Adélie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae) have survived in Antarctica for nearly 45,000 years, adapting to glacial expansions and sea ice fluctuations driven by millennia of climatic changes. The penguins remained resilient through these changes, but new research from the University of Delaware suggests that unique 21st-century climates may pose an existential threat to many of the colonies on the Antarctic continent. The study, led by oceanographer Megan Cimino, found that up to 60 percent of the current Adélie penguin habitat in Antarctica could be unfit to host colonies by the end of the century. Using a combination of field survey data and high-resolution satellite imagery, the researchers were able to stitch together 30 years of colony data, from 1981 to 2010, at sites ringing Antarctica. Looking at the year-to-year data, the researchers were able to identify population trends at each colony site for the full 30-year period. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...ca-climate-change-population-decline-refugia/
The chicxulub impactor could't wipe out the dinosaurs entirely (birds survived); the Deccan traps eruption couldn't do it; perhaps human generated GW might finally finish them off, leaving the world free for rats and cockroaches, as God intended. /contemplative sarcasm
