by Pengey Penguin . . . Ace Reporter

A Long Time Ago in Antarctica

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 10:45:59 -0800

The Sea is rising! The sea is rising! Oh, my! Who can I tell that the sea is rising?
by Pengey Penguin - Ace Reporter
Something that Emperor Penguins have known for millions of years is that, long, long ago it was warm in Antarctica. That’s why we Emperor penguins decided to live there because there were no predators that would eat us, and it was quiet, and it had pretty mountains, the seaside was lovely, with tons of our favorite fish, and the temperature was mild. It seemed like a really nice place to raise the chicks. We decided to call it home.
Over time the temperature changed and we Emperors, along with a handful of Adelie penguins had to adapt to colder temperatures and lower sea.
It seemed that whenever it got really cold for a long time (like say 500 years) the ice builds up would be great and the seas would get lower all around the globe. We penguins know because we have to forage for food in the ocean.
So every time there’s a climate change (that is a shift to warmer temperatures) we penguins have to swim further from shore. Sometimes , when we get back to the ice floe, we find that it’s broken off and become an iceberg. Sometimes, those icebergs take the baby penguins with them and they are never to be seen again.
The following is an article from the Antarctic Sun, my favorite news paper. The article explains in more scientific ways what I have just reported on. I hope you have time to read it. I hope that mankind wakes up and tries to reverse the trend of global warming before we have a new and deadly ice age. They can do it of they cooperate the way that we Emperor penguins do.
Your Pal,
Pengey Penguin - Ace Reporter

Rich Layer
Courtesy: Antarctic Sun
From Staff Reports
Antarctica once enjoyed summer-time temperatures that averaged 10 degrees Celsius — a climate more suited for a warm fleece than a thick parka — about 15.7 million years ago.
That’s the conclusion scientists drew from the discovery of a thick layer of fossils from marine algae and the pollen of woody plants in a sediment core drilled into the seafloor of Mc Murdo Sound in 2007.
Researchers with the Antarctic Geological DRILLing Program (ANDRILL) published their research this month in the issue of Geology, the journal of the Geological Society of America.
Sophie Warny , an assistant professor of geology and geophysics at Louisiana State University , found the first indication of the warm period while studying samples from the project last year. One sample, she said in a press release, stood out as a complete anomaly.
“First I thought it was a mistake, that it was a sample from another location, not Antarctica, because of the unusual abundance in microscopic fossil cysts of marine algae called dinoflagellates. But it turned out not to be a mistake, it was just an amazingly rich layer,” Warny said.
ANDRILL took two sediment cores near the U.S. Antarctic Program’s Mc Murdo Station over two successive field seasons beginning in 2006. The $30 million ANDRILL program was one of the premiere projects of the International Polar Year , a two-year scientific campaign that officially ended in March 2009. The National Science Foundation (NSF) funded about two-third of the program, with international partners New Zealand, Italy and Germany funding the remainder.
The microscopic fossils were found in unusual abundance in a two-meter-thick layer from the 2007 core of seafloor sediments that measured more than 1,100 meters long.
“We all analyzed the new samples and saw a 2,000-fold increase in two species of fossil dinoflagellate cysts, a five-fold increase in freshwater algae and up to an 80-fold increase in terrestrial pollen,” Warny said. “Together, these shifts in the microfossil assemblages represent a relatively short period of time during which Antarctica became abruptly much warmer.”
This apparent bloom of life in Antarctica occurred during a generally warm time referred to as the Mid-Miocene Climatic Optimum, according to the scientists. This was a time when global temperatures were warmer than at present. It could serve as an analogue to how the ice sheets of today may respond to warming temperatures in the coming century.
“This event will lead to a better understanding of global connections and climate forcing,” said David Harwood , professor of geosciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and research director for ANDRILL’s Science Management Office. “In other words, it will provide a better understanding of how external factors imposed fluctuations in Earth’s climate system.”
ANDRILL scientists say these findings corroborate and expand evidence for lakes and vegetation farther inland in the nearby McMurdo Dry Valleys . In that separate study, also funded by the NSF, scientists discovered the last traces of tundra in the form of fossilized plants and insects.
That research team — headed by David Marchant , an earth scientist at Boston University , and Allan Ashworth and Adam Lewis , geoscientists at North Dakota State University — concluded from fossilized evidence that the climate cooled abruptly about 14 million years ago. Their findings appeared in the Aug. 4, 2008 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Earlier this year, ANDRILL scientists published two papers in the journal Nature, including one that suggested even a slight rise in atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, one of the gases that drives global warming, affects the stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). The ice sheet contains enough ice to raise sea level by about six meters.
The evidence from the 2006 core, nearly 1,300 meters long, traveled back in time to the Pliocene era, roughly 2 million to 5 million years ago. During that era, Antarctica was also warmer than today, and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were higher. Data from the core indicate the ice sheet advanced and retreated numerous times in response to climate changes.
“Geological archives, such as the ANDRILL core, highlight the risk that a significant body of permanent Antarctic ice could be lost within the next century as Earth’s climate continues to warm,” said Tim Naish , director of Victoria University of Wellington's Antarctic Research Centre and co-chief scientist during the first ANDRILL field season.
“Based on ANDRILL data combined with computer models of ice sheet behavior, collapse of the entire WAIS is likely to occur on the order of 1,000 years, but recent studies show that melting has already begun,” said Naish when Nature published the papers in March 2009.

Huge Ozone Hole over Antarctica

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 23:10:36 -0800

Ozone Hole 2009  Posted: December 9, 2009
Pengey Penguin Reporting
Courtesy: Antarctic Sun
By Peter Rejcek Latest depletion event 10th largest in last 30 years.
The size of the annual ozone hole over Antarctica peaked in late September at 23.8 million square miles, slightly smaller than the North American continent, according to a news release from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in November.
That ranks as the 10th largest since satellite measurements began in 1979. Ozone over South Pole Station also reached its thinnest vertical point of the year on Sept. 26, NOAA reported.
The ozone layer in the Earth’s stratosphere, between 10 and 30 kilometers above the ground, helps shield the planet from harmful ultraviolet radiation. Human-produced compounds known as chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, release ozone-destroying chemicals into the atmosphere responsible for the depletion.
Extreme cold, ice cloud formation in the stratosphere, and a pattern of rapidly circulating air, called the polar vortex, make the ozone layer over Antarctica much more vulnerable to CFC-destruction than anywhere else on the planet.
International agreements have strictly limited the use of CFCs since the early 1990s. Scientists predict the ozone hole will recover by the end of the century.
NOAA scientists working from the Atmospheric Research Observatory at the South Pole Station launch balloons to measure ozone vertically at least once a week, and more frequently in the austral spring when the polar vortex forms. Another group led by Terry Deshler from the University of Wyoming performs similar measurements from McMurdo Station during the formation of the ozone hole each austral spring. [See previous article: Ozone hole.]
Work on the ground at South Pole can be difficult, with temperatures approaching minus 70 degrees Celsius (minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit). NOAA engineer Patrick Cullis and NOAA Corps officer Marc Weekley have nearly completed a yearlong assignment there to collect atmospheric data and keep instruments operating.
“It’s actually been hardest to launch during the long dawn before sunrise,” Cullis said in a NOAA press release. “The landscape starts to brighten, but there are no shadows to warn you of the large clumps of snow left in your path by the movement of bulldozers.
“Plus, this year, the polar dawn brought an intense 35-knot storm lasting over a week. Even during lulls in the storm, launching large plastic balloons was like running a 50-meter dash in soft snow. My lungs would burn from the combination of 10 pounds of gear, soft snow, and thin air.”
Scientists in Antarctica, including teams from NOAA and the University of Wyoming, have been measuring atmospheric ozone since 1986.

A New Movie About Antarctica

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:31:48 -0700

Frozen Planet
Information From an Article in the: Antarctic Sun By Peter Rejcek
Written by Pengey Penguin
There’s a new movie being made by the Discovery Channel and the BBC. The film teams that brought Planet Earth to TV around the world are already hard at work.
The documentary style movie will be shot in high definition video and it will be 11-episodes in length.
I’m just a penguin so I don’t quite understand why there are so many names for the movie. Some are calling it “Frozen Planet” and some are calling it “Ice Worlds.”
What ever they call the movie it is sure to be entertaining, and educational. It will include film about the North Pole and the South Pole.
One thing that I thought was really nifty is that the filmmakers are going to use a special camera that records at one thousand frames per second. They will use this ultra high speed camera to record emperor penguins under water at the Cape Washington colony along the Victoria Land coast.
Sir David Attenborough , the 83-year-old naturalist who narrated the “Planet Earth” series will spend about two weeks on the Ice, including a possible trip to South Pole.
This is very exciting and I hope that you all get to see it when it comes on TV.
Pengey Penguin Reporting
PS To read the whole article click on this link Antarctic Sun

And Now for the Weather

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 17:03:34 -0800

ANTARCTICA NEWS ARCHIVES
2008 South Pole Weather Summary
Posted: January 22, 2009
Courtesy: South Pole Met Dept

January 08
The average temperature this was -29.9 C (-21.8 F). but that’s because the days get shorter in Antarctica in January. We had clear skies and many hours of solar radiation. Ten out of thirty one days were clear and a total of 622.9 hours of solar radiation were recorded. That means that the sun was out almost 21 hours per day. There were two wind related records broken, both occurring on the 10th.

February 08
The sun lowered to only 16.8 hours a day - average temperature was -41.6 C (-42.9 F). Skies were mostly clear on the majority of days and had many hours of solar radiation. Six out of twenty-nine days were clear, thirteen were partly cloudy, and a total of 487.4 hours of solar radiation were recorded. There were no new wind records set. On the 7th there was the occurrence of an 82% solar eclipse.

March 08
The sun lowered and set our average temperature this month to -53.4 C (-64.1 F). Eleven out of thirty-one days were clear, fourteen were partly cloudy, and six were cloudy. There were no new wind records set. Although the average monthly temperature was only slightly warmer than the historical average, daily temperatures varied widely this month. On March 13th and 14th, the daily low temperatures of -64.8? C (-84.6? F) were less than three Celsius degrees away from the record low temperatures. A week later on March 21st, a new record high of -35.9? C (-32.6? F) was set.

April 08
The average temperature was -54.2 C (-65.6 F) which was 3.1 C warmer than the historical average. This trend was fueled mainly by two warm systems on the 9th and the 24th-26th of the month, which brought cloudy skies and prevailing winds from the north-northeast. Sixteen out of thirty days were clear, nine were partly cloudy, and five were cloudy. The average wind speed of 10.7 knots was slightly less than the historical average, but one new peak wind record of 30 knots was set on April 9th. Two new maximum temperatures were set with -36.8 C (-34.2 F) on April 9th and -33.5 C (-28.3 F) on April 25th.

May 08
Average temperature was -59.1 C (-74.4 F) which was only 1.1 C colder than the historical average. We experienced a warm system with cloudy skies and winds from the north-northwest on the 16th and 17th, and several cold spells with temperatures in the -66.8 C to -69.7 C range or about 93 degrees below zero, but most of the month's weather was fairly unremarkable and close to the historical average values. Fifteen out of thirty-one days were clear, fourteen were partly cloudy, and two were cloudy.

June 08
Average temperature was -61.8 C (-79.2 F) which was -3.2 C colder than the historical average. We experienced a warm system with mostly cloudy skies and winds from the north-northwest on the 7th and 8th, and several cold spells with temperatures in the -70.1?C to -71.4?C or 160.52 degrees F below zero. Twenty out of thirty days were clear, nine were partly cloudy, and one was cloudy. No new wind speed records occurred. I wonder if 160.52 degrees below zero is a world record. Pengey Penguin Reporting
July 08
Average temperature was -57.1 C (-70.8 F) which was +2.9 C warmer than the historical average. There were several warm systems on the 12th-13th and the 25th-28th that drove this warm average, and the only particularly cold snap occurred on the 10th. Fifteen out of thirty days were clear, twelve were partly cloudy, and four were cloudy. No new wind speed records occurred.

August 08
Average temperature was -60.1 C (-76.2 F) was just -0.4 C colder than the historical average. We had warm systems on the 2nd-3rd and 7th-8th with cloudy skies and winds from the north, and a particularly cold spell on the 17th that brought the winter's lowest temperatures so far. Twelve out of thirty-one days were clear, sixteen were partly cloudy, and three were cloudy. No new wind speed records occurred.

September 08
Average temperature was -53.9 C (-65.0 F) was considerably warmer than the historical average of -59.1 C (-74.4 F). This was fueled by very warm systems on the 3rd-5th and on the 11th, and by generally warmer temperatures overall throughout the month. Three out of thirty days were clear (tying a minimum record set in 2006), sixteen were partly cloudy, and eleven were cloudy. On September 4th, the maximum temperature of -33.7°C (-28.7°F) broke the previous daily record high of -39.2°C (-38.6°F) set in 1976. A new wind record occurred on the 10th with the daily average wind speed of 2.3 knots breaking the lowest average wind speed of 5.6 knots set in 2005.

October 08
Average temperature was -51.5 C (-60.7 F) was close to the historical average of -51.1 C (-60.0 F). A warm system on the 17th came with overcast skies and winds from the north, and the coldest temperatures were seen on the 1st. Temperatures increased throughout the month as the sun rose higher in the sky. Six out of thirty-one days were clear, twelve were partly cloudy, and thirteen were cloudy.

November 08
Record high temperatures were set on the 3rd and 4th. The warmer weather was short-lived and colder than normal conditions, returned for much of the remainder of the month. These cold conditions resulted in a monthly average temperature of -38.7°C/-37°7F, which was 0.5°C/0.9°F below normal. The average daily amount of sunshine (21.1 hrs, or 88%) was also indicative of the clear and cold month. November also yielded a total of seven clear days, fourteen partly cloudy days, and nine cloudy days, although the majority of the cloudy days were days with very high clouds.

December 08
The first half of the month clear and sunny, but low level moisture brought bouts of mist and periods of blowing snow to the pole. Although the horizon was fuzzy, the lack of clouds kept temperatures slightly cooler than normal during the first half of the month. The second half of the month was much more eventful, with storm systems moving in off the Weddell Sea on an almost constant cycle. This kept the moisture and winds in place, but also brought clouds and snow grains. One particular storm on the 23rd produced the peak wind gust of 27kt/31mph. Another potent storm brought strong winds, freezing fog, and unseasonably warm temperatures to the pole between the 29th and the 31st. In fact, on the 31st the temperature rose above the zero degree mark, reaching a daily record high of -17.5°C/+0.5°F. With a number of storms moving through the region it was expected that there would be a good accumulation of snow at the snowstake field. However, the net change in the field was only +0.004". Other highlights for the month included a new record in terms of the monthly minimum station pressure. The new record, 667.6mb/19.714"Hg, broke the old record of 670.0mb/19.785"Hg set in 1999. The overall average monthly pressure was 4.7mb/0.139"Hg lower than normal and the average monthly temperature was 1.2°C/2.1°F warmer than normal. The station averaged 19.0 hours of sunshine (79% of normal). And, although it was a particularly unsettled month in terms of weather, there were zero days in which the visibility dropped below one quarter of a mile.

Penguins On A Diet

Tue, 9 Dec 2008 18:35:58 -0800

Going on a Diet
Posted: December 1, 2008
Courtesy: Antarctic Sun
By Peter Rejcek
There’s an old saying: You are what you eat. But the krill-based diet of penguins breeding and living on King George Island off the northern end of the Antarctic Peninsula first tipped scientists off that food could provide an altogether different insight.

“It was the penguins that actually keyed us into to the global change scenario that has become the leading hypothesis about climate change in the peninsula region,” explained Wayne Trivelpiece , a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service whose research also receives support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) .

Trivelpiece, along with his wife and co-principal investigator, Susan Trivelpiece , has compiled more than 30 years of continuous data on the three types of penguins from a seabird research program at King George Island — Adélies, chinstraps and gentoos. During that time, atmospheric temperatures in the peninsula region have risen faster than anywhere on the planet, particularly in the winter, where the average has increased by 5 degrees Celsius.

“Studying all three [penguins] at once has given us some real insights into just what happens when we come across some major changes in environmental features and climate, which has certainly happened there,” Wayne Trivelpiece said.

Krill are shrimplike crustaceans that penguins, seals and other marine denizens feed on. Krill rely on sea ice in the winter as a habitat, grazing on algae that form underneath the ice. But the increasing temperatures have made the formation of sea ice, once predictable and reliable, uncertain from year to year, according to Wayne Trivelpiece.

That’s directly affected the abundance of krill and the survival rates of penguins.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, Trivelpiece explained, the researchers would find krill of many different sizes and age-classes (from juveniles to old adults) as they examined the contents of the penguins’ stomachs. But into the 1980s and ’90s, bird biologists were fascinated by what they no longer saw — variety.

The diets were now dominated by one age-class or size of krill each season, Trivelpiece explained. One year juveniles would dominate, and then each succeeding year the prey were a little bigger. The cycle would restart every four to six years.

“As we looked at this over time, there were very logical and predictable features to the size and age classes of the krill in the diets,” he explained. “The major thing that correlated with the krill size changes was having ice in wintertime or not having ice in wintertime.”

Krill were only being replenished every few years, in concert with winters that had heavy pack ice in the Antarctic Peninsula region, meaning lean sources of food for many marine predators in the intervening seasons. The Adélie and chinstrap populations, in particular, crashed by the late 1980s and early 1990s, according to Trivelpiece.

The Adélie population dropped by 50 percent at King George Island by 1990. Young penguins were no longer returning to the colony to breed as they had in previous years. The early years of the study found 40 to 60 percent survived to return to their breeding colonies; less than 10 percent survive today.

A krill survey in the Antarctic Peninsula region in 2000 estimated the krill population itself has dropped off by as much as 80 percent since the last survey in the early 1980s in the region.

“We had a vast change in the probability that young penguins fledgling off our beaches would be seen again in the colony two to five years later as breeders,” Trivelpiece said. “They were basically starving to death in much greater degree than ever before. That trend has continued to today.”

Unique collaboration of agencies
Wayne Trivelpiece began working on King George Island in 1976 for his PhD in zoology out of a tent camp that first season. Poland established a research station in Trivelpiece’s study area along Admiralty Bay in 1977, and until 1985, he and later Susan worked at the Henryk Arctowski Station as guests and visiting scientists of the Polish.

In 1985, NSF established a new camp (named Copacabana, or Copa) a few kilometers from Arctowski to continue the long-term study of the three Pygoscelis penguins. In 1997, NOAA incorporated the project into its Antarctic Marine Living Resources (AMLR) program established by the AMLR Convention Act of 1984, with the goal of managing the Southern Ocean resources through an ecosystem approach. Since that time, NSF and NOAA have been partners in supporting the research at Copa.

On the Peninsula
The United States passed the AMLR Act in response to an international treaty, the Convention for the Convention of the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) , established in 1982 over the concerns of krill commercial fishing. The treaty between 25 nations seeks to manage Antarctic fisheries to preserve species diversity and stabilize the entire Antarctic marine ecosystem.

About 10 years ago, NOAA invited Wayne Trivelpiece to supervise the seabird research at Copa and at the newly constructed NOAA camp on Livingston Island called Cape Shirreff. NSF and NOAA collaborate on supporting the camps, with the former opening the two facilities in October and November with its research vessel the ARSV Laurence M. Gould . NOAA’s RV Yuzhmorgeologiya, a Russian vessel, and staff then shutter the camps for the winter in March.

“The two agencies recognized the scientific and applied values of the long-term study and that it was unique in that respect. It appealed to both of them,” Wayne Trivelpiece says of the agreement. “We couldn’t do our program at all without NSF’s help. We couldn’t get anyone in to our field camps early in the year because we don’t have our own ship until January. I think this is a really great marriage for both of the agencies.”

More signs of climate change
For many years, however, the Trivelpieces were NSF grantees. Much has changed in the last four decades, and there are more visible signs of climate change in the Antarctic Peninsula region than what scientists are finding in the bellies of penguins.

The researchers spend many of their days hiking to penguin colonies and skua nests. Two big chinstrap colonies about 15 kilometers away used to require crossing a pair of glaciers. Two large lakes now sit in front of the glaciers.

“Those glaciers have receded so much that one has become quite dangerous to cross,” noted Susan Trivelpiece, who arrives on the island each year in October. “NSF has given us canoes to transit in front. That’s worked out well.”

Wayne Trivelpiece said the melting glaciers should be physical proof to many climate skeptics that the world is warming on a grand scale. “We are now canoeing across these mile-wide lakes where 80-foot glacier cliffs used to stand,” he said.

A better strategy for survival
It’s not all bad news on King George Island. While the Adélies and chinstrap penguins struggle for survival, the gentoos, recognized by the wide white stripe extending like a bonnet across the top of its head, are thriving. Other researchers in the region, including Bill Fraser and Ron Naveen, have identified similar trends. [See stories: Local extinction and Losing count.]

Wayne Trivelpiece said the gentoos, larger than the Adélies and chinstraps, enjoy a more varied diet, relying less on krill than its smaller cousins do.

“These animals have done well,” he said. “They’ve hung in there, and seemingly increasing in numbers now, taking up some of the slack, if you will, of the Adélies and chinstraps.”

Diet alone doesn’t explain the gentoos’ success. They’re also the only species that doesn’t migrate in the winter to distant oceanic or pack ice habitats. Instead, as homebodies, they remain in the same hunting grounds but in much smaller colonies, usually with only a few hundred birds. Adélies and chinstraps can congregate in the hundreds of thousands.

The birds also mature differently, with Adélie and chinstrap chicks expected to forage on their own at about seven weeks of age. In contrast, gentoo adults support their young for up to 12 weeks, including the final couple of weeks when chicks go to sea where they can feed with adults.

“This may allow young gentoos to learn a little bit about what’s going on out there, and still be sustained by being fed at night at their colonies,” Trivelpiece said.

Keeping krill in stock
The data on the penguins are important for managing commercial krill fisheries, one of the primary goals of CCAMLR and AMLR. At this point, Wayne Trivelpiece said, climate change is the primary cause in the decline of krill due to the reduction of sea ice.

A May 2008 article by news agency Reuters said the annual commercial krill catch is only about 100,000 tons, well within what CCAMLR considers sustainable. That’s down significantly from the 1980s peak of 500,000 to 600,000 tons when the former Soviet Union fished the waters, according to Trivelpiece.

But there are signs the fishery could see more intense activity in the next few years. Krilloil is rich in omega-3 fatty acids, a popular dietary supplement found in not only pills but also milk and other foods. Fisheries also harvest the small crustaceans for special enzymes that can be used by surgeons to clean wounds, according to Reuters, while the pinkish remains after processing can be used as meal for salmon fish farms.

“The potential of the krill story is that the competition for protein of whatever form is becoming more and more acute,” Denzil Miller, Executive Secretary of CCAMLR, based in Hobart in southern Australia, told Reuters.

“I think in the next two to three years we are going to see a lot of changes in the way governments and the international community addresses problems of expectation around food security,” he added.

In addition, a Norwegian company has created a new way to harvest and process krill continuously, Reuters reported. Previously, it was hard to catch and then later process large amounts of krill because the enzymes inside them break down quickly, spoiling much of the catch.

CCAMLR currently has a 4 million-ton catch limit for Scotia Sea. Trivelpiece said one of the key pieces of conservation CCAMLR is working on is to divide that up into smaller management areas based on the four main island groups in the region. That will help ensure that the entire quota is not taken within the area adjacent to the islands where the penguins and seals would compete with humans for the krill.

“The fishery can’t concentrate their fishing in all in one area, where everybody believes if they were to do that it would adversely affect the predators,” he explained. “We’re trying to get all of this in place now, while the krill fishery is what all of us consider pretty modest.”

Why is Antarctica So Cold?

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 21:11:26 -0700

Why is Antarctica so Cold?
Several factors combine to making Antarctica one of the coldest and least hospitable places on the Earth:

* Unlike the Arctic region, Antarctica is a continent surrounded by an ocean which means that interior areas do not benefit from the moderating influence of water.
* With 98% of its area covered with snow and ice, the Antarctic continent reflects most of the sun's light rather than absorbing it.
* The extreme dryness of the air causes any heat that is radiated back into the atmosphere to be lost instead of being absorbed by the water vapor in the atmosphere.
* During the winter, the size of Antarctica doubles as the surrounding sea water freezes, effectively blocking heat transfer from the warmer surrounding ocean.
* Antarctica has a higher average elevation than any other continent on Earth which results in even colder temperatures.
Pengey Penguin Reporting

Pengey Two Awarded Finalist Honors

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 10:59:11 -0700

For the second time this year, The Further Adventures of Pengey Penguin has been awarded top honors in a national literary competition.

The award for the 325 page novel was announced today at a press conference in Los Angeles, California, by Jeffery Keen President and CEO of JPX Media and USA Book News.

“Everyone at Pengey.com is jubilant over the news.” said Leslie Farnsworth Spokesperson for San Francisco Story Works and Pengey.com. “We all knew just how exciting and poignant the story in Pengey Two was, but it’s not until you’ve heard how wonderful it is, or how deeply moved someone was that the feeling really sinks in. This is particularly amazing when you consider the enormous amount of work that the judges had in front of them.”

“If we had received the news later in the day,” said Miss Farnsworth, “we would have opened the champaign immediately. We’ll just have to wait until 5 PM when the office closes.” She added, “This is really exciting. Yippie!”

The Further Adventures of Pengey Penguin was selected in this years Best Books competition from over eight thousand children’s books that were entered. We are deeply honored with the award of Top Ten children’s novels released in the year 2008.

In May of 2008 Pengey Two was selected as One of the Top Five Books, in the category of Juvenile Fiction by the judges of the Next Generation Indie Book Awards.

We have only entered three contests this year and the last will be decided in March of ’09. That will be the Benjamin Franklin Awards. We’ll let you know how we did with it.

But for right now we are celebrating, our Finalist Award from The National Best Book Awards.

Toby Carving Reporting for
Pengey.Com

Penguins in Brazil

Mon, 6 Oct 2008 07:00:07 -0700

I know that sometimes my little penguin pals get lost at sea and wash up on shore in places like Brazil. It happens every year especially for the yearling penguins who are just out in the ocean for the first time. The youngsters get separated from the flock, or just plain lost. When they get in unfamiliar water, especially water that’s too warm to support penguin food such as krill, they (the younger penguins) will wander and sometimes end up in warm places like Brazil.

But this year there have been more than two thousand young penguins that have washed up on Brazilian beaches. I am very sad to say that many of these young penguins were found dead. Manny, many more were found to be suffering from sever malnutrition.

Those penguins that have survived the ordeal are lucky because they are getting a ride back to Antarctica in a Brazilian military airplane. But the fate of thousands and thousands of other penguins will be worrisome because they will make landfall in remote and possibly hostile beaches around South America.

We can only hope that mankind pays attention to these global warming warning signs of the little penguins that are dying around the globe.

Pengey Penguin Author Suffers Heart Attack

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 11:07:40 -0700

John Burns, author of the Pengey Penguin Classics suffered a massive heart attack at 8:30 PM this evening at his home in San Francisco.

Fire Department and Paramedics responded to a call from his wife Carol Burns in a time frame of less than 4 minutes. Mr. Burns had told his wife that he had an awful burning sensation in his chest, that it was extremely difficult to breathe and that he was feeling lightheaded.
 The paramedics immediately stabilized him saying, they instantly recognized that Mr. Burns was having a heart attack. They placed him in an ambulance and drove him at high speed to California Pacific Medical Center’s where emergency room doctors, nurses, and technicians immediately prepared Mr. Burns for the operating room.
 Under the guidance, skilled eyes, and hands of Doctor Gary Milechman and Doctor Sung Choi, an amazing team of (24 hour) on staff cardiovascular heart specialists performed a procedure that unblocked the main aorta of a clot that had all but stopped the author’s heart.
After dissolving the clot and and installing a stent Mr. Burns was taken to the intensive care unit at CPMC.
 The entire event, from when the attack was first called in to the actual procedure that saved the authors life took less than 40 minutes.
 Some hours after the operation, Mr. Burns said from his recovery room that, “When it hit me, I knew he was a dead man if I couldn’t get help really fast. But everyone from the firemen, paramedics, prep emergency room personnel, Dr. Milechman, Dr. Choi and the operating room specialists all worked in harmony with incredible levels of skills and proficiency tonight and performed a modern day miracle that save my life.”

Pierre Penguin Swims Again! YEAH!

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 11:37:50 -0700

San Francisco, California

Pierre Penguin had lost the feathers around his bottom. He had to stand and shiver on the beach while all his penguin pals played in the water. Soon the other penguins began to make fun of him. But along came Mrs. Celeste Argel who has worked at the Academy of Sciences for many years. Mrs. Argel has her masters degree in Early Childhood Development and is also an extremely talented seamstress.

Mrs Argel had the idea to make the a wetsuit for Pierre Penguin because he had lost so many feathers that he could no longer go in the water. This condition is very, very bad because swimming is how penguins eat, and it is also how they stay clean. If Mrs. Argel had not have invented the penguin wetsuit Pierre Penguin might very well have DIED!

It sounds like a joke, but it's very serious for biologists at the California Academy of Sciences
"He was cold; he would shake," said Pam Schaller, a senior aquatic biologist at the academy.
Unlike marine mammals, which have a layer of blubber to keep them warm, penguins rely on their waterproof feathers. Without them, Pierre was unable to plunge into the academy's penguin tank and ended up shivering on the beach while his penguin pals played in the water.

Staff at a supplier of dive gear based in San Leandro, donated the raw material for the wet suit. Mrs. Argel set her sewing machine into motion.

"I would walk behind him and look at where there were any gaps, and cut and refit and cut and refit until it looked like it fit like a glove but didn’t restrict Pierre’s movement," Mrs. Argel said.

One concern was that the other penguins would reject Pierre in his new duds, but in fact, they accepted his sleek new look.

With his plumage partially restored, Pierre was weaned off the suit and took more and more dips without it. Voila’, some six months later Pierre is all better.

Whatever plans there were to make him a matching surf board have been scrapped.