It sure would be nice to control the weather.

You could guarantee you’d always  have a sunny day for a picnic,   or call down some rain if your  garden’s looking a little dry. But we humans cannot do that.

Because we are not penguins. Whether Antarctica gets nice  sunny days or overcast skies   might have a lot to do with  its best-dressed residents. Here is how penguins, and I am not  joking, might control the weather. [♪ INTRO] Penguin colonies in Antarctica  can get pretty darn big.

Many have tens or even hundreds  of thousands of breeding pairs. And with a lot of penguins  comes a lot of penguin poop. All of that poop gives off a gas called ammonia.

You might know of it as an  ingredient in plant fertilizer. Or things you can use to clean your bathroom. Or pee!

In fact, seabird poop is such a rich source  of ammonia that back in the 19th century,   people were mining entire islands for  buildups of bird poop to bolster their crops. Not exactly a glamorous job. But in places like Antarctica, where no one’s  going in and messing with penguin droppings,   the ammonia gets into the atmosphere.

There, it can link up with other chemicals in the  air and help form the earliest seeds of clouds. Clouds are mostly made of  droplets of liquid water. In order for clouds to form,  the gaseous water vapor in the   atmosphere needs something to condense  onto in order to become those droplets.

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. Sometimes, when different gases get together,   they can link up and form a  tiny solid or liquid particle.

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. They don’t even have to get all that big.

Once the particles get to be a  few dozen nanometers in diameter,   they become cloud condensation nuclei. Those are particles big enough for  water vapor to start condensing on them. Just for context, the particles only need to be   about a thousand times smaller  than the width of a human hair.

Why do we always use width of  a human hair as the comparison? I feel like there’s got to be something else! In Antarctica, many of the particles  that go on to become cloud condensation   nuclei are thought to start as clusters  containing sulfuric acid and ammonia.

They can also contain chemicals called amines,  which are related to ammonia, among others. The sulfuric acid mainly comes  from microorganisms in the ocean. Phytoplankton emit something called dimethyl  sulfide, which reacts to become sulfuric acid.

And the ammonia comes, in  large part, from penguin poop. Normally, there would be other compounds in   the atmosphere forming these  tiny starter particles too. They might be things like decaying  plant matter or industrial emissions.

But there really isn’t much of that in Antarctica. It is the world’s largest desert, after all. So ammonia from penguin guano, or penguin poop, ends up playing a big role in cloud formation.

Now, we’ve known about this for a while. Studies have linked this particle formation  to ammonia from penguin colonies since 1998. And more recent research has presented an  idea for exactly how those particles form.

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. Before we talk about why, all science needs  funding, so let’s go to a quick break. Thanks to JMP Statistical Discovery  for supporting this SciShow video!

If you’ve ever had trouble finding the interesting  results in a huge dataset, you’re not alone. It can be really hard to see  the forest for the trees. That is why JMP exists.

JMP helps scientists turn messy,   complex data into something they  can visually explore and understand. JMP makes the jumble of numbers  meaningful by making patterns,   relationships, and outliers visible in seconds. But it’s still you working with the data.

You can build these skills yourself  with JMP’s free, on-demand workshop. Download the free trial and sample  dataset and start your journey into   data visualisation and exploratory analysis. You don’t need to be an expert  statistician to get started.

It’s designed for scientists,  engineers, and curious learners alike. You can check out the free workshop  in the link in the description. In a 2025 study, a team of researchers  set up equipment to monitor ammonia   levels at an Antarctic research  station near two penguin colonies.

They found that airborne ammonia concentrations   were higher when the wind blew in from  the direction of the penguin colonies. And they only saw new particles forming  when the wind came from that direction, too. Along with ammonia, the team also  spotted a chemical called dimethylamine.

Even a little bit of dimethylamine can help   speed up the formation of those  ammonia-sulfuric acid particles. And good thing for the  scientists there wasn’t a lot. Because dimethylamine smells like rotting fish.

Yummy... 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.

That’s not entirely surprising. Penguin guano can produce amines,   so it makes sense that the dimethylamine could  have come from penguin poop just like ammonia. So lots of penguin poop means lots of these little  particles that can contribute to cloud formation.

That was true even after the penguins left  the colony site on their annual migration. Ammonia levels stayed high for more than  a month after the penguins took off. But not literally took off...because they don't fly.

A separate study from 2024 also suggests that  ammonia levels in the air from penguin guano   could spike when temperatures fluctuate above  and below freezing over the course of the day. Ammonia itself doesn’t last very  long once it’s in the atmosphere. But those particles it  makes with sulfuric acid do.

The particles could end up getting  blown elsewhere on the continent. So penguin poop could affect  cloud cover far from their homes. 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.

Clouds reflect some of the light and  heat from the sun back out into space,   which could help keep temperatures low. On the other hand, clouds also  lock in some of the heat that   makes it through and prevent it  from escaping the atmosphere. To make things even more complicated,   climate disaster is already causing  some penguin populations to shrink.

Fewer penguins means less penguin poop,  which could then mean fewer clouds. Even though we don’t understand their effects yet,   this is a strong argument for  protecting penguin populations. They might protect a whole continent in turn!

So it looks like to really understand  and manage climate change in Antarctica,   we’ll need some help from these funny little guys  in suits who like to tap dance and also surf. [♪ OUTRO]