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They buried radio antennas on pathways used by the penguins on the island and connected them to a computer that automatically recorded when the birds came and went. The surveillance program ran from November 1997 to April 2006, a period that included an El Nino, the cyclical warming event that is not linked to climate change. During the El Nino, penguins that were early breeders did well, but those that bred later were badly hit, as the progressively warmer seas made food rarer. But the overall impact on population only became visible two years later, because of the penguins' long reproductive cycle. An increase of just 0.25 degrees Celsius (0.45 degrees Fahrenheit) in surface sea temperature translated into a nine-percent decline in an adult bird's chance of survival, Le Maho calculates. According to the UN's Nobel-winning panel of climate scientists, the mean global temperature is already set to rise by around 0.2 C (0.35 F) per decade over the next two decades as part of a longer warming trend this century. "Our findings suggest the king penguin populations are at heavy extinction risk under the current global warming predictions," the scientists say. Their paper was published on Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Jennifer Viegas' blog: Born Animal |
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