Posted on 03/12/2009 5:36:48 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON Changing wind patterns linked to global warming are altering the food chain in Antarctica and may lead to further increases in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
The most basic food, plankton, is declining in the northern portions of the Antarctic peninsula reaching toward South America, researchers report in Friday's edition of the journal Science.
At the same time, populations of Adelie penguins, who require a colder climate, have dropped sharply in that region, while warmer-weather chin-strap penguins have increased.
"We're showing for the first time that there is an ongoing change on phytoplankton concentration and composition along the western shelf of the Antarctic Peninsula that is associated with a long-term climate modification. These phytoplankton changes may explain in part the observed decline of some penguin populations," Martin Montes-Hugo, a marine scientist at Rutgers University, said in a statement.
The change reflects shifting patterns of cloud cover, ice formation and winds, the report said.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
sure.
I am both astounded and dismayed at the argument in that piece.
At the end the writer says that higher winds pull deepwelling waters up and they release more CO2 and that makes it warmer and that is the cause of more penguins of one kind than another.
Think that through ~ deepwelling waters around Antarctica are NEAR FREEZING. When they get to the top they are colder than the surface waters. That makes it tougher for the phytoplankton to live and grow.
Without the phytoplankton the fish have less to eat. Without fat fish the penguins have less to eat.
Result, fewer Big Penguins, and maybe more Small Penguins!
I don't think the writer figured out what the researchers were telling her.
Change!
Sounds like these scientists are fishing for some stimulus bucks. No coin no climate change.
Babbling about penguins on the peninsula is akin to whining about the pinebark beetle in Southern Alaska. Neither one has any significance beyond its own borders, yet is held up as a harbinger of doom.
Sounds like they are taking the changing wind patterns which are the real cause, and attributing them to global warming to get around the facts.
Three guys die together in an accident and go to heaven. When they get there, St. Peter says, “We only have one rule here in heaven...don’t step on the penguins.”
So they enter heaven, and sure enough, there are penguins all over the place. It is almost impossible not to step on a penguin, and although they try their best to avoid them, the first guy accidentally steps on one. Along comes St. Peter with the ugliest woman he ever saw. St. Peter chains them together and says “Your punishment for stepping on a penguin is to spend eternity chained to this ugly woman!”
The next day, the second guy steps accidentally on a penguin, and along comes St. Peter, who doesn’t miss a thing, and with him is another extremely ugly woman. He chains them together with the same admonishment as for the first guy.
The third guy has observed all this and not wanting to be chained for all eternity to an ugly woman, is very, VERY careful where he steps. He manages to go months without stepping on any penguins, but one day St. Peter comes up to him with the most gorgeous woman he has ever laid eyes on ... a very tall, tan, curvaceous, blonde. St. Peter chains them together without saying a word. The guy remarks, “I wonder what I did to deserve being chained to you for all of eternity?”
She says, “I don’t know about you, but I stepped on a penguin.
We’ve heard this BS before.
Did another Sensor drift a few thousand miles ?
Did Russia send a bad set of Siberian numbers so Obama would carbon Tax us into the Stone age ?
3.5 million unemployed don’t care about Global warming.
Cooling global temperatures have negative effects. (Well, the observed phenomena can’t be caused by global warming, because the global average temperature has been falling for the past decade!)
We are DOOMED I tell you DOOMED!
Note to the Ass. Press: You clueless and gullible people really need to get a life. You weren’t cut out to report the news.
There are literally millions of specias of animals in the world. If any one of them has a population change it’s proof of Global Warning? I’m impressed. That’s a theory that is proven automatically by everything from an increase in population for one penguin type to a decrease in another penguin’s numbers, to cold weather (as proof of warming climate!). Catch-22 meets 1984.
You’ve been waiting a long time to post that joke, haven’t you?
:)
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