Céline Le Bohec et al Doom-Filled Penguin Study Is One For The Birds…”Climate Historical Myopia”

UPDATE:Hat-tip: Kenneth
Graph showing increasing Adélie penguin numbers during 1982-2015

Che-Castaldo et al., 2017
“We found a marked and steady increase in [Adélie penguin] abundance around the rest of the Antarctic continent, including both Eastern Antarctica and the Ross Sea [during 1982-2015].”

Scientists have historically determined that increasing Adélie penguin numbers seem to coincide with warm periods, whereas cooling periods elicit population declines (Emslie et al., 2007; Huang et al., 2009).
===============================================

Once again I’m bringing you today another one from Lüning’s and Vahrenholt’s Die kalte Sonne, this one concerning a recent study claiming the “king penguin populations are at heavy extinction risk under the current global warming predictions“.

With dire (phony) study claims of king penguins being threatened by global warming, climate science and media once again do their usual number on the public. Image source here. CC BY-SA 3.0

=====================================================

What did the king penguins do 1500 years ago when it was warmer than it is today?

By Dr. Sebastian Lüning and Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt

The online Swiss daily Luzerner Zeitung reported on 27 February 2018:

King’s penguin threatened by climate change
Climate change is threatening more than 70 percent of the king penguin colonies. So writes an international team of scientists in the journal ‘Nature Climate Change’. The animals have to move further south and thus into colder areas. […] The king penguin (aptenodytes patagonicus) is the second largest type of penguin after the emperor penguin. According to the study, the population is currently 1.6 breeding pairs. Over thousands of years the king penguins have been able to rely on the Antarctic polar front, the researchers write. That is a system of currents the transports masses of water from the depths to the surface and so provides for a large fish supply for a relatively small area. Because of climate change, the polar front is shifting to the south and is leaving the Crozet Islands, the Kerguelen and Marion Island on which the penguins live.”

Read more at the Luzerner Zeitung.

Once again we have the fairy tale that everything in the past was stable and that today it’s warmer than ever before. But just one look at Stenni et al. 2017 would have sufficed:

Antarctic climate variability on regional and continental scales over the last 2000 years
[…] Our new reconstructions confirm a significant cooling trend from 0 to 1900 CE across all Antarctic regions where records extend back into the 1st millennium, with the exception of the Wilkes Land coast and Weddell Sea coast regions. Within this long-term cooling trend from 0 to 1900 CE, we find that the warmest period occurs between 300 and 1000 CE, and the coldest interval occurs from 1200 to 1900 CE. Since 1900 CE, significant warming trends are identified for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, the Dronning Maud Land coast and the Antarctic Peninsula regions, and these trends are robust across the distribution of records that contribute to the unweighted isotopic composites and also significant in the weighted temperature reconstructions. Only for the Antarctic Peninsula is this most recent century-scale trend unusual in the context of natural variability over the last 2000 years. […]”

Let’s take a look at the temperature chart for all of Antarctica over the past 2000 years:

Temperature curve for Antarctica over the past 2000 years. Source: Stenni et al. 2017.

As we see, it has not even been 1000 years ago since the penguins were forced to leave the area where they currently find themselves due to oncoming cold. We would gladly provide the activists with a new pair of spectacles that would correct their climate-historical myopia.

 

10 responses to “Céline Le Bohec et al Doom-Filled Penguin Study Is One For The Birds…”Climate Historical Myopia””

  1. AndyG55

    Pierre, You might want to fix something.

    In one of the quotes you have “According to the study, the population is currently 1.6 breeding pairs.

    If that is the case, they are surely in trouble 😉

  2. John F. Hultquist

    Thanks to all for getting these things presented in this manner.

    When I see a gloom & doom article with “heavy extinction risk under the current global warming predictions,” I guess they are using the 8.5 Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP). Then, knowing the rest is junk science, there is no need to read on.
    But, I frequently do.
    But what the heck, we all have lots of time to waste, don’t we?
    Besides, I often learn something, and that is good.

  3. tom0mason

    But of course the deranged and hallucinating cAGW advocates will recite their unevidenced nonsense of thousands of species are endangered because of the advocates imaginary CO2 warming.

    What they fail to perceive is that as the weather and climate naturally change (as it has recently) any species are endanger of extinction, penguins included. Flora and fauna extinctions have happened from the very start of life on this planet — it is an entirely natural process.
    Most species are specialized in their requirements with a limited range of adaptability.
    Humans in contrast are quite unique in that they are not particularly specialized (but they can learn) and are highly adaptable, this protects the human species from even some of the most extreme natural variations (including the recent nearly warm period of the last few years) on this planet.

  4. Kurt in Switzerland

    Over the Christmas/New Year’s Holidays we were treated to a documentary on Swiss Public Television (SRF) which claimed that the Emperor Penguins of Antarctica were threatened because … “Human CO2 Emissions / Global Warming / Climate Change.”

    https://www.srf.ch/sendungen/einstein/antarktis-paradies-in-gefahr

    “Paradise in Danger” argued that the reason for the demise of the penguins was TOO MUCH ICE which meant that the parents of the young penguins had to trek further now (due to Human CO2 / Global Warming / Climate Change)…

    So the reader was led to believe that here was yet another piece of evidence that we had better stop driving SUVs, burning coal, oil and gas and eating meat… lest ALL the penguins would soon perish.

    Yet at the end of the documentary, the narrator argued that the penguins’ habitat was LITERALLY MELTING beneath them.

    Confused?

    So was I.

    I then contacted the Editorial Director of the “Einstein” program, asking him for clarification of the apparent contradiction. He agreed with me (that this was a blatant contradiction) but defended the erroneous statement about the “literal melting of the penguins’ habitat” [since it ‘sounded nicer’].

    So these tools will push any bit of propaganda which argues that “business as usual is bad” or that “humans are to blame” and “calamities will become progressively worse”, irrespective of whether these arguments are internally incoherent.

    “Settled science”, I suppose.

    You couldn’t make this stuff up.

  5. CO2isLife

    Antarctica hasn’t warmed in over 50 years.

    Isolating the Contribution of CO2 on Atmospheric Temperature
    In any serious scientific experiment, efforts are made to “control” for as many exogenous factors as possible. The whole purpose is to isolate the impact of the independent variable on the dependent variable. ΔWeightloss = ΔCaloric Intake + ΔExercise + ΔBase Metabolism + error. To minimize the error of the model (maximize explanatory power), variables outside … Continue reading
    https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2018/02/14/isolating-the-contribution-of-co2-on-atmospheric-co2/

  6. Kenneth Richard

    Graph showing increasing Adélie penguin numbers during 1982-2015

    Che-Castaldo et al., 2017
    “We found a marked and steady increase in [Adélie penguin] abundance around the rest of the Antarctic continent, including both Eastern Antarctica and the Ross Sea [during 1982-2015].”

    Scientists have historically determined that increasing Adélie penguin numbers seem to coincide with warm periods, whereas cooling periods elicit population declines (Emslie et al., 2007; Huang et al., 2009).

  7. Philip

    With all these crazy reports you would think there was an IPCC report coming out.

    1. Bitter&twisted

      Yep. Got to keep the public scared and the grant and tax money rolling in.

  8. R2Dtoo

    In the Arctic, most seal, walrus and the polar bears are doing fine. All that is needed would be someone to monitor what Native folks are observing, a population survey (coordinated amoung nations) every five years to keep track of numbers. Other research can continue under university grants. Good news, however, doesn’t generate big dollars.

    In the Antarctic, most penguin populations are doing fine. Individual colonies ebb and flow according to local conditions. The greatest disruption is that of scientists and tourists messing with the birds. All that is needed is a periodic survey of population numbers. The scare tactics of many research teams is fraudulent, and should be called out as such.

    The world needs some honest brokers in wildlife science. Much of what is happening in polar regions should be celebrated as success stories.

  9. Doom-Filled Penguin Study Is One For The Birds | Principia Scientific International

    […] Read more at notrickszone.com […]

By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. more information

The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this. More information at our Data Privacy Policy

Close