More Climate Alarmists Misinformation about
Emperor Penguin’s Breeding Failure!
By Jim Steele
The recently published paper by Peter Fretwell titled Record Low 2022 Antarctic Sea Ice led to
Catastrophic Breeding Failure of Emperor Penguins, set off a wave of misinformed doomsday articles, as his introduction stated “Recent efforts to predict emperor penguin population trends from forecasts of sea ice loss have painted a bleak picture, showing that if present rates of warming persist over 90% of emperor colonies will be quasi-extinct by the end of this century.
A sea ice physicist at the British Antarctic Survey added to the fearmongering stating “This paper dramatically reveals the connection between sea ice loss and ecosystem annihilation. Climate change is melting sea ice at an alarming rate.”
However, there was absolutely no evidence the lack of sea ice was due melting from global warming. All previous research has shown because of the extreme cold melt ponds are rarely observed in Antarctica. The annual loss of fast-ice (ice fastened to the shore) that Emperors often use for a breeding, is largely due to breakouts, not melting. And a careful examination of the 5 colonies that Fretwell analyzed, strongly suggest the paper’s claims were just promoting the climate crisis hoax.
Nonetheless, the dishonest doomsday internet activist GoGreen@ecowarriorss pounced on the misinformation and tweeted “Emperor penguins suffer ‘unprecedented’ breeding failure as sea ice disappears Ultimately, they cannot survive in an ever warming world and neither can we or most other species bar cockroaches and a few other hardy species. MSN.com fearmongered, ‘Emperor penguins are running out of ice to breed on.’
Click bait media like USA Today headlined, “Climate change hits emperor penguins: Chicks are dying and extinction looms, study finds’ stating “due to the dramatic loss of sea ice, several colonies of emperor penguins in Antarctica face “quasi-extinction” in the decades to come. And as expected CNN wrote, “‘Catastrophic’ loss: Huge colonies of emperor penguins saw no chicks survive last year as sea ice disappears.’
But Fretwell’s 5 colonies in the Bellingshausen Sea (circled region) were NOT huge as illustrated by the small circles. Furthermore, climate scientists had determined that atmospheric circulation variability over the Amundsen-Bellingshausen Sea is larger than in any other region of the Southern Hemisphere, which is why the fast-ice extent is so variable there and so prone to the early breakouts that happened in 2022. The regions instability also suggests the 5 colonies were likely only temporary.
- Satellites first discovered the Bryant Coast colony in 2014, but there were no penguins observed there in 2010.
- The Pfrogner Point colony was only discovered in 2019. Its estimated population of 1200 pairs bred on a stable ice shelf, not on fast ice. Yet they still abandoned the colony in November.
- There was no breeding failure on the Rothschild Island colony because there, fast-ice persisted as needed until the end of December.
- Smyley Island colony was first discovered in 2009, and its populations vary wildly, between 1000 and 6500 breeding pairs.
- The Verdi Inlet colony was first discovered by satellite in 2018 and its population also varied wildly.
Tremendous sea ice variability in the Bellingshausen Sea is caused by the shifting location and strength of the quasi-permanent pressure system, known as the Amundsen Low. As seen in the illustration, the Amundsen Low’s clockwise circulation caused reduced sea ice (red) in the Bellingshausen Sea and above average sea ice (blue) in the Amundsen and Ross seas. Also notice there was no other loss of sea ice along the coast where Emperors breed. Low sea ice elsewhere (red) was caused when weaker winds did not extend the pack ice further away from the coast.
Years when the Amundsen Low is stronger, the winds in the Bellingshausen Sea that blow towards the coast prevent sea ice expansion. Those stronger winds also carry more moisture and cause some of Antarctica’s most intense snowfalls. Heavy snowfall insulates the fast-ice and prevents warmer ocean heat from ventilating. That trapped heat then reduces the normal thickening of the fast-ice, making fast-ice in this region more vulnerable to breakouts.
Finally, the Amundsen Low is very sensitive to El Nino and La Nina events that shift the winds location and strength. The fast ice breakouts of the 5 colonies had nothing to do with a climate crisis but were driven by natural atmospheric circulation patterns unique to the Bellingshausen Sea.
Shame on all the alarmists that weaponized weather and natural penguin struggles to push a climate crisis!
Sorry Jim, this is off-topic, but I need to help everyone here at WUWT start-off their week on a jolly note (make sure you turn on the audio):
https://twitter.com/MichelleLhooq/status/1695952716915450301?s=20
I could watch this video on a loop and never get tired of hearing her bleating, “We’re environmental protestors!” as she’s shoved to the ground and handcuffed.
How I wish UK police would do that.
The vehicles identify the officers as Ranges of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe.
You can fly your private jet into Burning Man so long as it’s not single use.
Full video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8fDM60MS84
That “scientist” in the white lab coat in the chain link to the road shoulder it just too much!
Love the way the cop had him face down on the ground and cuffed behind his back. He just pulled the hard hat off his head and threw it away.
Idiots on parade!
Love the Ranger’s effective response.
A) Protestors used fossil fuel vehicles to transport themselves and their ‘gear’ to a road choke point.
B) They brought up their vehicles as part of their ‘protest’ to try and block people driving around.
C) They caused miles of blocked traffic backup under a midsummer Nevada sun, most running their AC.
Somehow, these dingbats believe they would convince anyone! by their tactics?
I doubt it, these spoiled activists intended to cause as much havoc, fossil fuel usage and distress as possible.
Instead, it was all their distress and fossil fuel distress.
Surely, there are ants in that adjacent dry lake bed that are desperate for food?
Leave them chained together with the chain and that black metal thing staked out on the dry lake bed. Their version of hades caused by climate change.
They should be tractable when they’ve spent all day under a broiling Nevada sun.
Meanwhile, the rangers can direct traffic and clear up that mess.
One lady is wearing what looks to be a quite expensive felted fur hat.
I am rather surprised no-one hooked a tow chain to their metal contraption and drove on down the road.
I’m certain Burning Man could use additional metal for some of their setups.
Those activists chained to the thing would’ve found their keys quick enough.
I’m also surprised that the Rangers didn’t have chain cutters in their vehicles.
Thank you. Hope there were more idiots in handcuffs.
Emperor and other penguins survived much lower ice during the Holocene Climatic Optimum, c. 5.2 Ka, the Egyptian Warm Period, 4.2 Ka, the Minoan WP, 3.2 Ka, the Roman WP, 2.2 Ka, the Medieval WP, 1.2 Ka and the Modern WP, now.
They also breed all around Antarctica, not just on the Pacific coast of the Peninsula, where ice is scarce this year, thanks to the submarine Tongan eruption.
And they evolved in the much warmer Pliocene, if not before. Indeed, they and king penguins are the first branch of extant penguin evolution, back in the Eocene, hottest epoch of the Cenozoic Era.
As for Jim’s post here.
This is just a another Chapter (call it, The disappearing Penguin chapter) in the playbook of Climate Rent-seeking.
We’ve already read and seen the Chapters on;
1) the starving Polar bears,
2) the cliff diving Walruses,
3) migrating Monarchs that go splat on the windshield,
and of course,
4) the figurative burning of the Great Barrier Reef.
The Climate Scam offers a virtual cornucopia of research grant possibilities. It’s just too tempting for hungry PhDs to resist, despite the risk of stain on their ethical practice of science, for paper to get that needed grant, exactly as intended by the climate cabal.
The Adelie penguins had their 15 minutes of fame a few years back, so it seems fair that the Emperor penguins have a turn.
To quote Energywise from yesterday’s Open Thread:
When polar bears don’t cooperate with the narrative, try penguins.
. . . and on down the weight scale: rats, Puffins, butterflies, sperm, & brain cells.
The latest research….
https://youtu.be/bGG-tAnT4j0?feature=shared
I couldn’t get the closed captions to work right.
Yet more zombie “scientific” doomsaying.
Polar bears, Emperor Penguins, Coral reefs, Wildfires, the list goes on and on.
No matter how often stakes are driven through the hearts of these zombies, still they rear up again, thirsting for your brains.
I bet that “vector” malaria mosquitoes and the Snows of Kilimanjaro will shuffle round again before Christmas.
I despair of ever seeing even one activist “scientist” pushing this bullshit on taxpayer’s money properly disciplined.
Note that these types of articles are characterized by the ‘liberal’ (pun intended) sprinkling of the words “may, might, could, possibly, conceivably, etc.
Jim, by coincidence I wrote about this yesterday, but less concisely.
https://cliscep.com/2023/08/27/the-emperors-new-tuxedo/
Cap had a nice article about this drama a couple of days ago:
https://electroverse.info/baby-penguins-are-dying/
However, there was absolutely no evidence the lack of sea ice was due melting from global warming.
not just no evidence or no good evidence, but absolutely NO EVIDENCE.
remind me again why ice melts?
put another way, to make an argument that there is NO evidence ABSOLUTELY no evidence you have to
not related to currents, airflows, water and air temps not related to ANYTHING that could be connected to ice melting. when you have proved that you might be able to support a claim that there is ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE.
Ahh, the old proving a negative trick.
Gee Mosher, you seem a little desperate. Must be that gnawing in you gut saying you chose the wrong side of this issue.
Perhaps you can lead by example about what “evidence is needed”. All I ask is you simply provide the evidence why you think lost ice was due to melting by warmth, and not the causes I’ve educated you about.
2. Looking at just sea ice in the Bellingshausen Sea is dishonest cherry-picking. You must take a more encompassing view to ask the right question. In this case the right question is why below average ice in the Bellingshausen Sea, but above average ice in the neighboring Amundsen and Ross Sea. Most climate scientists would agree its the Amundsen Low.
3.So our next question is what increases the strength and location of the Low? Its well documented that ENSO is the major driver other than seasonal shifts. Climate models still dont agree on CO2 effects on natural ENSO changes.
4 So if we accept expert opinions that Bellingshausen Sea has the most naturally variable winds in the Southern Hemisphere, and that often cause less sea ice, the next question is what makes Bellingshausen Sea fast ice vulnerable to breakouts. There a few good reasons. More “melting” does NOT mean more warmth, but thinner weaker ice that more readily melts despite same summer temperatures.
First, less sea ice extent has less of a damping effect on wave and tidal actions that break up fast ice. Second as already mentioned, the increased snowfall from stronger poleward winds, insulates the ice and inhibits thickening and strengthening of the ice.
And what I left out for the sake of brevity in this article, Bellingshausen and Amundsen fast ice are the only places in Antartica where the ice lacks platelet ice which means weaker ice. Platelet ice usually wont form unless water is super cooled, and the Bellingshausen Sea’s proximity to the warmer ACC and over relatively shallow shelf, allows warmer subsurface water to be upwelled further inhibiting formation of thicker fast ice. See attached illustration
5.Finally, if you still want to weasel the argument with “maybe” CO2 “could” warm the ocean, then please explain why it did when it only penetrates a fe microns and why not solar heat that penetrates much deeper. Not to mention studies show CO2 has a cooling effect over Antarctica.
So, it’s your turn Mosher. Strut your stuff!
Just as we thought. Mosher provides ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE that CO2 was connected to the loss of Bellingshausen Sea fast-ice. What a dishonest scientific poser!!
Gee Steve, I dunno.. maybe it has something to do with the recent discovery of 91 volcanos?
To be fair, Jim explained the reason for ice breakup in that area 2 sentences later.
RHS – Whether you realise it or not, you’re tacitly assuming that those 91 volcanoes weren’t active before they were discovered. There is no evidence (or should I say ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE☺) for that assumption, just as there’s no evidence against it.
The volcanoes, whatever their level of activity, are under the WAIS. This article is about sea ice, which is a different thing entirely, although many alarmists don’t know the difference. And don’t want to know the difference. And mostly wouldn’t appreciate the difference if it was explained to them in words of one syllable or less. All that matters is the narrative: the cutest creatures on the face of the earth are disappearing because of YOUR fossil fuel addiction – you MUST feel enough paralysing guilt and existential angst to start chaining yourself to things. And if you don’t, that’s because you have been paid off by big oil interests.
Surely it’s up to you to prove that nothing except Global Warming is causing this years reduced Ice whilst proving that Global Warming also cause 2014’s record coverage. As both occurred in the Hockey Stick Blade then both must be down to Global Warming. N’est-ce pas?
And moosh contributes to the reality…
… by producing NO EVIDENCE. !
Just a rambling, incoherent mess of garbled gibberish, as is his modus.
oops..
I meant … by producing ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE. !
August 17, Electroverse.
Back in March, the Antarctic continent suffered its coldest ever reading so early into a year; in July it logged Earth’s lowest temperature since 2017;..
… and now, in mid-August, it’s breaking multiple all-time cold records at stations across the continent.
These include:
The -61.1C (-78F) at the Vito AWS, located on the Ross Ice Shelf, which broke its previous all-time minimum record of -60.6C (-77.1F) set in August 22, 2008;
the -59.9C (75.8F) at Willie Field, located at Ross Island Vicinity, which bested the old benchmark of -56.9C (-70.4F) from August 7, 2001;
and the -56.7C (70.1F) at Lorne, also sited on Ross Island, which felled the -54.9C (-66.8F) set on July 17, 2010.
Poor moosh, facts are never part of his gibberish. !
But surely the low temperatures COULD be due to CO2 and everybody KNOWS C02 is very versatile.
Wasn’t there record ice cover at Antarctica just a few years ago?
Climate change sure works fast when you want it to.
Are you aware that Antarctica has gained sea ice since the start of the satellite record? Sorry Mosher you and your Bible study group lose this one along with virtually all other claims made by alarmists.
You have assumed that the ice is missing because it melted. Other reports suggest that the ice was stacked up by winds, thickening it while reducing its width, but not necessarily melting it. Don’t be so pious.
So the Emperor Penguins had to walk even more miles to reach the ocean and back to feed the young. So it is more likely the parent with the young ran out of food to feed the little one before the partner came back.
Indeed whatever may be causing the drop in Antarctic sea ice over the past 5 – 7 years it doesn’t correlate with the land temperature trend let alone the more or less monotonic increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration.
The Guardian headline was truly the best. “Emperor penguins: thousands of chicks in Antarctica die due to record-low sea ice levels”
I knew it had to be nonsense so I read the article to find out that all the ‘science’ was based on some missing sh*t.
Really? “Thousands of chicks die” because some breeding grounds are missing? The ‘scientists’ go on to describe how truly devasted they are because the chicks must have died horrible deaths by drowning as the ice below them gave way.
What evidence do they have that the penguins simply didn’t lay eggs this season or that the eggs failed to hatch (even if you do buy into the ‘lack-of-sea-ice-is-harming-the-poor-penguins’ nonsense)? None. They just let their imaginations run wild.
And, from the Guardian’s perspective: Even if the author fully bought into the “scientists”‘ fertile imaginations, a reasonable headline would have been “Penguin chicks feared dead due to record-low sea-ice levels”.
These alarmists are a joke.
To expand: It’s the equivalent of flying over a town and noticing a primary school missing from where it used to be.
Then, without investigating further and based solely on that fact, writing an article headlined “Hundreds of Children Die” describing how all the children must have been excruciatingly burned to death in the fire that (must have) burned the school to nothing.
Thanks for adding that Tommy. I meant to but forgot to mention there were no observed dead chicks!
It was all estimated by lack of pooh stains. As Fretwell reported, “There are no records of large aggregations of none-breeding emperors [” non-breeding”was this paper peer reviewed?] between October and December, so we make the assumption that these sites, which are present in the same location every year in the breeding season, are breeding sites.”
Thus all the paper can really show is “This paper describes the likely impact of this event
upon emperor penguin breeding success across the region.”
Story tip Now China is affected by climate change driven floods https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-66616699
“I’ve never seen a flood here in my whole life,” says 38-year-old Zhang Junhua, standing next to a vast patch of rice, now completely useless. “We just didn’t expect it.”
That’s the clincher somebody whose memory goes back 30 years at most can’t remember anything like it QED.
A flat alluvial area along-side a major river.
Now what could possibly have caused that !!
And I bet not one of these AGW activists is prepared to go without electricity, which mostly comes from coal fired power stations.
Also, note the number of cars, not EVs. Are they willing to go without those as well ?
The floods this year were in an area with 3 major rivers and numerous tributaries, all prone to flooding from rains due to annual silt deposits. Although China has floods every 1-3 years, the last time this area was hit was in 1963 with a catastrophic flood that killed thousands – before that were floods in the late 19th and early 20th C that killed millions. This flood killed under a hundred by last count. The floods, damage and losses are decreasing every time and, although these people have been inconvenienced by the flood, they are alive to talk about it.
It commonly called a “flood plain.”
Apparently also because of the DIVERTING of water from other areas.
Nothing even to do with climate normal..
Active interference (dams and other barriers) by design redirect water to areas where it did not earlier go. Officials choose who suffers and who benefits. Water as a policy measure is old practice in China.
Sorry John, didn’t see your post when I typed about diverted waters .
Story tip
Guy Goma, who was mistaken for a BBC technology expert and forced to take part in a live interview in front of the nation back in 2006, is suing the organisation for a share of royalties from the viral clip
More than a decade ago, Guy was mistaken for a BBC reporter after he turned up to the BBC studios for a job interview. The hilarious clip shows the job applicant being quizzed live on air by a journalist when he was confused for Technology Editor Guy Kewney.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/bbc-sued-star-iconic-wrong-30798226#google_vignette
And here he is
https://youtu.be/e6Y2uQn_wvc?si=SYxa0l5wuAtQzrJG
Many years ago I met Guy Kewney at an early computing exhibition in the days when the ZX Spectrum was all the rage. A photo of his thin white bearded face often accompanied the articles he wrote in publications like Practical Computing, which is how I recognised him. How the BBC could have confused a rotund black person is hard to imagine. You might have thought that at least the interviewer would have had some inkling if they had any background in the topic at all.
Then again, it is the BBC.
Thank you Jim Steele for this article. I have book marked it for reference for when the BBC reject my complaint about this Climate change: Thousands of penguins die in Antarctic ice breakup
I can almost write the reply I’ll get which will say what the article is about (which I know I read the nonsense) then it will say we’re just quoting experts but your concerns have been highlighted to programme editors. Then if you’re not happy you can appeal.
In the last couple of years I think there’s been a subtle change in their responses to complaints. The explaining the article in the first response seems a new strategy to me. Only on your second complaint do the say “we asked the experts we reported and they said they were right”. At no point do they even answer the question “Did you actually check the source data?”. The BBC Verify is just empire building by a BBC Manager.
My wife often asks why I complain to the BBC when I know what will happen, I don’t want Paul Homewood to plough a lonely furrow
Smyley Island colony was first discovered in 2009, and its populations vary wildly, between 1000 and 6500 breeding pairs.
Does this indicate that some more mature penguins breed elsewhere when there are problems with that location?
Not sure, it may just be down to pot luck! Emporer Penguins feed in the open water then migrate up to 100 miles to get to a breeding site but do not seem to be drawn to any particular site. If the Penguins decide to turn left instead of right one year, then more are likely to turn up at other sites and previous sites may not be used this year. Also remember the temperature and bird behaviour – Penguins tend to travel in large flocks, perhaps also because it’s warmer in a large group, so will always go with the flock. And yes I am aware the collective nouns for Penguins do not include ‘flock’ but it was easier to make a point this way!
Media’s climate change polar bear scare fizzles spectacularly, so now it’s time to try penguins.
Here’s Australia’s public broadcaster, the ABC, giving the penguin apocalypse the headline treatment in its primetime news broadcast.
https://youtu.be/UizgWaR-NZo
0:23: ABC newsreader Jeremy Fernandez: “Scientists say the plight of the penguins is a clear indication that ecosystems around the globe are being pushed beyond their limits by the heating of the planet.”
1:47: ABC reporter Michael Slezak: “The solution, scientists say, is to stop burning coal, oil, and gas.”
2:00: Antarctic Ecologist Dana Bergstrom: “Not only are we having changes in Antarctica, we’ve seen the fires on Maui, we’ve seen the fires in the northern hemisphere; the whole of Canada is burning at the moment.”
Airdate: 25-08-23
The so called “scientists” don’t know diddly about science.
When land bound ice from a frozen continental land mass breaks free and becomes water borne, it quite literally CANNOT be due to glacial “melting”, but can only result from ICE ACCUMULATION inland. Melting ice simply stays put and melts. However, the physical force driving ice to move from inland to the sea is GRAVITY, just as all moving water in the natural world moves according to gravity. If ice is becoming less massive inland, that reduces the rate at which ice can move by gravity from land to sea. If ice is becoming MORE massive, that increases the rate at which ice can move by gravity from land to sea.
Everybody understand that water flows down hill. Ice is just semi-solid water that also flows downhill but due to its extremely high viscosity, the movements are relatively slow compared to rivers.
You’re talking about the Antarctic ice shelves which grow out from the shoreline as the ice sheets and glaciers move downslope behind them, then bits break off as icebergs. This article is about sea ice, which results from freezing of sea water. Because – I’ve heard rumours to the effect that – it gets quite chilly down there. When bits of land-fast sea ice break off, they are called ice floes, quite distinct from icebergs.
You’re quite right about ice sheets and glaciers flowing down to the ocean from whence they ultimately came via evaporation and snowfall. I get the impression that these simple facts aren’t understood by many of the alarmist community, where they don’t let elementary facts get in the way of a good slogan.
I responded to the portion of the post here that talks about both fast ice and sea ice per the following quote:
Fast ice is never “lost” as the warmunists claim … it simply moves from the shore to the surrounding water. It is not as if this ice is not more than replenished by accumulation upland of the shore … a point the warmunists always ignore.
True, if “fast ice” breaks up, its fragments join the mobile “pack ice”. Conversely when pack ice fragments are driven shoreward, they can be added to the present fast ice but creates pressure ridges and very rough, uneven fast ice that penguins will often avoid,
However upland ice does not add to the fast ice. Upland ice additions are the dynamics in the realm of glaciers, ice streams and ice shelves. Nonetheless smooth fast that Emperors prefer, typically grows in the lee of an ice shelf, where calmer conditions allow smooth fast ice to develop.
Well, after the failing polar bear hoax and the falling walrus farce the ‘help the Arctic is melting’ mantra has lost much of its glamour. So on to the next best thing: penguin climate porn. Just in time for fluffy toys at Christmas and, of course, a Disney movie about Pipo the perishing penguin.
Thanks Jim.
This post is educational in several ways. I always learn from your clear writing.
Of course, it also accomplishes its intended purpose, and makes the media members of the ClimateCult™ seem unfit for their positions.
Excellent post.
About a decade ago the warmunists tried this with Adelie penguins. Massive fail after satellites spotted additional colonies with about a million ‘new’ Adelie. Illustrated it in essay No Bodies in ebook Blowing Smoke. And, possible overfishing of Antarctic toothfish (aka Chilean sea bass) means more krill for Adelie, as the Antarctic toothfish is the main krill competitor.
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/understanding-climate-antarctic-sea-ice-extent
“More so than the Arctic, Antarctic sea ice extents are extremely variable, both seasonally and from year to year. In the past decade there have been record and near-record high extents, as well as record and near-record lows. The overall long-term trend (since 1979) is nearly flat.”
” Catastrophic Breeding Failure of Emperor Penguins ”
Gender consciousness raising amongst penguins?
Or do they need some marital counseling?
Call me an old fusspot , but as a daily observer of The NSIDC polar ice assessment , when I compare the ice extent map for Antarctica , with the graphic comparing it to the median , the graphic seems to deviate to a much higher degree than the appearance of the ice extent from the median !
OK! You are an old fusspot!