Climate Change skeptics? [ot]

Future reduction of sea ice in the Arctic could result in a loss of 2/3 of the world's polar bear population within 50 years according to a series of studies released today by the U.S. Geological Survey.

Last December, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne announced that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) was proposing to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Ac

The polar bear (Ursus maritimus) depends on sea ice for feeding, breeding, and movement. Significant reductions in Arctic sea ice are forecast to continue because of climate warming. We evaluated the impacts of climate change on polar bears in the southern Beaufort Sea by means of a demographic analysis, combining deterministic, stochastic, environment-dependent matrix population models with forecasts of future sea ice conditions from IPCC general circulation models (GCMs). The matrix population models classified individuals by age and breeding status; mothers and dependent cubs were treated as units. Parameter estimates were obtained from a capture–recapture study conducted from 2001 to 2006. Candidate statistical models allowed vital rates to vary with time and as functions of a sea ice covariate
Read More: http://www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1890/09-1641.1

The polar bear has become the poster child of global warming, but there’s more to the Arctic than ice and polar bears. Beyond these two famous and prominent features of the Arctic environment, there is an entire intricate ecosystem of wildlife and plant life that will be profoundly affected by a prolonged warming trend in the Arctic.

There’s no doubt the Arctic is warming. In fact, this extreme region has warmed faster than any other on earth, with the Arctic temperature increasing three to five times faster than the Earth as a whole over the past 100 years. Climate models predict that the Arctic will become an additional 7 to 12 degrees Fahrenheit warmer during the next century.

Experts predict these rising temperatures are likely to cause the melting of at least half the Arctic sea ice by the end of the century. Melting ice is expected to lead to even higher Arctic temperatures as bright white ice plays a significant role in reflecting the sun’s radiation. As ice melts, more of the dark ocean and land are exposed to absorb the radiation, thus further warming the climate. Research has found that over a major portion of the ice-covered Arctic Ocean, sea ice is 40 percent thinner than it used to be. And some climate models predict that by 2070, there may be no summer ice cover in the Arctic at all.

The disappearance of sea ice is a particularly dire threat to the polar bear, a super specialist in the Arctic environment. Polar bears rely on the ice to hunt seals, their main food source, and also to rest between hunts out on the ice. Trapped, drowning and starving bears have become such a concern that in September 2007, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) released a series of studies that led its scientists to conclude that “future reduction of sea ice in the Arctic could result in a loss of two-thirds of the world’s polar bear population within 50 years.” As sad as such a fate for this majestic creature would be, the consequences would extend far beyond the bear. A polar bear decline could trigger what biologists call a “trophic cascade,” or a complete uncoupling of the Arctic food chain.

Go back and read the paper again, and work through the numerical arguments... you'd have a much more nuanced understanding of polar bear populations in the Davis Strait.

Maybe Chiloe can recommend a text on statistical methods used in population dynamics studies that would allow you to brush up on your math skillz...

Guess what,, you dont know Rick Sumner form a fence post.. Rick deals with more environmental BS in his week up there in AK than youve probably ever delt with. He has a home FAR up in a mtn canyon in the Pah rah range of Kneevader. Has solar heated rooms, wood stove and the whole gambit.

AND,, he was climbing wild shyt before you were born. Introduced the likes of Paul Crawford to Multi pitch climbing, and wrote the FIRST comprehensive climbing guide for the greater tahoe region. Then followed that one by another two years later. Between him, Bill Todd, Greg Dexter, John Taylor, Richard Harrison, Jay Smith and many others - they put up the most extreme routes there are around here. And He opened up the region with those historically monumental guides.

Ron A, of course you read those words in the report... but you didn't understand what the quantitative basis of those words meant...

...and in fact, they show a recent declining population, with concurrence from the locals...

maybe you missed that...

80-100 years is "relatively quickly"? Impressive.

The Goodness of the Universe will infinitely prevail.