Antarctic Penguins Emit so Much Laughing Gas in Their Feces Scientists Studying Them Went 'Cuckoo'

The real reason that the elites keep Antarctica to themselves.

https://www.newsweek.com/penguin-feces-laughing-gas-scientists-1505392

King penguins in a colony in Antarctica emit so much nitrous oxide—also known as laughing gas—from their feces that a team of researchers studying them went "cuckoo" from the fumes.

The scientists, from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, were investigating the effect of glacier retreat and penguin activity on greenhouse gas emissions. To do this, they went on a research trip to South Georgia, an island in the southern Atlantic ocean, where the world's largest colony of king penguins live—around 150,000 breeding pairs, the team notes.

Penguin feces, known as guano, is known to release huge amounts of nitrous oxide (N2O). This is a potent greenhouse gas, with a warming effect around 300 times that of carbon dioxide (CO2). The N2O is created when the penguins eat fish and krill that have absorbed large amounts of nitrogen via phytoplankton. Nitrogen is released from the guano, and the soil it lands on converts it into N2O.

As well as being a greenhouse gas, N2O is also used as a sedative by dentists, and some people use it recreationally because of its psychoactive effects. These include making the user feel euphoric and relaxed, and causing fits of laughter.

"After nosing about in guano for several hours, one goes completely cuckoo," lead researcher Bo Elberling said in a statement. "One begins to feel ill and get a headache. The small nitrous oxide cylinders that you see lying in and floating around Copenhagen are no match for this heavy dose, which results from a combination of nitrous oxide with hydrogen sulphide and other gases."

As a greenhouse gas, most N2O comes from agricultural soil management. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says N2O accounts for 6.5 percent of all America's man-made emissions. Elberling said N2O emissions at the colony are around 100 times higher than a newly fertilized field in Denmark. "It is truly intense," he said.