Polar Bears and Global Warming

[Grains]

I have read a lot of stories recently discussing the effects of global warming on polar bears.

 

I read this article and it was interesting....

 

Federal Polar Bear Research Critically Flawed, Forecasting Expert Asserts

 

What is your viewpoint and do you think it has any validity.

[InfiniteNow]

Sounds like the US Dept of the Interior doesn't know their elbows from their bungholes. :phones:

 

 

From your link:

 

The authors examined nine U.S. Geological Survey Administrative Reports. The studies include “Forecasting the Wide-Range Status of Polar Bears at Selected Times in the 21st Century” by Steven C. Amstrup et. al. and “Polar Bears in the Southern Beaufort Sea II: Demography and Population Growth in Relation to Sea Ice Conditions” by Christine M. Hunter et al.

 

Prof. Armstrong and his colleagues concluded that the most relevant study, Amstrup et al. properly applied only 15% of relevant forecasting principles and that the second study, Hunter et al. only 10%, while 46% were clearly contravened and 23% were apparently contravened.

 

Further, they write, the Geologic Survey reports do not adequately substantiate the authors’ assumptions about changes to sea ice and polar bears’ ability to adapt that are key to the recommendations.

 

Therefore, the authors write, a key feature of the U.S. Geological Survey reports is not scientifically supported.

 

[CraigD]

I have read a lot of stories recently discussing the effects of global warming on polar bears.

...

What is your viewpoint and do you think it has any validity.

The issue, I think, goes far beyond an particular US study or administrative decision, and requires one to consider the “big picture”.

 

I believe it’s a near certainty that polar bears habitats are shrinking, due primarily to the loss of artic ocean ice due to global warming.

 

As many sources including the preceding linked wikipedia article note detailed knowledge of the polar bear population (which is believe to consists of many distinct, isolated sub-populations) and behavior is not great. The most important immediate task for their conservation is, I think, improving this understanding through increased study, a once practically impossible task now made easier by the availability of satellite and aircraft for observation – though one should not underestimate the difficulty, even with present-day technology, of spotting a well-insulated white bear on a white landscape, let alone closely following their behavior. Paradoxically, by making the artic ocean more accessible to long-stay research ships (which can be much less expensive to operate than aircraft), global warming may make this study easier.

 

There are reasons for both optimism and pessimism for the future of the polar bear. Currently, about 1% of the polar bear population is killed annually by sport and commercial hunting. Assuming an average life expectancy of about 20 years, this means that hunting is responsible for about 20% of polar bear deaths. As the number of polar bears killed by humans can be effectively controlled, we have at our immediate disposal a means to offset excessive die-offs due to habitat loss.

 

A source of worry, however, is that as polar bear lose ocean ice habitat (in which their prey is almost exclusively seals), the will move south, encroaching on human habitats. Although specialized seal hunters, polar bears are known to be able to hunt other, land-based prey, so should be able to effectively extend their habitat inland. Humans and polar bears don’t, most evidence suggest, make good neighbors, as both species will without much reluctance kill and eat one another. The ability of government to prevent the killing of polar bears in situations where they are endangering humans is very limited – with rare exceptions, in an “us or them” situations, we humans must chose our own welfare over that of another species. This is especially true if new human settlements in the far north are established, as would be the case if efforts by oil companies and their political allies to increase oil drilling in the extreme north are very successful.

 

It’s important to note that the study and conservation of polar bears requires an international, not just a US effort. Polar bear habitats are in 5 countries: U.S. (Alaska), Canada, Russia, Denmark (Greenland), and Norway. Recent cooperation between these nations has, AFAIK, been good, and will hopefully remains so.

[C1ay]

Judging from past climate history, global warming is inevitable...

[freeztar]

Judging from past climate history, global warming is inevitable...

 

What are you suggesting in regards to the topic of this thread?

[Moontanman]

Judging from past climate history, global warming is inevitable...

 

Thanks clay, that is the point I have been trying to make many times through this and other debates on global warming. We may indeed be speeding up the natural processes i don't think we will be able to forestall the natural rise in temps that is coming. I also think that is the polar ice caps recede enough the polar bear population will recede back into the grizzly bear population. they are both just varieties of the same species.

[C1ay]

What are you suggesting in regards to the topic of this thread?

 

That the day will come when the Earth has no ice caps as it has time and time again throughout the history of the Earth. Never in the history of the Earth has the average global temperature dropped below 17°C and stayed there. It always returns to 22°C or higher. I suspect this is the result of our position in the inner region of our sun's habitable zone which is thought to run from 0.95 to 1.37 astronomical units.