Monthly Archives: February 2017

Science behind the video Polar Bear Scare Unmasked – updated paper now available

Posted on February 28, 2017 | Comments Off on Science behind the video Polar Bear Scare Unmasked – updated paper now available

Announcing the publication today of Version 3 2 of my paper that tests the hypothesis that polar bear population declines result from rapid declines in summer sea ice, updated with recently available data. Version 2 provides the scientific support for the information presented in the GWPF video published yesterday, “Polar Bear Scare Unmasked: The Sage of a Toppled Global Warming Icon” (copied below).

Crockford 2017 V3 title page graphic 3

[The graphic above was created by me from the title page and two figures from the paper]

Updated 1 March 2017: I added an important reference to the paper below that got overlooked in previous versions (the work of Armstrong et al. 2008, see this post), making Version 3 the latest and most up-to-date.

Crockford, S.J. 2017 V3. Testing the hypothesis that routine sea ice coverage of 3-5 mkm2 results in a greater than 30% decline in population size of polar bears (Ursus maritimus). PeerJ Preprints 2 March 2017. Doi: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.2737v3 Open access. https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.2737v3

Version 3, published 2 March 2017, adds an important reference; Version 2, published 28 February, incorporates additional reviewer comments and suggestions received on Version 1, as well as the updates noted above.

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Polar Bear Scare Unmasked: The Saga of a Toppled Global Warming Icon [video]

Posted on February 27, 2017 | Comments Off on Polar Bear Scare Unmasked: The Saga of a Toppled Global Warming Icon [video]

For more than ten years, we’ve endured the shrill media headlines, the hyperbole from conservation organizations, and the simplistic platitudes from scientists as summer sea ice declined dramatically while polar bear numbers rose.

Now, just in time for International Polar Bear Day, there’s a video that deconstructs the scare. It runs about 8 minutes, written and narrated by me, produced by the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

Polar Bear Scare Unmasked: The Saga of a Toppled Global Warming Icon

Update 28 February 2017 See my follow-up post for the science behind the video, featuring a new version of my sea ice/polar bear hypothesis paper, just published (and updated with new data).

Crockford, S.J. 2017 V3. Testing the hypothesis that routine sea ice coverage of 3-5 mkm2 results in a greater than 30% decline in population size of polar bears (Ursus maritimus). PeerJ Preprints 2 March 2017. Doi: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.2737v3 Open access. https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.2737v3

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Thriving numbers – & two great books – are ample reason to rejoice on Polar Bear Day

Posted on February 26, 2017 | Comments Off on Thriving numbers – & two great books – are ample reason to rejoice on Polar Bear Day

Ten years of summer sea ice levels expected to kill 2/3 of the world’s polar bears by 2050 instead saw polar bear numbers grow. And this year, there are also two fabulous books about polar bears and their outstanding success story to celebrate on International Polar Bear Day (Monday 27 February 2017).

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One is suitable for kids (Polar Bear Facts & Myths) and another for adults and teens who want the details (Polar Bears: Outstanding Survivors of Climate Change) – see the right sidebar to buy on Amazon or my author website for details on all additional formats. A couple of excerpts from them are below.

So forget turning down your thermostat in a pointless gesture to “reduce your carbon emissions and help polar bears” — as Polar Bears International advocates for Polar Bear Day. Instead, treat yourself or a friend and order a book with a rational approach to species survival.

Speaking of species survival, think about the inconsistency in how some species are treated according to the US Endangered Species Act (ESA). Humpback whale numbers recovered after decades of protection; in 2016, after the state of Alaska filed a petition to delist, most populations were officially removed from the ESA list of ‘threatened’ species.

humpback-whale-and-calf-012016-noaa

Humpback whale and calf, NOAA image.

In contrast, by 2015, polar bear numbers had also recovered despite years of low sea ice loss not predicted until 2050, yet remain officially ‘threatened’ with extinction.

polar_bear_family_at_bone_pile-kaktovik-20-april-2016

Fat bear family at Kaktovik, Alaska (Southern Beaufort), April 2016. USGS photo.

US National Marine Fisheries Service defended the delisting of humpback whales against activists who insisted human-caused global warming threatened the species, but the US Fish and Wildlife Service defends flawed polar bear prophesies.

My books lay out the polar bear success story: in simple form for younger readers and in detail for others. See the excerpts below.

crockford-pb-outstanding-survivors-2017_end-of-pg-30

Polar bears have not been driven to the brink of extinction by global warming. In fact, they are thriving (see my final conclusions on pg. 30 of Polar Bears: Outstanding Survivors of Climate Change, above and pg. 32 of Polar Bear Facts & Myths below.

crockford-pb-facts-and-myths-2017-pg-32

If you’d like to support my efforts to bring this to everyone’s attention, please consider buying a copy or two of my books. If you’ve already done so, keep in mind that your local library might be glad to have copies donated. They also make great gifts.

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Global polar bear population larger than previous thought – almost 30,000

Posted on February 23, 2017 | Comments Off on Global polar bear population larger than previous thought – almost 30,000

The results of three recently-released studies that were not included in the last IUCN Red List assessment add more than 2,050 bears (on average)1 to the official 2015 global polar bear estimate, a point you won’t likely hear next Monday (27 February) from most polar bear specialists, conservation organizations, their cheerleaders and corporate sponsors on International Polar Bear Day.

global-pb-population-size-graphic2_2017-feb-polarbearscience-corrected

This means the adjusted 2015 global estimate for polar bears should be about 28,500 (average), a marked increase over the official estimate of 26,500 (average) for 2015 — and an even larger increase over the 2005 estimate of about 22,500 (average)2, despite the dramatic loss of summer sea ice since 2007 that we hear about endlessly.

It is increasingly obvious that polar bears are thriving despite having lived through summer sea ice levels not predicted to occur until 2050 – levels of sea ice that experts said would wipe out 2/3 of the world’s polar bears (Amstrup et al. 2007; Crockford 2017 v3).

Update 26 March 2019: see “Latest global polar bear abundance ‘best guess’ estimate is 39,000 (26,000-58,000)”

Updated 1 June 2017:  see addition to Footnote 2.
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Polar bear habitat update: Masie charts show more ice in 2017 than 2006

Posted on February 20, 2017 | Comments Off on Polar bear habitat update: Masie charts show more ice in 2017 than 2006

It’s just an observation but NSIDC Masie ice charts show 14.7 mkm2 of sea ice for 2017 at 19 February (Day 50) but only 14.3 mkm2 for 2006 (see them copied below).

In contrast, the NSIDC interactive graph shows almost the opposite: 14.3 mkm2 for 2017 and 14.4 mkm2 for 2006 (but with both below 2 standard deviations of average).

sea-ice-at-19-feb-2017_vs-2006_nsidc-interactive

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Baffin Bay and Kane Basin polar bears not ‘declining’ concludes new report

Posted on February 15, 2017 | Comments Off on Baffin Bay and Kane Basin polar bears not ‘declining’ concludes new report

The 2016 Scientific Working Group report on Baffin Bay and Kane Basin polar bears was released online without fanfare last week, confirming what local Inuit have been saying for years: contrary to the assertions of Polar Bear Specialist Group scientists, Baffin Bay and Kane Basin subpopulations have not been declining but are stable.

polar-bear-feeding_shutterstock_sm

Until recently, the Baffin Bay (BB) and Kane Basin (KB) polar bear subpopulations, that live between NW Greenland, and Baffin and Ellesmere Islands, were assessed with confidence by the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) to be declining due to suspected over-hunting (see 2016 Report, Ch. 1, pg. 4).

It turns out they were wrong.

map-baffinbay

New (2016) polar bear subpopulation estimates for BB and KB:

Baffin Bay – 2,826 (95% CI = 2,059-3,593) at 2013

                  [vs. 1546 (95% CI = 690-2,402) expected 2004]

                  vs. 2,074 (95% CI = 1,553-2,595) in 1997

  Kane Basin – 357 (95% CI: 221 – 493) at 2013

                    vs. 164 (95% CI: 94 – 234) in 1997

[1997 figures from 2015 IUCN Red List estimates, from Supplement, pg. 8); 2004 “expected” figure for Baffin Bay from 2016 SWG report, Ch. 1, pg. 4]

In 2014, Environment Canada’s assessments were ‘data deficient’ for Kane Basin and ‘likely declining’ for Baffin Bay (see map below):
ec_polarbearstatus_and-trends-lg_2010-2014-mapscanada_oct-26-2014

However, the results of this new study (conducted 2011-2013) would likely make KB in the map above dark blue (‘stable’), and BB light blue (‘likely stable’), depending on how the new information is interpreted (given differences in methodology between the 1991-1997 and 2011-2013 counts). Note that a recent paper by Jordan York, Mitch Taylor and others (York et al. 2016) suggested this outcome for Baffin Bay was likely (i.e. ‘stable’) but thought that the status of Kane Basin would remain ‘declining.’

This new information leaves only the Southern Beaufort subpopulation (SB) in a ‘likely declining’ condition, but since that decline was due to thick spring ice conditions in 2004-2006 (Crockford 2017), it does not reflect a response to recent loss of summer sea ice. The new population estimates for Baffin Bay and Kane Basin also suggests that a revision needs to be made to the 2015 IUCN Red List assessment with respect to the global population estimate because polar bears are clearly more abundant in Baffin Bay and Kane Basin than previously thought.

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Polar bear habitat update for Canada at mid-February

Posted on February 15, 2017 | Comments Off on Polar bear habitat update for Canada at mid-February

Mid-February is the tail end of the winter fast for polar bears. Sea ice is approaching it’s maximum global extent but local maximum extents may vary. Most of the sea ice in Canada is locked in already but two regions still vary at this time of year: the Labrador Sea off Labrador and Newfoundland – where polar bears come to feed on an abundance of newborn harp seals – and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where polar bears have not been spotted in more than 60 years. sea-ice-extent-canada-2017-feb-14_cis

There is almost certainly enough ice for harp seals to give birth in the Gulf this year, if the ice holds (despite some premature hand-wringing by seal biologists). There is more ice in the Gulf and off Newfoundland this year than there was in 2013 (see map below). Continue reading

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New paper updates lack of trend in W Hudson Bay breakup/freeze-up dates to 2015

Posted on February 9, 2017 | Comments Off on New paper updates lack of trend in W Hudson Bay breakup/freeze-up dates to 2015

A newly-published paper shows that there has been no trend in the time Western Hudson Bay polar bears spent onshore between 2001-2015 due to sea ice conditions at breakup or freeze-up (previously available to 2010 only), despite the marked decline of global sea ice since 2007.

castro-de-la-guardia-et-al-derocher-2017-fig-3-no-caption

Figure 3 from Castro de la Guardia and colleagues (2017) showing freeze-up and breakup dates and ice-free days 1979-2015 for Western Hudson Bay. Figure with caption, copied below, explains symbols.

Previously, a 2007 paper by Eric Regehr and colleagues for WHB bears up to 2004, which was used to support the US bid to list polar bears as ‘threatened’ with extinction, concluded that between 1984 and 2003, bears were spending 3 weeks longer onshore than they did in the 1980s.

The big news from Castro de la Guardia et al. (2017) is that polar bears spent longer onshore from 1979-2015 by … 3 weeks. That is, no change from the situation in 2004. Wow!

Note the population size of the entire WHB subpopulation has also not declined since 2004 and is currently estimated at about 1030, based on a 2011 aerial survey (Stapleton et al. 2014).

Thanks to Andrew Derocher for the heads-up tweet.

From the abstract (my bold):

We found that the ice-free period in this region lengthened by 3 ± 0.8 wk over the period 1979−2015. Polar bears migrated onshore 2 wk earlier and offshore 1 wk later in the period 2005−2015 than in 1980−1989.

Here is the region in question, illustrated by Fig. 1 from the paper:

castro-de-la-guardia-et-al-derocher-2017-fig-1a-locationThe significant information contained in this paper is breakup and freeze-up dates and length of the ice-free period data for 2010-2015, which has been unavailable until now. More excerpts and comments below, including Figure 3 with its caption. Continue reading

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Svalbard polar bears thrive in part due to ringed seal pups in the spring pack ice

Posted on February 7, 2017 | Comments Off on Svalbard polar bears thrive in part due to ringed seal pups in the spring pack ice

Few people know that Arctic ringed seals (Phoca hispida, aka Pusa hispida) give birth and breed in the offshore pack ice in the spring, as it is seldom mentioned by either seal or polar bear specialists.

While it is true that some ringed seals give birth in stable shorefast ice close to shore, many others give birth well offshore in thick pack ice – where polar bears also live and hunt in the spring but where few Arctic scientists ever venture – and the existence of pack ice breeding ringed seals is one of the reasons that polar bears are such a resilient species.

ringed-seal-in-snow-cave_b-kelly-wikipedia

Ringed seal pup in a snow cave, B. Kelly photo (Wikipedia).

As a consequence, despite fears expressed by Ian Stirling, low shorefast ice and associated snow around Svalbard this winter (and any time in the past) is not necessarily a hindrance to polar bear survival because there are ringed seal pups available out in the surrounding pack ice – where bearded seals also give birth.

Of course, ringed seals pups are also available to Svalbard polar bears in the shorefast ice in the Franz Josef Land archipelago to the east (see map below) but it is the pups born in the offshore pack ice that are of interest here. The existence of pack ice breeding ringed seals may be why Norwegian biologists do not currently monitor ringed seals in the Barents Sea, despite many years of poor ice conditions around Svalbard in spring – this simply is not a species of concern.

barents-sea-ice-2017-feb-6_nis

The fact that distinct ringed seal ecotypes (or habitat-specific morphotypes) exist in the Arctic – one that gives birth and breeds in shorefast ice and another that gives birth and breeds in offshore pack ice, perhaps driven by competition for limited shorefast ice habitat – is a phenomenon a colleague and I discussed in a peer-reviewed book chapter published several years ago. Have a look at the excerpt below and see what you think.

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Listen to the evidence: polar bears are thriving in current sea ice habitat

Posted on February 6, 2017 | Comments Off on Listen to the evidence: polar bears are thriving in current sea ice habitat

Oddly, activist organization Polar Bears International recently updated their website and now suggest there is still time to save polar bears and sea ice – even though the IUCN Red List documented more polar bears alive in 2015 than at any time in the last 50 years, despite the recent decline of summer sea ice – and even more bizarrely, call for a public uprising.

2017-pbi-save-polar-bears-and-sea-ice

Polar Bears International (with three polar bear scientists on staff and other as active advisors) suggest that people who love polar bears should march the streets on Earth Day with scientists to demand (as concerned and engaged citizens) that world leaders take them seriously.

2017-peoples-climate-march-in-april-for-polar-bears-pbi-plea

Wow. I’ve been a career scientist for more than 40 years and I have to say, this is the oddest phenomenon I’ve encountered being advanced in the name of science. To me, it shows how disconnected these people are from what science is meant to be and what scientists are meant to do. Not just the polar bear scientists but the others like them that are behind this proposed march.

I recommend this blog post by Willis Eschenbach – an excerpt below.

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