Emperor penguins live in Antarctica, which is not only remote and inaccessible, but temperatures can drop to –50°C. Studying penguin colonies is therefore extremely difficult. Nevertheless, over the last 10 years, scientists at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have been able to search for new emperor penguin colonies using satellite imagery.
Although penguins are too small to show up in satellite images, giant stains on the ice from penguin droppings – known as guano – are easy to identify at the 10 m pixel resolution that the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission offers.
These brownish patches have allowed scientists to locate and track penguin populations across the entire continent.
Copernicus Sentinel-2 is a two-satellite mission designed specifically to deliver the wealth of data and imagery that are central to the European Commission’s Copernicus programme. Satellites, such as the Sentinel-2 mission, provide us with a global coverage, revisiting the same region every few days. The data provide a good understanding of the health and behaviour of our planet – and how it is continuously affected by climate change.
Full story including images, quotes, … can be read at http://www.esa.int/
Copyright: BAS/ESA
Copyright: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2019), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
