Tag Archives: historical sea ice record

Hudson Bay sea ice above average for this date – more good news for polar bears

Posted on December 4, 2014 | Comments Off

It’s only the 4th of December and Hudson Bay ice formation is way up over late 2000s coverage for this date — and higher than 2012, which had the lowest overall September ice extent for the Arctic since 1978.

This means boom times for Western and Southern Hudson Bay polar bears as sea ice formation is several days to a week ahead of last year. And as I mentioned in my last post, average November ice coverage across the Arctic this year was higher than 2003. Don’t forget that 2/3’s of the world’s polar bears live in Canada (see recent status update here; map below).

Figure 4. The Davis Strait (DS) subpopulation region runs from just below the Arctic Circle at the north end to at least 470N in the south. About half of DS lays at the same latitude as Western Hudson Bay (WH). Courtesy Environment Canada.

Polar bear population status in Canada. Courtesy Environment Canada.

More maps and charts below.
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Posted in Sea ice habitat

Tagged baffin bay, CIS, Davis Strait, Foxe Basin, freeze-up, historical sea ice record, Hudson Bay ice formation, ice extent, NSIDC, polar bear, polar bear habitat, sea ice, Southern Hudson Bay, western hudson bay

Natural selection helps polar bears adapt to sea ice variability – which means some bears die

Posted on September 30, 2014 | Comments Off

Evolution is not just for the long-term – natural selection also goes on over short time periods. In the case of polar bears, this adaptation is almost certainly critical for its long-term survival.

Hudson Bay female with cub_Wapusk_Thorsten Milse_Gov CA

Hudson Bay female with cub Wapusk National Park, Thorsten Milse, Government of Canada

Not all polar bears are identical — that is the reality that allows natural selection to operate.

I will argue that early breakup years in Western Hudson Bay weed out individual polar bears that do not have the physiological or behavioral characteristics necessary to be useful members of the population – and that this is a good thing for the entire population.

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Posted in Evolution, Population, Sea ice habitat

Tagged adaptation, declining sea ice, early breakup, evolution, historical sea ice record, indivdual variation, late freeze-up, natural selection, NSIDC, polar bear, resilience, sea ice minimum, sea ice variability, Stirling, Stroeve, survival, western hudson bay

Sea ice experts make astonishing admissions to polar bear specialists

Posted on July 29, 2014 | Comments Off

Climate scientists specializing in future sea ice predictions made some remarkable statements to polar bear scientists at their last meeting – admissions that may really surprise you.

Back on June 26 (reported here), the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) posted a summary of its last meeting. So, I was very surprised to find (while there looking for something else), that on 18 July 2014 they had added minutes from the meeting to that summary.

These minutes are a bonanza because among the juicy nuggets of information is a summary of what the three invited climate scientists from Colorado (Jennifer Kay, Mark Serreze, and Marika Holland) had to say and what questions were asked. While real transparency would have involved posting copies of the sea ice presentations and transcripts of the question and answer sessions, this is certainly better than nothing.
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Posted in Advocacy, Sea ice habitat

Tagged Arctic ice death spiral, climate models, historical sea ice record, ice-free Arctic, Mark Serreze, meeting minutes, natural variability, PBSG, polar bear, polar bear habitat, predictions, sea ice experts, sea ice models