The media hype and the story of the false Penguin Panic
Image: UNSW/Chris Turney
Much fuss was made of 150,000 missing penguins in Antarctica as if climate change had killed them. A monster iceberg had washed in, stopping the cute swimming tuxedos from getting to dinner and the colony of 160,000 suddenly shrank to 10,000. Where did all those penguins go? In previous tough times, when they could be tracked they just split up and went to different colonies.
Given that the penguins have survived repeated ice ages and warming for millions of years who would have thought that they would have a strategy for dealing with the odd big iceberg?
[Grist] Researchers found that a colony of Adélie penguins in Antartica’s Cape Denison has decreased from 160,000 to just 10,000 since 2011, when a huge iceberg ominously named B09B became grounded in nearby Commonwealth Bay. The penguins were once a short waddle from their food source, but the arrival of the iceberg — which is nearly the size of Rhode Island — has turned that jaunt into a 75-mile round trip. Talk about a long lunch.
Cry for those penguins:
“It’s eerily silent now,” expedition leader Chris Turney told The Sydney Morning Herald. He goes on to describe an alarmingly sedated — and depleted — community of penguins…. are clearly struggling. They can barely survive themselves, let alone hatch the next generation. We saw lots of dead birds on the ground … it’s just heartbreaking to see.”
The Guardian wrote the obituary and issued the death notices: “150,000 Penguins Die After Giant Iceberg Renders Colony Landlocked.”
Credit to Becky Oskin at Live Science for unpacking the hype, getting two points of view and finding a researcher who knew something:
But there’s no proof yet that the birds are dead. No one has actually found 150,000 frozen penguins. In fact, experts think there’s a less horrific explanation for the missing birds: When the fishing gets tough, penguins simply pick up and move. It wouldn’t be the first time Adélie penguins marched to new digs. When an iceberg grounded in the southern Ross Sea in 2001, penguins on Ross Island relocated to nearby colonies until the ice broke up.
“Just because there are a lot fewer birds observed doesn’t automatically mean the ones that were there before have perished,” said Michelle LaRue, a penguin population researcher at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, who was not involved in the study. “They easily could have moved elsewhere, which would make sense if nearby colonies are thriving,” LaRue told Live Science in an email interview.
As for the dead birds, La Rue explained that there are always carcasses lying around Antarctica because it’s so cold and dry (they don’t decompose in the freezer so to speak). You might think an expert like Chris Turney might know that? It appears Eric Worrall, non-penguin-researcher, and not published at all in the peer review literature on Antarctica thought the non-migration of Penguins facing disaster was “ridiculous”. (WUWT)
The media hype
So why the failure of so many “hard” journalists, Paul Homewood asks? He lays the blame at the feet of Chris Turney UNSW, who was one of the authors:
Why did pretty much all of them fall for the story and say the same thing?
After all, as they say, there was nothing in the paper itself to justify the scare, or for that matter the press release, which only carried the statement of the lead author, Kerry-Jayne Wilson.
So, step forward co-author, Chris Turney, leader of the Ship of Fools expedition which carried out the penguin count. He is quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald and other newspapers:
… Professor Turney said the Cape Denison penguins could face a grim future. “They don’t migrate,” he said. “They’re stuck there. They’re dying.”
The Gullible Guardian and Grist and SMH would not get caught if they just did a bit more research. They might even seek out some skeptics to get a different point of view.
The Sydney Morning Herald led the panic, and a week later issued a quiet reassessment. How many SMH readers might still think that more solar panels could prevent mass penguin death? On Feb 12 the story was that a Giant iceberg could wipe out Adelie Penguin colony at Cape Denison, Antarctica. Chris Turney was interviewed at length, and we were told that as the planet warms things were going to get worse. But in the aftermath, writer Kim Arlington must have realized that Turney and Fogwill of UNSW were making her look a bit silly. She wrote another article on Feb 23 with the sedate unsensational headline “Scientists assess icebergs impact on Adelie penguins.” There, Michael LaRue and his more sensible view are heard. Turney gets a paragraph and this time he suggests the birds are missing, and maybe at sea. There’s no mention of climate change or global warming. There’s also no mention of how misleading the first story was, though there is a link to it (which doesn’t work. Bad luck?).
The real news is being thrashed out on the web. No wonder subscriptions are not going well for the mainstream propaganda units.
The last word on penguins:
At the end of the day, Adelie penguins seem to do well in the warmth. One recent study found that their population size has increased by 135 fold since 14,000 years ago. LaRue also points out there are 7 million Adélie penguins in Antarctica. They are not near extinction.
— Thanks to GWPF for the tip, to Lawrence Solomon for the story in the Financial Post.
The original study was published in Antarctic Science.
‘No one found 150,000 penguin carcasses so there’s no reason to think they died, LaRue explained. More likely, they did what penguins usually do when their environment changes — they adapt by joining other colonies.’
I’m no expert but after millions of years surviving icy climes the penguins should know how to adapt when a single berg makes life even more awkward than usual.
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I expect the penguins wouldn’t even consider it adaption; it is just one of those things that happens from time to time. They probably have bigger challenges in day to day life.
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And we know penguins are *definately* smarter than climate scientists – at least they dont get stuck in the ice!
Har har!!
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I wouldn’t expect that anybody has gone looking for carcases beyond the usual grounds. Only an office bound bookworm could imagine that.
Even if they did die, it wouldn’t take long for the numbers to regenerate. Less penguins leads to more food per penguin leads to higher breeding and survival rates leads to a return to equilibrium.
If they were endangered it might be a different matter.
But who listens to this man anyway? Who paid the costs for the disaster that was “the ship of fools”? Many legitimate researchers suffered substantial losses as their contracted resources were diverted to service the man made emergency.
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The least they could have done is to leave a note for Mr Turney and Co, saving him much anguish.
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They’re hiding, waiting for their approval of their grant application.
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You think the penguins might be hiding in the deep ocean too?
It’s a travesty . . .
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Penguin purgatory, penguin panic and now penguin disaster. All the fault of democratic industrial nations of course. Only prescient Professor Turney has the emotive connection to penguins to relate the magnitude of this unnatural disaster and only socialist, even communist scientists really know who to blame for this iceberg. Coal is the problem. Only windmills can save us.
I was taught by penguins and I can understand the angst, the sadness in the penguin ranks at this totally undeserved tragedy. First outrageous exteme ice and now giant icebergs. A penguin’s life was not meant to be easy, unlike salaried Australian academics who profit by the misery of penguins. It’s all black and white to them.
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“P-P-P-Pick-up-a-Penguin”.
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With all this attention the penguins are likely to get distracted from their difficult survival regimen. And then what will they do? A lot of them may die. No, no, no! We must leave them alone to suffer the outrageous deprivations of their native habitat so they stay sharp and at least some of them can survive a sudden drop in food supply.
Or we should laugh at the whole situation. It seems that penguins are better able to adapt to to an empty pantry than we humans are. Maybe we should learn from them.
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I believe it’s all those near extinct Polar Bears pigging out on Penguin burgers down there, gives a new meaning to ‘flipping the bird’ 🙂
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What is it about ‘Penguins, Polar Bears, and Sea Ice’ that brings out the charlatans on the side of CO2 Scaremongering?
There is an excellent video by Jim Steele on these topics, and in the first 5 minutes he does a fine demolition job on a piece of shonky science trying to imply decreasing penguin numbers in a colony to rising temperatures. He shows two things: one, the real reasons for the decreases; two, the local temperatures did not rise during the period of the study. This link is to the first of 4 20 minutes videos – all by Jim Steele, the last one is the one I am referring to here, but the others are also well worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLGtjHyJctY0OXCBL82M3ctHx6FxmLC-ud&v=_FuKSK7kP0s
More discussion of it, and more, here:
http://cliscep.com/2016/02/25/an-illustrated-guide-to-shonky-science/
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Same old, same old …
CAGW advocates are most proud of the persistent public kerfuffle they are able to generate in the MSM. Such people regard this as their finest achievement. If you doubt this, observe their noisy panic if a contrary story surfaces in some MSM outlet
So cute penguins, snowy-white bears (preferably cubs) etc are excellent emotive MSM fair to ramp up the moral indignation
It’s called marketing
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Jo, I must admit that your term “cute swimming tuxedos” gave me a smile. I’ll be able to go to bed in a cheerful frame of mind!
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“swimming tuxedos” is a gorgeous phrase! Nicely put, Jo.
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Too bad the “journalists” don’t expend 1/10 the effort looking for the missing penguins as they do digging deep to find dirt on any scientist that doesn’t follow the agenda.
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India’s Javadekar is often a voice of reason. in December, he made headlines – “Chennai floods not linked to global warming: Prakash Javadekar” – and now:
1 Mar: DNA India: Extreme rainfall not yet attributed to global warming: Government
The Environment Minister said that extremes in rainfall noticed in the last 40 years have not yet been attributed to global warming…
“Extreme rainfall events that occurred at some isolated places (heavy rainfall over Mumbai, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Kashmir, etc) are highly localised and are part of the natural variability of the Indian monsoon system.
“Although some recent studies hint at an increasing frequency and intensity of extremes in rainfall during the past 40-50 years, their attribution to global warming is yet to be established,” Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said in a written reply in Lok Sabha on Tuesday.
He said that as per information supplied by the Ministry of Earth Sciences, there is “no conclusive” evidence to attribute all observed weather and climate variability to the increased concentrations of Green House Gases (GHG) and associated global warming…
Javadekar said that gradual increasing trend of surface temperature across the globe is found to be in line with rise of GHGs over the last few decades. “Daily mean temperature over the country is found to be increasing more or less at the same time as the global mean (0.63 degrees Celsius since 1901).
“Spatial pattern of the trends in the mean annual temperature shows significant positive (increasing) trend over most parts of the country except over parts of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Bihar where significant negative (decreasing) trends were observed,” he said.
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-extreme-rainfall-not-yet-attributed-to-global-warming-government-2184377
plenty of detail in the following:
17 Feb: SciDevNet: Q&A: India’s own climate model in the offing
Rajeevan Madhavan Nair, the new secretary in India’s ministry of earth sciences, shares with SciDev.Net plans to improve monsoon forecasting which is vital for agriculture on the sub-continent. He is confident that with increases computation power, using petaflop computers, predictions would be possible for every four kilometres.
By the end of 2016 India will have its own climate assessment model, enabling the country to participate in the next Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment (sixth assessment) by contributing its own model simulations and results. India will also be capable of generating high resolution climate change scenarios for the entire South Asian region, he says…READ ON…
http://www.scidev.net/south-asia/science-diplomacy/feature/q-a-india-s-own-climate-model-in-the-offing.html
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Whose to say that over the past centuries similar disasters occurred that were orders of magnitude greater? Why are the media so dumb?
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It would have to be all but certain that similar and worse events have occurred, given the massive flux of the poles over credible time periods.
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This situation is truly funny. Incan just imagine the penguins laughing their little beaks off discussing the foolishness of self styled scientists who come to “save them”, when they know full well what they are doing because they are perfectly able to survive in the Antarctica unlike the rent seeking tourist scientists who come as a publicity stunt.
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Gosh, Sonny, you mean the penguins actually might know something about surviving in their native habitat? If so we have to stop that immediately. It doesn’t fit the “save the world” narrative and it can’t be tolerated. 😉
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I’ll trade you one Turney for one Suzuki!
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Jo,
I find it amazing how the media generates stories just to push their magazines or websites.
Soooo much propaganda hyped onto the masses…no wonder we have soooo many sheep that have no clue what real life is like unless the government or media pushes how society should follow blindly…walking off cliffs.
In the US, the elections will really be interesting in seeing how many different groups backed by big money will be going after Presidential Candidate Donald Trump…Already many medias are attacking him to get anybody but him in office so that the US can keep that 1% in power…
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Beware of the Penguins, you never know where they could show up 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVWtq-_VYk8
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Nobody expects the Spanish Penquisition!
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Just another hollow scare story from the Merchants of Pout™.
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There is another story this week about all the butterflies that went extinct a few years ago.
There Back!
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Do you have a link?
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Link for Monarchs,and bonus – Manatees
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2016/02/29/monarch-butterflies-and-manatees-oh-my-these-two-animals-had-major-rebounds/
There are more links, but this has both!
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Same as the hyped mega disaster of the global decline of Honeybee’s which in turn would wipe out earths honey production and plant species due to no crosspollination etc….
But then Bee-pocalypse called off, yes lateral thinking wins again (big sigh)….
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The penguins went to Hollywood to work as extras in a Batman movie.
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Another part of this story that reflects poorly on Turney. The 160,000 was a count by Mawsons team in 1903. Not by Turney. And Mawson’s total may have been all the colonies they could reach, not just the one closest to their expedition base. Remember he had reasonably open water for his sailing vessels the year they built the base camp.
The last time this specific (Mawson Huts) colony was surveyed (2004 if I recall correctly) it was about 30000.
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One has to wonder about that Professor and what is being professed.
Adelie penguins are perhaps the most common penguin in the south, living all around the coastline of Antarctica and populating most of the offshore islands as well. With an estimated population of around 10,000,000 (10 million), they are a long long way from any endangerment as a species.
They aren’t restricted to just Cape Denison and its surrounds. Around the corner from Commonwealth Bay (and down the coast just a bit), there are an estimated 5 million in the Ross Sea. Maybe as Jo says, the missing Cape Denison penguins have gone to stay with their rellies until that nasty naughty iceberg melts or floats away.
I mean, fancy waking up one day to find a huge lump of ice has gone and parked itself across your favourite fishing track. There’s just no consideration these days. Those icebergs think they can just go and park anywhere they like.
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‘New Zealand Birds Online’ reports on Threats and conservation of the Adélie penguins as follows:
“Several threats to Adélie penguins have been identified, including an increase in human visitors to Antarctica, resource extraction and installation of research stations on rare ice-free Antarctic sites used by penguins for nesting. Perhaps the greatest risk is the impacts of climate change on the distribution of sea-ice around Antarctica, but the break-up of ice-shelves may expose further land suitable for breeding.. Two recent studies reported decreases in the numbers of Adélie penguins breeding on the Antarctic Peninsula and South Orkney Islands (32% decline between 1983-84 and 2004-05, while they are apparently increasing in the Ross Sea sector.
So Turney and his ‘Ship of Fools’ tourist mates are a threat to the cute penguins and ‘perhaps’ climate change is the greatest risk.
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… from which we could, perhaps, infer that `Climate Change’ (or the threat of it) brings more dangerous Professors and their entourages to the Antarctic than would `naturally’ find their way there, thus modifying the penguin environment in many `unsurvivable’ ways? 🙂
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O/T but this is huge in my opinion. Top scientist resigns from U. of Cal.
http://yournewswire.com/top-scientist-resigns-admitting-global-warming-is-a-big-scam/
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Im looked at the article again and it’s not clear whether he actually resigned from U. Cal. or just from American Physical Society.
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Apparently from APS only. He is not the first to resign from the APS because of their stance on AGW/CC.
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But maybe you should have read it one more time. The resignation was dated October 2010.
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It’s a very well-known letter and has been for years.
Doesn’t detract from the fact that it is superb.
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One of my former co-workers had this saying on her wall…”If you don’t like where you are, move. You are not a tree.” Seems appropriate here.
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I remember a saying on the blackboard in the onsite maintenance engineer’s office when I was still early in my career. It read,
I adopted that philosophy and it was well worth it when I was faced with software problems. You may think you’ve fixed something before you actually understand what was wrong and end up causing other problems, some of which may not show up until your repair work is in the hands of your customer.
If there had only been an initial attempt to get to the bottom of the mystery before making any announcements and before anyone started crowing like a rooster about what was assumed to have happened, we wouldn’t be commenting about this because Jo would never have written it.
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I was lucky to be asked very early on in my engineering career a simple question, which has helped develop a suitable curiousity and sceptical view of outcomes in applied science work.
“You’ve told me why it will work. Now tell me why it wouldn’t.”
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Reminds me of the great Falkland Island sheep disaster in which the sheep were having eye problems supposedly caused by the higher UV getting through because of ozone depletion. This little theory went quite a ways before someone actually looked to see what was going on. Oops! The sheep had a viral infection of the eye and were easily cured of it. But the truth about it was not easy to find and I only stumbled upon it by the good luck that I know some sites that report stuff others don’t want to bother with for various reasons.
If you assume an answer to your question instead of looking for the answer the right way, you get what you deserve. Unfortunately this particular little screw-up may never be reported to the general public any more than the Falkland Islands sheep got reported.
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So….. global warming causes … more ice? My own observations of my gin and tonic are that, as it warms, it might need more ice… but that only dilutes the gin. There can be some very tough decisions to be made, in life.
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“You might think an expert like Chris Turney might know that?”
Urm, no. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
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Jo
Around this thread area
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2016/03/nostradamus-the.html#comments
Link and comments
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So 100,000 penguins have gone missing? Now where in 18,000 km of Antarctic coastline could they be hiding? Easy to spot though. Black and white on a black and white landscape. It is reminiscent of the missing 250,000 caribou in Canada which were found in the next valley, despite having been killed by Climate Change.
This is faux outrage in a country which consumes 600,000,000 chickens per year and 4,000,000,000 chicken eggs per year or around 50,000 times as many birds? Oh the humanity!
With record ice in Antarctica for the last few years, a fact Professor Turkey will deny, what is all this concern for a few birds on the edges of a frozen wasteland twice the size of Australia?
Of course if the caring Arctic experts really want to save the polar bears and the penguins, they could move the polar bears to Antarctica and the penguins to the arctic. The penguins would really love the warmth and the Polar bears would love to snack on penguins. Taste like chicken. Soon there would be thousands of giant ravenous and fast killing machines in Antarctica to protect the place from oil exploration and dilletante academic tourists like Professor Turkey.
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150,000 penguins. I lost 50,000 penguins myself. Sorry again.
I was just thinking that the iceberg must have moved very quickly, given that the penguins swim out to sea every day to fish. An iceberg the size of Rhode Island must have crept up on them and caught them napping at night. Sneaky icebergs.
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Anthropomorphism “the attribution of human characteristics or behaviour to a god, animal, or object.”
Really, is there any animal on the planet less invested in a frozen dark landscape than a penguin? They live on the fringes and far prefer warmer water anyway. This is anthropomorphism, allocating human emotions and concerns to animals who do not build homes, have mortgages, take the kids to school and all the rest. They are born, fish, reproduce and die on ice. If they had to move home one day, it could not matter less. Would they have lost their hopes and dreams? No. They go where and when the fishing is good. Fish good. Ice useless.
Let’s feel sorry for school fish next, being eaten and missing an education.
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Or is this just consistent with Anthropogenic Global Warming, the desire to see every little change even in the temperature of an entire planet as being caused by the actions of man.
The IPCC is a political science organization of the United Nations no less and founded on this very principle. It is the world (man made) Climate Change organization.
What are they going to say, that after 30 years of research by tens of thousands of people that they have discovered a very slight and temporary change in gloabl temperature was just natural? That the polar bears are fine? That the oceans will never be acidic? No, they like the CSIRO just need more cash. The greatest moral problem of our time is the vast waste of resources going into preventing man made Global Warming. It seems to be working though.
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Turney can be forgiven, it is so hard to check the ID of penguins .
Papers please, might not translate.
Canada can go him one better.
In 2009 they “lost” 300 000 caribou.
The government of the Northwest Territories went bananas, shutting down big game hunters,harassing hunters.
In 2011(22 Nov A.P), their very own expert, found the “Missing herd”.
I mean who in government knew caribou could migrate?
Result, almost no media coverage of “discovery” and the GNWT continues to insist the herds have vanished.
Strangely they and their neighbour, Nunavut, have failed to complete a count of caribou numbers since 2009.
So you can count on Turney’s dead penguins to march on in myth until the CAGW hysteria ends.
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I remember that. The Inuit advised that they would be in another valley, where they were eventually found. Academic ecologists disagreed. It was very funny to lose 100,000 tons of caribou and even funnier to have the explanation of Global Warming. Imagine. Killed in their hundreds of thousands by an increase of +0.8C.
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Professor Christopher Turney has been beating up the CAGW hysteria for all he is worth and still is!
Therefore not forgiven.
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Concerning migration:
See this 14-year comprehensive study of three disparate colonies on Ross Island adjacent to the largest ice shelf in Antarctica and impacted by the massive iceberg C15 during 2001-2005.
http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fevo.2014.00068/full
Interestingly, it also makes reference supportive of widespread migrations because of lack of genetic diversity around Antarctica…..a fascinating read including this extract:
“…Indeed, the Royds breeding population decreased from 3600–3900 pairs before 2001 to ~2200 pairs by 2006; in contrast, the Crozier population increased from about 155,000 to >175,000 pairs during the iceberg years, and is now estimated to be over 270,000 breeding pairs (LaRue et al., 2014; Lynch and LaRue, 2014; Lyver et al., 2014). In addition, negative effects on productivity in particular are consistent with the decreased foraging efficiency (Ballard et al., 2010a; Lescroël et al., 2010, 2014) and increased inter-colony movement rates we observed for breeding adults (Dugger et al., 2010; LaRue et al., 2013) during this natural experiment. [C15 blocking iceberg] Movement rates of breeding adults between colonies increased in response to the presence of the icebergs, particularly emigration from Royds, the colony with the lowest productivity during those years (Dugger et al., 2010)…”
Co-author with Turney et al in the study, Dr Kerry-Jane Wilson a penguin expert, has claimed that there are millions of Adelie penguins around Antarctica and has contradicted Turney, see:
http://www.bluepenguin.org.nz/news/clarification-on-cape-denison-adelie-penguins/
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Happy feet. They know every step of the way.
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If solar panels prevent even one penguin being killed by polar bears then we should consider them compulsory on every home in Australia. Especially at night when we need more sun.
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The whole idea that penguins could not survive this natural event is because of the ridiculous mindset of the observers.
These unscientific observers think that as penguins are small brained creatures, they could not actually be aware enough of their changing circumstances, therefore a catastrophe must befall the innocent penguins.
This is evidence of the massive egocentric hubristic thinking that permeates so much of modern scientific thinking and the camp-following dumb journalists — only clever scientists can properly understand and realize the outcome of events, mere stupid animals have no abilities outside what science has defined as penguin’s ‘normal’ environment — is their mindset.
Science should be about observation, measuring, and recording as accurately as possible data about our natural universe, before formulating a hypothesis about how it all works.
Science is not about concocting a guess (aka hypothesis) about what will happen, then fitting the data to this guess. That method is pure pseudoscience.
More evidence of the epic failure of ‘modern science’ to be scientific.
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tom0mason:
What with the Ship of Fools and the Case of the Missing Penguins I am beginning to doubt whether a trip with Prof. Turney would be a good idea.
A better choice might be The Climate Council and their very own Tim. blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/…/love_boat/
What could go wrong?
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… Professor Turney said the Cape Denison penguins could
face a grim future. “They don’t migrate,” he said.
“They’re stuck there.”
Droll comment by the leader of that ill-fated Antarctic
expedition that got stuch in summer ice.
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Edit, ‘stuck’in summer ice. (
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It’s projection all the way.
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So what
TurkeyTurney is saying here is that 150,000 penguins did in fact perish.I don’t believe he knows very much at all about penguins. To say they would not simply find better pickings and instead just sit there and die is ridiculous.
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Thanks Graeme No.3,
(your link is incomplete so here it is http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/love_boat/P20/)
Also see Paul Homewood’s ‘Ship of Fuels’
Yes, certainly looks like another very expensive – and in all probability worthless jolly for the anointed*.
I wonder if the fools on the ship would allow real science to be done by real scientists aboard this luxury.
*anointed, from anoint or ‘an oint’ –
oint: is the sounds made by those overstuffed at public expense trough. 🙂
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A short while ago in Google search restricted to since 1/Jan/2016 for:
150,000 penguins killed
gave 13,100 hits.
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MISSING PENGUINS DEPARTMENT.
Official: How many did you say?
CT: 150,000 missing.
Official: Hmmmm, we’ll need some identifying details,
height etc, any distinguishing features, photographs?
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Jo, Remember the Professor that wanted a new law making it illegal for Americans to question AGW? Seems he has been double dipping from the US taxpayer purse and may end up in goal himself. An article appeared in the Wall St Journal on 1 March.His advice on climate catastrophism was certainly well paid. Doubly so, it seems. Link
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They are in hiding in the deep oceans with the missing heat.
But you knew that.
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handjive,
You mean the missing heat hiding in the deep oceans that has caused the parched earth to soak-up excessive water thus stalling the catastrophic sea level rise.
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Caused the parched earth to suddenly soak up excessive water.
After hundreds of years of steady increase this new phenomenon only started in the last few years/mm of sea rise. It shows that in the wonderful world of proven Carbon Anthropogenic Global Warming, any explanation is the right one. Never should a CAGW scientist ever admit that the sea rise has slowed or that the world has stopped warming or that anything is wrong with their infallible computer models. Being a climate scientist means never having to say sorry.
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Perhaps the Aussie Newcastle Song’s main lyric should be the catch-cry of the warmunistas:
“Don’t you ever let a chance go by”
Anything for a headline that perpetuates the CAGW meme
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Sorry completely off topic but none the less a very interesting read with comments from the former boss of the Bank of England. Note down the bottom of the piece how they say this confirms a 2008 AIG report which lists what the EU elite wanted –includes an environmental crisis.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-03-02/striking-admission-former-bank-england-head-european-depression-was-deliberate-act
Put this together with the comments from Ban Ki Moon (sp?) in recent days who said that European countries had no right to protect their borders and we can understand what is going on with these unelected “dictators”.
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so little detail has been reported since the Aurora Australis incident occurred on 24 Feb, but thought the following was interesting:
google results date the following as 11 Feb:
Uni of Tasmania: Sailing south to study key biological hotspots along the Kerguelen Axis
A team of Australia’s leading Antarctic marine scientists will depart Hobart tomorrow for the Southern Ocean to investigate the impact of climate change on the Kerguelen Axis, a biological hotspot where swarms of krill sustain iconic Antarctic wildlife, including fish, seals, penguins and whales.
The voyage is part of the Australian Antarctic program and an important collaboration between the Australian Antarctic Division, the University of Tasmania’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS), the Australian Research Council funded Antarctic Gateway Partnership and the Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre (ACE CRC)…
Chief Investigator Dr Andrew Constable, Australian Antarctic Division, ACE CRC and the Antarctic Gateway Partnership: “The Kerguelen Axis is a biological hotspot where abundant swarms of krill sustain an enormous diversity of species including fish, seals, penguins and whales,” Dr Constable said…
“The most basic question we hope to answer is where the northernmost boundary for krill currently lies, and from that we hope to determine which factors control the location of the boundary.
***”It’s important to understand what will happen to the distribution of krill during this century, as the ocean continues to warm and become more acidic…
The Aurora Australis will be joined by five vessels as part of a multi-ship collaboration, each of which will take samples and measurements in multiple locations around the Kerguelen Axis over the next eight weeks.
“The Aurora Australis will work with the French ship Marion Dufresne, the Japanese vessels Umitaka Maru and Hakuho Maru, and the Australian Marine National Facility research vesselInvestigator to collect a range of data, while the US vessel Roger Revelle will provide oceanographic input,” Dr Fenton said.
The Aurora Australis departs Hobart with 44 scientists and support staff on board, including marine scientists from China and the UK…
http://www.imas.utas.edu.au/antarctic-gateway-partnership/news/news-items/sailing-south-to-study-key-biological-hotspots-along-the-kerguelen-axis
the following is amusing. seems the drone wasn’t on the recent trip:
11 Feb: Australian: Chris Griffith: Aurora Australis takes drone to Casey Station, Antarctica to capture polar wonders
But after the successful use of drones to guide the Aurora Australis icebreaker through treacherous waters on its annual resupply voyage to Casey Station in December, it seems the sky’s the limit for this kind of technology on the southern polar continent.
Australian Antarctic Division future concepts manager Matt Filipowski says this is the first time the division has used drone technology to assist ship operations, and it is a valuable addition to existing ice navigation tools, which include satellite imagery and radar…
PHOTO GALLERY: 9 PICS: Pic 1: Drone shot of the Australian research ship Aurora Australis. The drone is used to help the ship navigate through the ice.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/life/aurora-australis-takes-drone-to-casey-station-antarctica-to-capture-polar-wonders/news-story/0c7e24afaeb89e154d44324c6b2ed138
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Where do the penguins go to audition for the next sequel to “Happy Feet”. Perhaps they should look there for the missing penguins.
It’s going to be hard to get a top gig on the next one though, with Leo Dicaprio being declared a wonderful actor and him having a penguin sized bird-brain and a nice tux.
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update:
3 Mar: Hobart Mercury: Bruce Mounster: Damaged Aurora heads home
Its destination still depends on the availability of a suitable shipyard where repairs could be done.
The remainder of the 37 expeditioners, who were taken off Aurora Australis last week shortly before it was refloated on Friday, will wait at Mawson while AAD makes alternative arrangements for their passage back to Australia.
Also waiting are expeditioners and support staff who had spent the past winter and summer at Mawson.
“The Australian Antarctic Division has plans well in hand for returning expeditioners to Australia, and hopes to officially sign off on arrangements in the coming days,’’ a spokeswoman said.
http://www.themercury.com.au/news/tasmania/damaged-aurora-heads-home/news-story/24b95ee44016f5572c7a20522eedf732
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2 Mar: UKChannel4 blog: Liam Dutton: Winter arrives in March and it’ll stay cold
Just a few days after the Met Office confirmed that England and Wales have had their warmest winter on record, temperatures have dropped and snow has started falling.
The British weather has never been one to strictly conform to what the date says on the calendar, but wintry weather arriving with jazz hands on the third day of meteorological spring is somewhat ironic. Cold air plunging southwards across the UK, with an area of low pressure in the mix, has provided a covering of snow – mainly over the hills in northern areas, but locally down to sea level as well…
West Yorkshire has had a tricky morning rush hour, with delays reported on the roads, as vehicles struggled in snow and ice…
As I mentioned in my blog last week, it looks as though the cold weather is set to last for the rest of March, with temperatures more likely to be below average than above average. The jet stream is likely to spend much of the time to the south of the UK, allowing cold air to sit across us for extended periods of time…
***One factor that is likely to increase the chance of cold weather persisting into early April is a stratospheric warming event that is taking place very high in the atmosphere…
One other thing worth highlighting is that the seasonal winter forecast from the Met Office this year has been good…
http://blogs.channel4.com/liam-dutton-on-weather/winter-arrives-march-stay-cold/9726
2 Mar: Belfast Telegraph: Snow and ice starts to thaw after rush hour chaos
The snow and ice has started to ease after bringing roads to a standstill during morning rush hour…
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/snow-and-ice-starts-to-thaw-after-rush-hour-chaos-34504178.html
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2 Mar: Lansing State Journal: Slick roads after record Lansing snowfall
By 1 a.m. today, 7.2 inches of snow had fallen in Lansing, breaking the record of 6 inches for March 1 set in 1908, Sekelsky said…
http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/2016/03/02/slick-commute-after-record-lansing-snowfall/81199194/
2 Mar: Tass: New precipitation record set in Moscow
According to Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin, it would take several days to completely eliminate the effects of the record snowfall in the Russian capital
“The total length of traffic jams reached 3,400 kilometers, which is even more than the distance between Moscow and Rome. The reason for this was heavy snowfall which continued all night,” the press service said.
Due to heavy snow, Russian Justice Minister Alexander Konovalov was 20 minutes late to the “government hour” in Russia’s Federation Council (upper house of parliament), where he was to brief lawmakers on the legal status of NGOs…
The weather in Moscow broke the 50-year-old precipitation record for this particular day. According to the Russian Hydrometeorological Center, last night Moscow had up to 24 mm of snow at the VDNKH weather station (in the northeast of Moscow), which is slightly more than 70% from the amount the city sees during one month (34 mm)…
The maximum daily precipitation for March 2 was registered in 1966 amounting to 22,2 mm…
http://tass.ru/en/society/860128
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Maybe the penguins were rescued by a Chinese icebreaker – oh no….. that was Turney wasn’t it?
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2 Mar: ReutersCarbonPulse: Mike Szabo: Carbon whodunit: Macro factors, utilities, speculators seen as culprits in EUA price crash mystery
The recent 40% collapse in EU carbon prices was triggered by worsening macroeconomic conditions, and exacerbated by speculative selling and changes in utility hedging strategies.
That’s according to a straw poll of at least 55 audience members taken by Louis Redshaw of Redshaw Advisors on Wednesday at the Argus Emissions Markets conference in Amsterdam.
During an interactive session – a sort of ‘EU carbon whodunit’ – investigating the causes of the recent drop in EUAs, which has sent prices to their lowest in nearly two years, Redshaw compiled a list of seven likely factors that may have contributed.
He then invited attendees to vote on what they thought was the trigger, the main reason behind the size of the drop, and the secondary cause…READ ON…
Most of the selling has been done on ICE’s screen-based contracts, meaning the identities of the biggest sellers are widely unknown.
http://carbon-pulse.com/16460/
2 Mar: ReutersCarbonPulse: Ben Garside: EU should focus on current 2030 goals until 2018 UN stocktake, keep handing out free EUAs -Commission
The EU should focus on meeting its current proposed 2030 climate and energy goals until a worldwide stocktake of climate pledges in 2018, the European Commission said on Wednesday, disappointing environmental campaigners who say the bloc’s CO2 reduction aim falls short of globally-agreed commitments.
The widely-expected view was set out in a document released by the Commission to guide EU environment ministers on Mar. 4 and a session of EU leaders on Mar. 17-18. Both meetings will examine whether to revisit the EU goals in the wake of December’s Paris Agreement…
“We have the deal. Now we need to make it real. For the EU, this means completing the 2030 climate and energy legislation without delay, signing and ratifying the Paris Agreement as soon as possible, and continuing our leadership in the global transition to a low-carbon future,” said the EU’s climate commissioner Miguel Arias Canete…
Environmental campaigners Greenpeace said not moving to a deeper 2030 goal would mean the European Commission has broken its pledge to bring EU climate targets in line with the Paris climate deal.
“The Commission must stop pretending Paris didn’t happen. It has a responsibility to step up climate action to reflect the Paris deal in upcoming legislation on renewables and energy efficiency. People won’t trust the EU if it continues to play fast and loose with global warming and delays Europe’s shift to 100 percent renewable energy,” said Greenpeace EU’s climate and energy policy adviser Bram Claeys in a statement…
Green group coalition CAN Europe joined with business group Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group and ***trade union confederation ETUC to form what they called “The Coalition for Higher Ambition”, in reference to the High Ambition Coalition that the EU became part of in the Paris negotiations…
http://carbon-pulse.com/16451/
***trade unions should be ashamed of themselves.
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Luke Warmer Don Aitkin
‘My take on it all is that humans and their activities do have an effect on temperature, but it is by no means the be-all and end-all of ‘climate change’. If I had to guess, and it would only be my intuition, after some years of looking at the data, I would plump for a proportion less than half of the observed increase.’
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love the headline!
2 Mar: ClimateChangeNews: Mohamed Adow: Climate victims and investors need Paris deal ratification
(Mohamed Adow leads Christian Aid’s global climate policy and advocacy work)
Once the 55/55 threshold is secured, entry into force will ensure the long term durability of the agreement and enhance the broadest participation ever seen in an environmental agreement.
It will also help protect it against any sudden political risk, such as a climate change sceptic in the White House.
Although there has been much talk about a Republican President wrecking the Paris Agreement once it is ratified by President Obama it will become extremely difficult for any subsequent administration to unpick the deal…
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/03/02/climate-victims-and-investors-need-paris-deal-ratification/
1 Mar: ClimateChangeNews: Ed King: Canada delays new climate plan as provinces rebel
Canada has delayed its promised climate strategy by six months as the government remains at odds with the country’s powerful provincial leaders.
The ten premiers will meet prime minister Justin Trudeau and environment chief Catherine McKenna on Thursday to thrash out a loose framework for future greenhouse gas cuts.
“While everyone knows we need to reduce emissions, having a plan to get there requires work… it’s not about the federal government just telling everyone what to do,” McKenna told reporters in Ottawa on Monday…
A recent submission to the UN revealed it’s likely to increase emissions 19% by 2030 on 2005 levels based on policies in place as of last September. Its goal is a 30% cut…
Green groups want the federal government to adjust its goals in light of Paris, aiming for an aspirational warming limit of 1.5C, as agreed in the French capital…
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/03/01/canada-delays-new-climate-plan-as-provinces-rebel/
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A red herring.
Since you didn’t offer evidence that 7 million isn’t near maximum population everything else you wrote is crap.
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tell that to the originator
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Almost a touche moment – but no.
Look for the one “apostrophe” and one “t” to know which originator.
Your point of view is jaundiced.
How about mentioning where the Adélie penguin food sources went? Oh yes they weren’t squashed by the iceberg were they? Wherever the food went you’ll likely find them birds.
Besides that, the main point was the scare disaster
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Naw, you go ahead:
http://media.wix.com/ugd/3c5247_2ce3adbea6d745c5814ee2a7408bc65c.pdf
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Is that you?
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Oh yeah, if not then will you wait for the reply?
The question is this. How good is census number for predicting extinction risk? Any biologist with any knowledge would reply in multiple different wordings, “it depends”.
I can guarantee that my position that 7 million or 10 million is no indication of whether something is near extinction risk will be vindicated and that your comment at 42.1 will be supported as 100% correct
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That’s the horror of CAGW. 7.5 billion humans are in danger of becoming extinct due to climate change.
/SARC
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Gee, you attempted to make an issue about a non-issue. Maybe it’s because you leave out so much of what you really meant to say.
Here is a rare moment where I relied on the Authority. Dr. LaRue (read the CV I provided) is something of an expert on these penguins. She is safely in the camp of environmentalist and climate change agree-er. I trust that if she thought these penguins were in serious decline, she would have made a much different statement on this recent group gone missing.
Besides that, I suspect she is a much better scientist than the typical AGW researcher and certainly better than the blowhard Terney.
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Thought I would take this up separately
Makes no sense to me. Did you understand the point I was making. Species have disappeared in very short periods of time, and, although this was about human causes, I didn’t point out was not necessarily exclusively so. My point was imply that species with multi million of individuals have actually been on a pathway to extinction and that using pure numbers as an indicator or population health is actually ridiculous.
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Apologies for poor typing. I hope it was clear. If not ask me.
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Apologies for poor typing – No problems!
I hope it was clear – NO!
If not ask me – NO!
Bye Gee Aye
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So, are you saying that these penguins are in danger of extinction?
Why do we always hear about population numbers when people talk about extinction?
What then isn’t in danger of extinction?
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No.
because they are part of the equation. Zero = extinct. Numbers need context though. Context such as expected numbers, historical numbers, change in numbers.
Nail on the head there BS. You need to be clear about what you mean which media reporting tends not to be. We are all at risk from a meteor or a local supernova.
Hope your treatment is going well.
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Sorry for being off topic but this may be an idea for a future post.
I have noticed that BOM regional forecasts are systematically over-estimating local maximum [and possibly minimum] temperatures by
about 2 C. Gunnedah N.S.W has had a run days with maximums of 34 and 35 C. However, the BOM has constantly predicted maximum daytime
temperatures of 36 to 37 C. No one seems to have commented on this but it has been going on for a couple of months now.
Has anyone else noticed this slight-of-hand on the part of BOM?
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Funny you should say this because it came across my mind too over the past summer. They very often predicted temperatures that were way above the actual. They also ignored the fact that we have had very mild and sometimes even very cool nights during summer. Of course that doesn’t fit in with their propaganda and mantra that the world is heating up catastrophically. And all in the face of the fact the Antarctic ice is growing not shrinking. The global warming alarmists must think we are all stupid. Well, we have news for them. They are the stupid ones and there is now abundant evidence to prove it.
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Ian,
I’ve been aware of a different discrepancy on the Weatherzone (=BOM?) overnight forecast for the minimum at Mudgee airport, where the forecast has been several degrees (up to 4) warmer than actual, later reported on the same site.
My at home maximum today is 41, but that’s from an untested thermometer on my back verandah which is 20kms from the airport and about 200 metres higher. Forecast for the airport was 34.
My guess had been that they just can’t do a reliable forecast even 24 hours in advance.
Cheers,
Dave B
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Most definitely. We look at the high forecast by Willyweather for Eildon, then watch the graph of actual Eildon Tower temperatures. The actual temps. are always a remarkable amount lower for daytime and variable higher and lower at night. WW forecast 38C for today around here and atm it is about 32C. This is at 1700 hours or so, usually our hottest time of day.
They are trying to tell us it will be 40C on Sunday. I hope they are their normal over-hyped wrong selves as we have a parish picnic planned for that day!
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It will be when they enter the measurements 🙂
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The BoM zealots have a warm bias and their instrumentation doesn’t, which bodes well for our side.
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Useful pub-quiz penguin knowledge: where do penguins live in the wild, in the northern hemisphere? In the Galápagos Islands. (And before some greenoid says the Galápagos are south of the Equator, I assure you that they are both sides of it, the penguin colonies likewise.)
I’ve never been to Antarctica, but I have been to the Arctic and to the Galápagos. It didn’t kill me and penguins seem to be able to cope with drastically different environments, too.
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Breaking News: 150,000 Penguins have shown up on the German border demanding asylum, a spokes-penguin said “Merkel invited us”
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Penguin asylum seekers … LOL.
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[…] Joanne Nova The media hype and the story of the false Penguin Panic Image: UNSW/Chris Turney Much fuss was made […]
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penguins per se
I have to admit I have never been a big fan of Penguins.
Disney is clearly responsible for anthropomorphising every non distinct furry creature, and turning these particularly banal Southern latitude dwellers into warm “bunny ” like characters despite their lack of gymnastic skills.
Note: I am of course willing to give credit to those singular penguins escaping death who do seem to exhibit olympic level talent in their efforts to avoid becoming lunch.
One question does need asking though, and that is:-
where did the penguins live when we had no Antarctic ?
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Around 40 million years ago Antarctica broke away from Gondwanaland and the warm climate forefathers of penguins had to adapt and form a new species, or go extinct.
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Good question.
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el gordo’s answer above is pretty accurate. The best estimate currently is 85 – 45 mya
Plate tectonics is a truly fascinating element of evolution
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Do these people seriously want us to believe that monster icebergs have hitherto never blocked off the roosting beaches of penguins before? Consider the Emperor penguin, the largest and most beautiful, which travels vast distances inland to its favoured breeding areas during the harshest climatic periods Antarctica can offer. Why would they do that?. Perhaps Chris Turney could explain. Then again I guess not, doesn’t fit with the programme.
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lol.
2 Mar: WaPo: Mitt Romney to address the 2016 presidential campaign Thursday
By Philip Rucker and Robert Costa
In what could be seen as a foreshadowing of his Thursday remarks, Romney outlined his views on the 2016 race in an appearance last month at Babson College in Massachusetts. Speaking to students, Romney said he shared the feeling of many Americans that Washington has failed them and urged national leaders to tackle big problems such as ***climate change, poverty, education and income inequality.
“We’re just mad as hell and won’t take it anymore,” Romney said of the national electorate. He harshly criticized “the failure of current political leaders to actually tackle major challenges, or to try at least, or to go out with proposals.”…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/03/02/mitt-romney-to-address-the-2016-presidential-campaign-thursday/
29 Feb: Esquire: Margaret Doris: John Kasich: ‘I Know That Human Beings Affect the Climate’
SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS—It was short sleeve weather here yesterday–bare chest weather if you were one of the supporters at a Trump rally just across the way–so it was a surprise when the very last question at John Kasich’s town hall gathering seemed to surprise the candidate.
“It’s 60 degrees here in Massachusetts,” the questioner began. What would the Ohio governor do about climate change, and what did he think about COP 21, the recent United Nations Climate Change Conference?
“They should have been over there talking about ISIS,” was Kasich’s cranky response. Not that Kasich was denying climate change, he went on to clarify–after all, over the course of 10 separate visits to Montana’s Glacier National Park with his wife, “We’ve seen the glaciers shrinking”—and, “I do believe we’re affecting the climate.” But the focus should be shifted from the how’s and why’s and if’s to a more pragmatic business response. “Here’s what I do know: I know we need to develop all of the renewables, and we need to do it in an orderly way.”…
And it’s not like he hasn’t had occasion to experience climate change–it was 48 degrees in Des Moines, Iowa, on January 31 and 58 degrees in Concord, New Hampshire, on February 1. And should he lack for informed advisers, well, the June 15, 2001 statement of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on global climate change offers former altar boy Kasich some pretty good instruction.
He had finessed it slightly better in Vermont a week ago. “I know that human beings affect the climate,” Kasich told a town hall crowd at Colchester High School. “I know it’s an apostasy in the Republican Party to say that. I guess that’s what I’ve always been—being able to challenge some of the status quo.”
And that’s how Kasich has become the last best hope for those who are quickly running out of ways to derail the Trump juggernaut…
“I like the fact that he’s thinking about it, ” said Jim Giebotowski, the man who asked the climate change question. “Maybe a little more thoughtful answer would have been in order….what we can do to lead the world into climate changing. Irrespective of whether it’s a liberal or a conservative position, what’s America’s leadership with regard to climate change?”…
Giebotowski is an unenrolled voter–Massachusettsese for independent voter—and in another lifetime, he voted for Clinton-Gore. Most recently, he pulled the lever for Romney-Ryan…READ ALL
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a42549/john-kasich-climate-change/
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150,000 penguins DEAD
At 5 kg each in Antarctic Australian Territory
Total 750 tonnes FIXED & FROZEN for a long time!
How much CO2 credits should we claim off IPCC?
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Again, sorry for being slightly off topic.
Why are manyy climate scientists ignoring strong evidence that the long term variations in the level of activity on the Sun are affecting the Earth’s climate on time scales from 50 to ~ 3200 years.
Evidence that the Sun has always had an important influence upon climate change
http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2016/03/evidence-that-sun-has-always-had.html
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Also OT.
Defunct Queensland mine to be turned into solar/hydro power hub
Plans to convert the defunct Kidston gold mine, in North Queensland, into a power generating hub have been boosted with state Development and Natural Resources and Mines Minister Anthony Lynham assigning it ‘prescribed project’ status.
ASX-listed Genex Power would spend about A$580-million to install a 150 MW solar power generation farm, a 330 MW pumped storage hydroelectric scheme, which would use the former mine pits and their stored water, and a 185 km transmission line.
See http://www.miningweekly.com/article/defunct-queensland-mine-to-be-turned-into-solarhydro-power-hub-2016-03-03 for more.
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There’s a theory, mentioned in the OED, that the word “penguin” derives from Welsh, “pen gwyn”, meaning “white head”, and was originally attached to the Great Auk, now, tragically, extinct. The problem with the theory is that the Great Auk, like the other auks (puffins, razorbills, guillemots…), didn’t have a conspicuously white head. There is no doubt, however, that British and Irish mariners saw Great Auks long before they ever saw penguins… And Great Auks did look quite a lot like Penguins.
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