Satellite tv for pc photographs have revealed 4 emperor penguin colonies beforehand unknown to science.

Throughout winter, colonies of 1000’s of emperor penguins dwell and breed on the frozen sea ice clinging to the Antarctic coast. Now, melting ice is forcing emperor penguin colonies to relocate to extra secure breeding grounds, and researchers repeatedly monitor the place they transfer utilizing satellite tv for pc photographs. In opposition to the intense white snow, the hordes of penguins – and the guano stains they go away behind – stand out as brown splotches on the panorama.

Three of the colonies researchers noticed on the Brunt ice shelf have been small – fewer than 100 birds. However the fourth group, a colony that scientists thought had vanished, had greater than 5000 birds.

This brings the entire variety of identified emperor penguin colonies in Antarctica to 66, however the slight uptick doesn’t inform the total story, says Peter Fretwell on the British Antarctic Survey. “It’s fairly ironic that we’re nonetheless discovering colonies because the populations begin to be affected by local weather change,” he says.

Final yr, no less than 19 penguin colonies had complete breeding failures because of ice soften, inflicting a mass die-off of chicks. Some predict the species may very well be extinct by the top of the century. “The losses we’re seeing by way of local weather change in all probability outweigh any inhabitants acquire we get by discovering new colonies,” says Fretwell.