Occurrence of Magellanic penguins along the Northeast Brazilian coast during 2008 Austral winter.
During the austral winter of 2008, thousands of penguins traveled to low latitudes along the South Atlantic coast of South America. The atmospheric and oceanic conditions from April to July 2008 may account for the penguins' unusual geographic distribution. During that period, South Atlantic coastal waters were cooler; the wind anomalies had northward and onshore components; the ocean's coastal region presented northward currents that favored the penguins to travel toward lower latitudes. This anomalous climate regime resulted from extreme meteorological frontal systems that occurred mainly during June 2008. Three consecutive extreme midlatitude cyclones produced strong wind shear that resulted in the northward oceanic flow along the South American eastern shoreline favoring the penguins to be spotted in northern tropical waters.
Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Campus Trindade, Florianópolis, SC 88040-900, Brazil. renato@fsc.ufsc.br
Renato Ramos
RR
da Silva
Janini
J
Pereira
Clemente A S
CA
Tanajura
Carlos A D
CA
Lentini
Mauro
M
Cirano
P Dee
PD
Boersma
Regina R
RR
Rodrigues
D025041:Animal Migration; D000818:Animals; D001938:Brazil; D002980:Climate; D057231:Climate Change; D055867:Cyclonic Storms; D012621:Seasons; D046429:Spheniscidae; D014919:Wind