
Antarctica: Thousands of emperor penguin chicks died in 2016 weather event - pseudolus
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48041487
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smackay
There's a very good reason why seabirds in general are long-lived. Breeding
failures are common. Arctic Terns in Shetland, Scotland basically did not
raise any chicks for 10 years due to food shortages, probably due to
overfishing for sandeels, their main prey (sorry don't have a reference).

Emperor penguins have an expected lifespan of 20 years, with some birds living
as long as 50 years. Breeding starts when the birds are 4-5 years old. Losing
one breeding attempt is not that big a deal - despite all the apparent "OMG,
think of the penguins". If this event becomes more common as a result of
climate change then that is another matter.

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vxxzy
Obviously the birds aren’t considered conscious... But it seems the same could
be said about humans. “They have a long time to breed.. eh whatever”...

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giovannibonetti
Think about the generation of missing women in China as a result of the
single-child policy.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_women_of_China](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_women_of_China)

~~~
ZebZ
The millions of unwed military-aged Chinese men that could be seen as
economically expendable has always made me nervous.

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docdeek
> The catastrophe occurred in 2016 in Antarctica's Weddell Sea.

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Aromasin
The unfortunate consequence is that there seems to be no sign of further
breeding after this point, despite the adult penguins surviving. I think
they're insinuating that the catastrophe is on-going.

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Kiro
Ongoing but isolated to one colony so it's not a global catastrophe if that's
what you think. Climate change may make it though.

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Aromasin
Losing 5-9% of a species genetic stock is still a massive loss in my eyes, no
matter what way you look at it.

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ccjnsn
As I post this almost all top thread comments are dismissing this article.

Really disappointed in this kind of response to an article about a worrying
ecological change which is undisputedly due to climate change.

How is climate change still such a contentious issue?

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ekianjo
Funny you attribute this to climate change when the article clearly mentioned
this incident had nothing to do with climate change. Did you even read it?

> Quite why the sea-ice platform on the edge of the Brunt shelf has failed to
> regenerate is unclear. There is no obvious climate signal to point to in
> this case; atmospheric and ocean observations in the vicinity of the Brunt
> reveal little in the way of change.

~~~
abalone
From the article that you allegedly read:

“But the sensitivity of this colony to shifting sea-ice trends does
illustrate, says the team, the impact that future warming in Antarctica could
have on emperor penguins in particular.”

“Research suggests the species might lose anywhere between 50% and 70% of its
global population by the end of this century, if sea-ice is reduced to the
extent that computer models envisage.“

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ekianjo
> “But the sensitivity of this colony to shifting sea-ice trends does
> illustrate, says the team, the impact that future warming in Antarctica
> could have on emperor penguins in particular.”

Which is not related to this particular incident. Thanks for proving my point
again.

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abalone
You made up the “which is not related to this particular incident” part (which
is why you couldn’t quote it). They said they couldn’t point to an “obvious”
cause in this case, which you eagerly mischaracterized as meaning “it has
nothing to do with global warming.” But that’s not what they said. They said
they didn’t deeply study and understand the cause in this case. But we know
with great certainty that sea ice is on a rapid decline due to climate change,
just half of what it was in the 80s.[1] Thus the article notes studies that
project this event will happen with greater frequency due to climate change,
ultimately killing off more than half this species by century's end.

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PokemonNoGo
It's world penguin day today! (According to some body at least.)

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Wyndtroy2012
Only the BBC's deliberately emotive headline to this story suggests that
'penguin chicks have died'. The facts behind it are that BAS scientists have
reported that one colony site has been abandoned and that another nearby has
increased in size. The probability is that the abandoned site had become
vulnerable to storm damage and the colony moved to a less risky location. No
panic, no disaster.

~~~
abalone
_> No panic, no disaster._

“Research suggests the species might lose anywhere between 50% and 70% of its
global population by the end of this century, if sea-ice is reduced to the
extent that computer models envisage.”

~~~
cletus
So I take issue with the GP's assertion that is overly "emotive", the
implication being that the BBC is biased about blowing things out of
proportion that suits its agenda. The article seems quite factual to me.

But I do take issue with the claim that we "might lose between 50% and 70% of
the global population" because of reduced sea ice as overly simplistic
extrapolation [1].

As much as birds (like many animals) seem to return to the same place
(typically where they themselves were born)--and, on a side note, I would love
to know how they do this--they also seem capable of adapting. It seems
relatively likely that a good number of them have moved to the nearby colony
mentioned just based on numbers.

So even if sea ice does reduce dramatically by the end of the century, it
doesn't automatically follow that penguin populations will similarly decline.
Stability of ice (April-December) is important but declining sea ice just
moves that further south (to a point). Proximity to food sources is also key.

I actually kind of wish we'd just stop with "computer modeling". Part of the
reason we have so many climate change deniers (IMHO) is just how bad climate
model predictions have been.

[1] [https://xkcd.com/605/](https://xkcd.com/605/)

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misnome
> Part of the reason we have so many climate change deniers (IMHO) is just how
> bad climate model predictions have been.

Sources? You seem to have read the number and automatically assumed it's a
straight line extrapolation.

As far as I'm aware the climate models have been fine and - corrected, but not
majorly disproven; it's the reporting on them that looks at the most extreme
extrapolations to whip up hysteria (and so it gets ignored and so the extreme
cases become more likely).

~~~
soperj
>As far as I'm aware the climate models have been fine

Sources? because they really really haven't.

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misnome
I mean the first result on google was [https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-
how-well-have-climate-m...](https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-well-
have-climate-models-projected-global-warming) which seems to cover most of the
major players, including the IPCC reports looking pretty consistent within
uncertainties.

~~~
soperj
Don't know where it gets these means from. For example. When I look at the
IPCC's 4th assessment summary
([https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ar4_syr_full...](https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ar4_syr_full_report.pdf))

On page 7, they have a bunch of scenarios based on various GHG emissions. From
what I can tell, we're above all of them on the GHG emissions front, and under
all of them on the actual temperature changes. Yet this carbon brief site says
it matches exactly what has happened, so don't know what they're going off of.

