【英语时差8,16】人类活动导致企鹅数量减少（上）

（单词翻译）

Like the canaries that used to be brought into coal mines as early warning signals for toxic¹ gases like methane², the world’s penguins⁴ are sounding an alarm of potentially disastrous⁵ ocean changes. Of the seventeen species of penguins, twelve are declining rapidly in number and are listed as endangered or threatened. A study published in 2008 by a Professor of Conservation Biology at the University of Washington links this widespread decline in penguin³ numbers, in large part, to human activity. One cause is the rising ocean temperatures and increasingly erratic⁶ temperature and climate patterns. In the Antarctic Peninsula, where many penguins breed, temperatures are rising five times faster than the average rate of global warming, and sea ice covers forty-percent less area off the peninsula than it did twenty-six years ago.