The rising rainfall could threaten the penguin’s life.
REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA – Scientists have identified major changes in weather patterns caused by climate change pressures. Scientists predict more rainfall along the Antarctic coast.
Reporting from Science Alert, Sunday (25/4), according to new research, between the present year and 2100, it rained on Antartika is projected to be more frequent and more intense. In total, there is an increase in rainfall of about 240 percent worldwide.
The increase in rainfall has an impact penguin The Emperor and Penguin Adelie, whose feathers were not waterproof. When wet weather is followed by cold and windy weather, these chicks can freeze to death.
“We estimate not only more frequent rainfall events but also heavier rainfall events,” said atmospheric physicist Etienne Vignon of the Sorbonne University in France.
Antarctica is classified as a desert. In fact, it rarely snows there. This is partly due to the lack of cold wave weather reaching the continent. Another reason is because the air is very dry.
To get a more accurate picture of rainfall, Vignon and his colleagues used decades of observational data from 10 stations on the continent. They combined this with modeling and other data to produce patterns for estimating rainfall across Antarctica.
The simulation shows an increase in rainfall over time. “Rain will increase in a warmer climate which is not surprising, but the magnitude of this event on such a cold continent is interesting,” said meteorologist Richard Bintanja of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, who was not involved in the study.
The threats to the penguin community are very real. Heavy rains in 2013-2014 caused an entire population of chicks to die in one of the largest Adelie penguin colonies in southeast Antarctica. The incident is more likely to happen if the rainfall increases.
This is also not the only problem. This is because more rain also means more melting of the ice sheet, making an already dire situation even worse. Over the past few months, Antarctica has had the hottest summer heat wave on record.
This research has been published in Geophysical Research Letters.
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