Will the next March of the Penguins be a funeral march?
Ok, sorry about the melodrama but this story is really sad. Freak rain storms in Antarctica earlier this year were apparently responsible for killing thousands of baby penguins. Because penguin chicks don't have the water-repellent layer which develops as they mature, many became soaked by torrential rains during the day and then froze to death at night when the temperature dropped below freezing.
This isn't just one of those "oh well, circle of life" things; it's virtually unprecedented. Precipitation of any kind, and especially 5 day downpours as experienced in January, is extremely rare in Antarctica, one of the driest places on the planet. Researchers believe that the strange rainstorms, like other weather events around the world, can be linked directly to manmade climate change.
Frozen penguins - one more nasty aspect of global warming that we didn't predict. What else has Mother Nature got in store for us?
via [National Geographic]
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