Tag Archives: crystal ball

Hudson Bay could be ice-free in winter within 5-10 years, says seal researcher

Posted on December 7, 2016 | Comments Off

Ringed seal biologist Steven Ferguson, in a statement to a reporter from the Winnipeg Free Press, made one of the boldest predictions I’ve ever heard:

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“Hudson Bay could experience its first free winter within 5-10 years.”

You heard it here, folks. It appears Ferguson thinks Hudson Bay was never ice-free in winter even during the Eemian Interglacial, when the Bering Sea was ice-free in winter – something that has not come close happening in recent years (Polyak et al. 2010:1769).

Sounds like a bit of ill-advised grandstanding to me.

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Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat

Tagged crystal ball, Ferguson, Hudson Bay, ice-free, population decline, population size, predictions, ringed seals, winter ice

Polar bears that didn’t die from recent sea ice loss will die in 35 yrs, say ‘sperts

Posted on December 7, 2016 | Comments Off

Yesterday, the DailyMail (among others) was suckered into running virtually the same story The Guardian (among others) hyped last year about this time.

Using a science journal version of the 2015 IUCN Red List assessment report, polar bear data collectors and their fortune-teller colleagues have managed to get polar bears back in the news.

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I wrote about this last year – it’s actually good news, although you wouldn’t know it from the headlines.

Let me paraphrase the ‘sperts:

“After 10 years of ice conditions we didn’t expect would happen until mid-century (a worst-case scenario we said would cause more than 30% of the world’s polar bears to die – except they didn’t), we have now determined (using a new model and a brand new definition of sea ice specific to polar bears) that by mid-century, there is only a 70% chance that 30% of polar bears will die.”

This is how they explain away all the bears that didn’t die as they should have when summer sea ice declined to about 5 mkm2 and below after 2006.

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Posted in Conservation Status, Uncategorized

Tagged crystal ball, ESA, experts, future threats, polar bear, predictions, Red list, Regehr, sea ice, USGS

Polar bear doom and gloom from USGS vs. biologist Mitch Taylor’s reasoned thoughts

Posted on July 8, 2015 | Comments Off

A few days ago polar bear biologist Mitch Taylor and Nunavut’s Gabriel Niryungaluk talked to Toronto radio host Roy Green about the recent USGS dire model predictions for the future of polar bears.

There’s an audio podcast and, courtesy of the valuable efforts of fellow blogger Alex Cull, a transcript. Links below, plus some excerpts of Mitch Taylor’s commentary.
Continue reading →

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Posted in Conservation Status, Population

Tagged Alex Cull, climate change, crystal ball, extinction, future, Gabriel Niryungaluk, global warming, greenhouse gases, imminent danger, Mitch Taylor, models, Nunavut, opinion, polar bear, population size, predictions, radio interview, sea ice, threatened, transcript, USGS

Amstrup knows his polar bear predictions are flawed – but continues to promote them

Posted on November 29, 2014 | Comments Off

The largest conservation organization in the world says that predictive models developed by polar bear biologist Steven Amstrup are utterly unsuitable for scientifically estimating future populations. Earlier this year, mathematical modeling experts at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, who maintain the Red List of Threatened Species, made it clear that Amstrup’s models (used in 2008 to convince the US Fish and Wildlife Service to list polar bears as ‘threatened’ due to predicted global warming) do not meet IUCN standards.

I’d say this makes Amstrup’s polar bear projections (Amstrup et al. 2008, 2010) no more scientifically useful than a crystal ball prophesy, but you wouldn’t know it by his recent actions — or the silence of his fellows.