Pages

Wednesday 29 August 2012

Liar, Liar, Penguins on Fire!

Combusting emperor penguin breathing fire on a  Stevenson screen
Antarctic Stevenson screen finding itself in a warmer climate due to
penguin combustion. 

One of my esteemed colleagues, professor Watts, has recently suggested that the alleged warming on the Antarctic peninsula is an artifact due to the vicinity of meteorological stations to densely populated inhabited areas. While I'm convinced that this can explain part of the alleged warming, I believe that there are other factors in play as well. Natural factors. Or to be more specific: penguins.

A penguin's body consists of nearly 40% fat. Hence, a penguin is a very flammable creature, and it may incinerate at the merest exposure to fire or sparks (like fat Americans are known to do). Before there was human occupation on the Antarctic peninsula, penguins were rarely exposed to fire. However, now there are cigarette butts, discarded lighters, hot batteries, spark plugs, smouldering barbecue ashes and other sources of fire lying around everywhere, and hence the likelihood that a penguin catches fire has increased significantly. And a burning penguin can generate an enormous amount of heat. If the penguin then happens to be near to a meteorological station, then that station will record a dramatic increase in temperature. It is enough to have a few such incidents to obtain an artificial (or maybe I should say "Sphenisciformogene") but significant increase in recorded temperature on a small area like the Antarctic peninsula.

I will not be able to post any more for the next couple of hours, because I have to write a game-changing scientific paper expounding my discovery and submit it to some scientific journal. Stay tuned: this is going to be really really big.

8 comments:

  1. Now come on. This is ridiculous.

    you would need at least 4 pengys to surround the thermometer all burning together to allow for wind direction.

    Then as each burnt up you would need to replace it with another already ignited else the thermometer record would only show a glitch up.

    There is no reason to suppose that spontaneous penguin combustion is that prevalent.

    If you are suggesting that the hand of man/woman is involved then I ask you one question - have you ever tried to ignite a penguin at -55C in 50mph wind? AND then get it to stand still while you round up others for the pyre. I thought not!

    No, your paper will be no better received than those talking about trash burning near thermometers (it must be hell, come rain or shine burning all that trash 24/7/365.25)

    ReplyDelete
  2. hmmm
    I suppose you could do 1/4 the work if you could put a pengy on a wind vane so it was always upwind.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Endorphin Monkey30 August 2012 at 08:12

    But wait! That's not all! Penguins scavenging the Antarctic Research Station garbage dumps have been consuming discarded tabasco sauce and jalapeno chips. They are also fond of habaneros. All of these make them feel warmer, something they've seeking since they learned what "warm" really felt like, after wandering into a research station's living quarters. Their consumption of capsaicin-laced detritus increases their propensity to combust, possibly through the additional mechanism of punctuated hypogenisistic baryatrophy.

    Besides, the Antarctic Peninsula is only a small part of Antarctica, and the rest of it is much colder. As any 13-year-old girl might say "Well, duh!"

    Big words = expertise = WINNING!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Endorphin Monkey

    Good point! And of course all that hyped up penguin poo will fertilise all the surrounding trees (just like Yamal) giving spurts of growth for interpretation as "warming".
    Yeah, another hockey stick is born.
    Warmists - they think they know it all, can get away with any malfeasance, and all on MY tax groats.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I think more attention should be paid to good old penguin flatulence near weather stations.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Did you write your scientific paper yet? I'd love to read it.

    ReplyDelete
  7. The arctic ice sheet does not support greenhouse gases as the cause of accelerating global warming. https://thoughtsprof.blogspot.com/2019/02/arctic-ice-sheet-does-not-support.html

    ReplyDelete

Welcome to comment on my blog, dear reader.