Using sea ice maps issued by the National Sea Ice Data Center (NSIDC), it’s interesting to compare these two years with respect to polar bear health and survival (keeping in mind that no polar bears live in what I like to call the armpits of the Arctic – the Sea of Okhotsk, the Baltic Sea or in the Gulf of St. Lawrence)1:
22 January 2016
Comments Off on Polar bear survival: habitat 2013 vs. 2016 for 22 January
Posted in Conservation Status, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Arctic, Baltic Sea, Barents Sea, darkness, Derocher, facts, feeding, Gulf of St. Lawrence, habitat, NSIDC, polar bear, sea ice extent, Sea of Okhotsk, spring, starving, survival, Svalbard, winter
Here are some facts to counter the misinformation and fearmongering being spread via twitter by a polar bear biologist who is getting carried away with his conservation activism.
Following up on my last post, I note that Arctic regions with sea ice but not polar bears were about 0.32 mkm2 below last year’s March average extent – which means the total ice decline from 2014 (0.4 mkm2) represents only a slight decline in polar bear habitat, most of which is in the Barents Sea (and due primarily to the state of the AMO, not global warming).
Sea ice extent for the Sea of Okhotsk and Baltic Sea combined (both areas without polar bears)1 were about 0.6 mkm2 below average this year for March. Average extent for March (according to NSIDC) is 15.5 mkm2, which means this year’s extent (14.4 mkm2) was 1.1 mkm2 below average, of which less than half (0.5 mkm2) was “lost” polar bear habitat.
IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group biologist Andrew Derocher has been saying this is a “huge loss for polar bears” (see below): rational analysis of the facts show it is not. Continue reading
Comments Off on Challenging polar bear fearmongering about Arctic sea ice extent for March 2015
Posted in Advocacy, Sea ice habitat
Tagged activism, Baltic Sea, Barents Sea, Derocher, fearmongering, loss, maximum extent, misinformation, NSIDC, polar bear, record low, sea ice, Sea of Okhotsk, spring, spring ice
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