn increasingly hotter.
A few alternative hypotheses that I find more compelling than Turney’s rantings:
http://falklands.net/PenguinsStarve.shtml
http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/7688/20140620/penguins-dying-moving.htm
http://news.discovery.com/earth/750-penguins-dead-from-natural-causes-thousands-from-oil-120720.htm
and yes “perfesser” – penguins do migrate so please stop telling porkies.
Did Turkey ever plant all those Kauri trees he promised ?
Every time he opens his mouth, the Kauri population expands by a leap.
unless he is a lying toad
Kauri trees are huge, awesome looking trees. Tane (Tar-ney) Mahuta (The Father of the Forrest) in Northland, New Zealand (NZ), is something like 3000 years old. I was gifted another NZ native, a Totara (Toh-trah), during my citizenship ceremony. I called the Wellington regional council and asked if it could be planted in a park somewhere. And sure enough it was, just north of Wellington. I’ll be long gone before it gets anywhere near maturity.
The penguins made it through the last ice ice age that lasted some 100K years and ice ages before that as well. They also made it through the last interglacial period, the Eemian, which was warmer then this one with more ice cap melting and higher sea levels then today. The climate change of the modern warm period is trivial compared to what they have gone through in the past. We do not need to sacrifice economy for sake of the penguins because doing so will not help them one iota. What we do need to do is to control our own population for our selves. If Mankind does not control his own population then Nature will, catastrophically.
This is so sad to read! My 4 year old just started talking about how these are one of his favorite animals. A subject that I will now keep on my radar😕
I have skimmed through responses here. I hope I [am] not repeating something
Some info:
ADÉLIE FACTS
Scientific name Pygoscelis adeliae (named after the wife of the French explorer Durmont d’Urville)
The longest studied Antarctic organism
The most abundant and widespread Antarctic penguin
10 million Adélies make up 80% of the bird biomass in the Southern Ocean
Adélies live up to 14 years of age
Adélies are colonial nesting birds
Colonies are found in the 3% of the Antarctic coastline that is ice-free
Most Adélies breed in the colony of their birth – called natal philopatry
There are 38 colonies and over 5 million Adélies in the Ross Sea region
On land, Adélies are found in clusters; one or two large colonies (up to 250 000 breeding pairs) surrounded by smaller ones
Adélies feed mainly on krill and small fish
The main predators of Adélies are skuas, which will quickly eat unguarded eggs and chicks on land, and leopard seals and killer whales at sea
Human disturbance, pollution and rubbish have disrupted some colonies in the past; the areas Adélies breed in are often the same sites chosen for scientific stations and bases. There is a much greater awareness of this issue now, however
Understanding the dynamics of penguin population change is important, as these changes can be used as sensitive indicators of global climate change
Source; New Zealand Landcare research
The info indicates that there are over 400 colonies around Antarctica
The disaster is what?
“The disaster is what?”
That Turney was rescued….
So, the ice between Cape Denison & open water must be littered with 10’s of thousands of penquin carcasses if what Turkey says is true. There must also have been a large increase in the Skua population.
Did you ever wonder why there are no dead penguins on the ice in Antarctica? Where do they go?
Wonder no more. It is a known fact that the penguin is a very ritualistic bird which lives an extremely ordered and complex life. The penguin is very committed to its family and will mate for life, as well as maintain a form of compassionate contact with its offspring throughout its life.
If a penguin is found dead on the ice surface, other members of the family and social circle have been known to dig holes in the ice, using their vestigial wings and beaks, until the hole is deep enough for the dead bird to be rolled into, and buried.
The male penguins then gather in a circle around the fresh grave and sing:
“Freeze a jolly good fellow,”
“Freeze a jolly good fellow !”
Global warming climate change, ….. aka: gradual increase in near-surface air temperatures, ….. has never caused …. nor will ever cause … the “calving” of glaciers or the “fracturing” and/or break-up of Arctic or Antarctica sea ice.