Prática de Shadowing: Do Penguins Control the Weather? - Aprenda a falar inglês com vídeo
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It sure would be nice to control the weather.
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You could guarantee you'd always have a sunny day for a picnic
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or call down some rain if your garden's looking a little dry, but we humans cannot do that because we are not penguins.
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Whether Antarctica gets nice sunny days or overcast skies might have a lot to do with its best dressed residents.
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Here is how penguins, and I am not joking, might control the weather.
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Penguin colonies in Antarctica can get pretty darn big.
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Many have tens or even hundreds of thousands of breeding pairs, and with a lot of penguins comes a lot of penguin poop.
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All of that poop gives off a gas called ammonia.
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You might know it as an ingredient in plant fertilizer, or things you can use to clean your bathroom, or pee.
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In fact, seabird poop is such a rich source of ammonia that back in the 19th century,
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people were mining entire islands for buildups of bird poop to bolster their crops.
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Not exactly a glamorous job.
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But in places like Antarctica, where no one's going in and messing with penguin droppings, the ammonia gets into the atmosphere.
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There, it can link up with other chemicals in the air and help form the earliest seeds of clouds.
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Clouds are mostly made of droplets of liquid water.
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In order for clouds to form, the gaseous water vapor in the atmosphere needs something to condense onto in order to become those droplets.
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That something could be a bit of dust or some soot from a fire, but it could also come from natural chemical reactions that occur in the atmosphere.
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Sometimes when different gases get together, they can link up and form a tiny solid or liquid particle.
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At first, those little particles aren't big enough to start forming clouds on their own, but over time, they can grow into bigger particles.
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They don't even have to get all that big.
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Once the particles get to be a few dozen nanometers in diameter, they become cloud condensation nuclei.
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Those are particles big enough for water vapor to start condensing on them.
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Just for context, the particles only need to be about a thousand times smaller than the width of a human hair.
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Why do we always use width of a human hair as the comparison?
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Folks, there's gotta be something else.
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In Antarctica, many of the particles
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that go on to become cloud condensation nuclei are thought to start as clusters containing sulfuric acid and ammonia.
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They can also contain chemicals called amines, which are related to ammonia among others.
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The sulfuric acid mainly comes from microorganisms in the ocean.
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Phytoplankton emits something called dimethyl sulfide, which reacts to become sulfuric acid.
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And the ammonia comes in large part from penguin poop.
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Normally there would be other compounds in the atmosphere forming these tiny starter particles too.
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They might be things like decaying plant matter or industrial emissions.
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But there really isn't much of that in Antarctica.
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It is the world's largest desert after all.
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So ammonia from penguin guano or penguin poop ends up playing a big role in cloud formation.
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Now we've known about this for a while.
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So, studies have linked this particle formation to ammonia from penguin colonies since 1998,
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and more recent research has presented an idea for exactly how those particles form.
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But as it turns out, these poop-based specks could impact cloud cover over much of Antarctica, and maybe help keep the entire continent cool.
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But before we talk about why, all science needs funding, so let's go to a quick break.
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Thanks to JUMP Statistical Discovery for supporting this SciShow video.
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If you've ever had trouble finding the interesting result in a huge dataset, you're not alone.
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It can be really hard to see the forest for the trees.
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That is why JUMP exists.
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JUMP helps scientists turn messy, complex data into something they can visually explore and understand.
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JUMP makes the jumble of numbers meaningful by making patterns, relationships, and outliers visible in seconds.
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But it's still you working with the data.
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You can build these skills yourself with JUMP's free on-demand workshop, download the free trial and a sample dataset,
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and start your journey into data visualization and exploratory analysis.
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You don't need to be an expert statistician to get started.
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It's designed for scientists, engineers, and curious learners alike.
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You can check out the free workshop at the link in the description. In a 2025 study,
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a team of researchers set up equipment to monitor ammonia levels at an Antarctic research station near two penguin colonies.
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They found that airborne ammonia concentrations were higher when the wind blew in from the direction of the penguin colonies,
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and they only saw new particles forming when the wind came from that direction too.
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Along with ammonia, the team also spotted a chemical called dimethylamine.
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Even a little bit of dimethylamine can help speed up the formation of those ammonia sulfuric acid particles.
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And good thing for the scientists there wasn't a lot, cause dimethylamine smells like rotting fish.
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Yummy!
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The scientists weren't able to confirm the source of the dimethylamine, but much like with the ammonia, they saw more dimethylamine when winds came from the direction of the penguins.
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That's not entirely surprising.
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Penguin guano can produce amines, so it makes sense that dimethylamine could have come from penguin poop just like ammonia.
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So lots of penguin poop means lots of these little particles that can contribute to cloud formation.
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That was true even after the penguins left the colony site on their annual migration.
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Ammonia levels stayed high for more than a month after the penguins took off, but not literally took off because they don't fly.
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A separate study from 2024 also suggests
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that ammonia levels in the air from penguin guano could spike
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when temperatures fluctuate above and below freezing over the course of the day.
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Ammonia itself doesn't last very long once it's in the atmosphere, but those particles it makes with sulfuric acid do.
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The particles could end up getting blown elsewhere on the continent, so penguin poop could affect cloud cover far from their homes.
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Extra cloud cover could help keep Antarctica cool in the face of climate disaster, but we need more research to figure out exactly how that will play out.
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Clouds reflect some of the light and heat from the sun back out into space, which could help keep temperatures low.
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On the other hand, clouds also lock in some of the heat
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that makes it through and prevent it from escaping the atmosphere.
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To make things even more complicated, climate disaster is already causing some penguin populations to shrink.
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Fewer penguins means less penguin poop, which could then mean fewer clouds.
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Even though we don't understand their effects yet, This is a strong argument for protecting penguin populations.
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They might protect a whole continent in turn.
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So it looks like to really understand and manage climate change in Antarctica,
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we'll need some help from these funny little guys in suits who like to tap dance and also surf.
📺 Mesmo canal
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Vocabulário e dicas de fala para esta lição
Este vídeo tem 81 frases e 1193 palavras para praticar shadowing. A fala dura 6:56. O falante fala em ritmo natural, cerca de 172 palavras por minuto, próximo de uma conversa do dia a dia. Apenas 76% das palavras estão entre as 3.000 mais comuns do inglês, por isso o vocabulário é exigente.
Vocabulário principal deste vídeo
15 palavras menos comuns do vídeo, com pronúncia e significado:
- penguin /ˈpɛŋ.ɡwɪn/ (substantivo) — pinguim. Any of several flightless sea birds, of the family Spheniscidae within the order Sphenisciformes, found in the Southern Hemisphere, marked by their usual…
- particle /ˈpɑɹtək(ə)l/ (substantivo) — partícula. A very small piece of matter, a fragment; especially, the smallest possible part of something.
- cloud /ˈklaʊ̯d/ (substantivo) — nuvem, nimbo. A visible mass of water droplets suspended in the air.
- poop /ˈpuːp/ (substantivo) — totô, cocô. Fecal matter; feces.
- atmosphere /ˈætməsˌfɪɹ/ (substantivo) — atmosfera. The gases surrounding the Earth or any astronomical body.
- acid /ˈæsɪd/ (substantivo) — ácido. A sour substance.
- scientist /ˈsaɪəntəst/ (substantivo) — cientista. One whose activities make use of the scientific method to answer questions regarding the measurable universe. A scientist may be involved in original research…
- continent /ˈkɑntɪnənt/ (substantivo) — continente. One of the main contiguous landmasses, separated by water or geological features, on the surface of a planet, sometimes including its continental shelves and…
- disaster /dɪˈzɑːs.təː/ (substantivo) — desastre. An unexpected natural or man-made catastrophe of substantial extent causing significant physical damage or destruction, loss of life or sometimes permanent…
- liquid /ˈlɪk.wɪd/ (substantivo) — líquido. A substance that is flowing, and keeping no shape, such as water; a substance of which the molecules, while not tending to separate from one another like those…
- fewer /ˈfjuː.ɚ/ — menos. Less; a smaller amount of something non-integral commonly expressed as an integer
- workshop /ˈwɝk.ʃɑp/ (substantivo) — oficina. A room, especially one which is not particularly large, used for manufacturing or other light industrial work.
- sunny /ˈsʌni/ (adjetivo) — ensolarado. Featuring a lot of sunshine.
- width /ˈwɪtθ/ (substantivo) — largura. The state of being wide.
- nucleus /ˈnuː.kli.əs/ (substantivo) — núcleo. The core, central part of something, around which other elements are assembled.
Phrasal verbs que você vai ouvir
- come from (verbo) — vir de, ser de. To have as one's origin, birthplace or nationality.
- end up (verbo) — terminar, acabar. To bring to a conclusion.
- take off (verbo) — tirar. To remove.
- check out (verbo) — verificar, sacar só. To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.).
- figure out (verbo) — descobrir, deduzir. To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce.
- get into (verbo) — entrar em. To move into (an object), such that one ends up inside it.
- get together (verbo) — reunir. To meet, to gather together, to congregate.
- give off /ɡɪv ɒf/ (verbo) — soltar, exalar. To emit; to produce and send forth; to come across in some manner.
Pronúncia para ficar de olho
O falante usa 15 contrações e formas reduzidas, como don't, aren't, doesn't. Diga-as na forma curta, do jeito que você ouve.
- Os sons de “th”: width /ˈwɪtθ/, dimethyl /daɪˈmɛ.θəl/
- Os sons de “sh” e “zh”: workshop /ˈwɝk.ʃɑp/, concentration /ˌkɑn.sənˈtɹeɪ.ʃən/, migration /maɪˈɡɹeɪʃ(ə)n/, emission /ɪˈmɪʃ.ən/, condensation /ˌkɒn.dɛnˈseɪ.ʃən/
- Palavras longas — acerte a sílaba tônica: complicated /ˈkɑm.plɪˌkeɪ.tɪd/, concentration /ˌkɑn.sənˈtɹeɪ.ʃən/, diameter /daɪˈæmɪdɚ/, ingredient /ɪnˈɡɹiːdi.ənt/, visually /ˈvɪzju.əli/
Como praticar com este vídeo
- Ouça o vídeo inteiro uma vez sem falar e anote as palavras que você não conhece.
- Comece na velocidade 0,75×, faça shadowing frase por frase e volte à velocidade normal quando ficar fácil.
- Grave a sua voz e compare com o original, prestando atenção a palavras como penguin, particle, cloud.
Gramática neste vídeo
As estruturas que o falante mais usa, com as palavras exatas do vídeo:
| Estrutura | No vídeo |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + particípio passado — uma ação passada que ainda importa agora | we've known · have linked · has presented |
| Voz passiva be + particípio passado — o foco está no que acontece, não em quem faz | are thought · are related |
O que é a Técnica de Shadowing?
Shadowing é uma técnica de aprendizado de idiomas com base científica, originalmente desenvolvida para o treinamento de intérpretes profissionais. O método é simples, mas poderoso: você ouve áudio em inglês nativo e repete imediatamente em voz alta — como uma sombra seguindo o falante com 1-2 segundos de atraso. Pesquisas mostram melhora significativa na precisão da pronúncia, entonação, ritmo, sons conectados, compreensão auditiva e fluência na fala.