Activist biologist stuffed with eco-anxiety shares unfounded concern of polar bear disaster

From Polar Bear Science

Posted on September 29, 2019 | Feedback Off on Activist biologist stuffed with eco-anxiety shares unfounded concern of polar bear disaster

Misplaced eco-anxiety that children have about polar bears begins with activist biologists like Steven Amstrup, spokesperson for a corporation dedicated to elevating local weather change alarm – and media shops like The Guardian who assist them unfold fears unsupported by scientific proof.

Fats wholesome polar bear male at Kaktovik, Alaska within the Southern Beaufort Sea, September 2019, Ed Boudreau photograph, with permission.

You may’t get far more excessive than these statements from Amstrup at this time however learn rigorously: it’s both opinion or factual elements of polar bear life (“we all know that the bears aren’t feeding”) made to sound like new, terrifying developments that may be blamed on local weather change.

From The Guardian (29 September 2019), “We all know they aren’t feeding’: fears for polar bears over shrinking Arctic ice” [my bold]:

“In 2015, the group reported that the polar bear inhabitants within the Beaufort Sea had declined by 40% over the earlier decade. “We will solely anticipate that these declines have continued,” Amstrup stated.

The lack of sea ice this 12 months was so pronounced early within the season that tagging crews from the US Geological Survey (USGS) concluded that the ocean ice offshore within the western arctic was too skinny and unstable to have the ability to conduct their research – the primary time the workforce have pulled their research due to issues of safety.”
…

“Amstrup stated funding cutbacks and the truth that biologists can’t get out and examine the bears means it might by no means have the ability to accumulate the required information to evaluate “simply how dangerous this 12 months was”.

As a substitute, Amstrup says this dangerous ice 12 months and document heat summer season are symbols of what the long run will deliver. Unhealthy years like this shall be more and more frequent and the dangerous years shall be more and more worse – so long as we permit CO2 ranges to proceed to rise.

“We all know that as greenhouse gasoline concentrations proceed to rise it’s going to be hotter and we’re going to have much less and fewer sea ice till polar bears disappear,” he stated.”

Amstrup has been crying wolf since 2007: the predictions of polar bear disaster have been all based mostly on his opinion (that’s how the mannequin was constructed) that this species wouldn’t have the ability to deal with 42% much less summer season sea ice than that they had had in 1980 (Amstrup et al. 2007; Crockford 2017, 2019; Durner et al. 2009).

Nonetheless, the proof collected by his colleagues has confirmed him mistaken repeatedly however he hasn’t modified his tune. Polar bears within the Chukchi Sea (the “western arctic”) have been thriving regardless of the dramatic decline in sea ice there – and so have the seals they rely on for meals (Crawford et al. 2015; Regehr et al. 2018; Rode and Regehr 2010; Rode et al. 2013, 2014, 2018). Barents Sea bears have been thriving regardless of a good higher lack of summer season ice (Aars 208; Aars et al. 2017).

Amstrup means that polar bear numbers within the Southern Beaufort this 12 months can solely have declined additional than the dip calculated for the 2001-2010 interval. Not so: it’s completely attainable – and eminently believable – that numbers have elevated. That’s as a result of bear numbers declined because of thick ice situations in spring between 2004 and 2007 that have been as dangerous as that they had been in 1974-1976, not due to decreased summer season ice since 2007 (Crockford 2017, 2018, 2019; Stirling 2002; Stirling et al. 2008; York et al. 2016).

Southern Beaufort polar bear populations have an extended historical past of declines and recoveries (Stirling 2002) and all of the pictures of polar bears out of Alaska for the final a number of years have proven fats wholesome bears – two are proven right here.  The place are the handfuls of ravenous bears that will supposedly be the harbingers of a declining inhabitants since 2010? Amstrup doesn’t produce proof of them.

Fats wholesome bear household on the Kaktovik bone pile, 20 April 2016

As well as, the concept that it’s important that scientists can’t get out on the ice to review polar bears as a result of the ice is “too skinny” is bogus. For polar bear research, sea ice must be thick sufficient to help the burden of a helicopter, analysis gear and Three-Four folks with out exceeding the chance threshold for insurance coverage functions (see photograph under). That’s a lot thicker ice than is critical to help the burden of a polar bear. Too skinny for scientists will not be too skinny for polar bear survival.

“We all know they aren’t feeding” Shock, shock! Really, it’s recognized that well-fed polar bears are in a position to survive at the least 5 months with out meals and most bears eat little over the summer season whether or not they hang around on shore or keep on the ocean ice (Stirling and Øritsland 1995).

Summer time sea ice ranges since 2007 haven’t been getting worse and worse: after an abrupt decline in 2007, September ice protection has various between about Three-5 mkm2. This 12 months was not worse than 2012 – which didn’t, by the best way, set off a polar bear disaster – however Amstrup tries to make it sound like 2019 was particularly horrific.

Amstrup says “we all know” that rising CO2 goes to trigger sea ice to proceed to say no till polar bears “disappear” however that’s merely not true: it’s his opinion that polar bears will disappear. Furthermore, he says “sea ice” when he means summer season sea ice, which is intentionally deceptive: in actual fact, no sea ice mannequin predicts that sea ice in winter and spring will decline considerably, not to mention disappear utterly (Stroeve et al. 2007; Overland and Wang 2013; Perovich et al. 2018; Wang and Overland 2012, 2015).

The reality is, Amstrup has a vested curiosity in advancing polar bear disaster: as I clarify in my new ebook, The Polar Bear Disaster That By no means Occurred (Crockford 2019), he considers his 2007 prediction that summer season sea ice decline would decimate polar bear numbers to be a profession legacy. He can’t bear to confess he was mistaken (no pun supposed) . That’s extremely unscientific. But the media assists him in passing his unfounded eco-anxiety about polar bears on to naïve younger kids and gullible adults and not using a phrase in regards to the present wholesome standing of the bears.

See this submit from 2015, with references: If summer season ice was vital for S. Beaufort polar bears, 2012 would have decimated them

And this one, additionally from 2015, with references: Polar bears out on the ocean ice eat few seals in summer season and early fall

See this submit from earlier this month, with references: Western Hudson Bay polar bears in nice form after 5 good sea ice seasons

And eventually, see this essential abstract submit from July this 12 months, with references: 10 fallacies about Arctic sea ice and polar bear survival: lecturers & dad and mom take observe

References

Aars, J. 2018. Inhabitants modifications in polar bears: protected, however rapidly shedding habitat. Fram Discussion board Publication 2018. Fram Centre, Tromso. Obtain pdf right here (32 mb).

Aars, J., Marques,T.A, Lone, Ok., Anderson, M., Wiig, Ø., Fløystad, I.M.B., Hagen, S.B. and Buckland, S.T. 2017. The quantity and distribution of polar bears within the western Barents Sea. Polar Analysis 36:1. 1374125. doi:10.1080/17518369.2017.1374125

Amstrup, S.C., Marcot, B.G. & Douglas, D.C. 2007. Forecasting the rangewide standing of polar bears at chosen instances within the 21st century. US Geological Survey. Reston, VA. Pdf right here

Crawford, J.A., Quakenbush, L.T. and Citta, J.J. 2015. A comparability of ringed and bearded seal weight-reduction plan, situation and productiveness between historic (1975–1984) and up to date (2003–2012) durations within the Alaskan Bering and Chukchi seas. Progress in Oceanography 136:133-150.

Crockford, S.J. 2017. Testing the speculation that routine sea ice protection of Three-5 mkm2 leads to a higher than 30% decline in inhabitants measurement of polar bears (Ursus maritimus). PeerJ Preprints 19 January 2017. Doi: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.2737v1 Open entry. https://peerj.com/preprints/2737/

Crockford, S.J. 2018. State of the Polar Bear Report 2017. International Warming Coverage Basis Report #29. London. pdf.

Crockford, S.J. 2019. The Polar Bear Disaster That By no means Occurred. International Warming Coverage Basis, London. Out there in paperback and e book codecs.

Durner, G.M., Douglas, D.C., Nielson, R.M., Amstrup, S.C., McDonald, T.L., et al. 2009. Predicting 21st-century polar bear habitat distribution from world local weather fashions. Ecology Monographs 79: 25–58.

Overland, J.E. and Wang, M. 2013. When will the summer season Arctic be practically sea ice free? Geophysical Analysis Letters 40: 2097-2101.

Perovich, D., Meier, W., Tschudi, M.,Farrell, S., Hendricks, S., Gerland, S., Haas, C., Krumpen, T., Polashenski, C., Ricker, R. and Webster, M. 2018. Sea ice. Arctic Report Card 2018, NOAA. https://www.arctic.noaa.gov/Report-Card/Report-Card-2018

Regehr, E.V., Hostetter, N.J., Wilson, R.R., Rode, Ok.D., St. Martin, M., Converse, S.J. 2018. Built-in inhabitants modeling gives the primary empirical estimates of significant charges and abundance for polar bears within the Chukchi Sea. Scientific Studies eight (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-34824-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-34824-7

Rode, Ok. and Regehr, E.V. 2010. Polar bear analysis within the Chukchi and Bering Seas: A synopsis of 2010 discipline work. Unpublished report to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Division of the Inside, Anchorage. pdf right here.

Rode, Ok.D., Douglas, D., Durner, G., Derocher, A.E., Thiemann, G.W., and Budge, S. 2013. Variation within the response of an Arctic high predator experiencing habitat loss: feeding and reproductive ecology of two polar bear populations. Oral presentation by Karyn Rode, 28th Lowell Wakefield Fisheries Symposium, March 26-29. Anchorage, AK.

Rode, Ok.D., Regehr, E.V., Douglas, D., Durner, G., Derocher, A.E., Thiemann, G.W., and Budge, S. 2014. Variation within the response of an Arctic high predator experiencing habitat loss: feeding and reproductive ecology of two polar bear populations. International Change Biology 20(1):76-88. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.12339/summary

Rode, Ok. D., R. R. Wilson, D. C. Douglas, V. Muhlenbruch, T.C. Atwood, E. V. Regehr, E.S. Richardson, N.W. Pilfold, A.E. Derocher, G.M Durner, I. Stirling, S.C. Amstrup, M. S. Martin, A.M. Pagano, and Ok. Simac. 2018. Spring fasting habits in a marine apex predator gives an index of ecosystem productiveness. International Change Biology http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.13933/full

Stirling, I. 2002. Polar bears and seals within the japanese Beaufort Sea and Amundsen Gulf: a synthesis of inhabitants traits and ecological relationships over three a long time. Arctic 55 (Suppl. 1):59-76. http://arctic.synergiesprairies.ca/arctic/index.php/arctic/concern/view/42

Stirling, I. and Øritsland, N. A. 1995. Relationships between estimates of ringed seal (Phoca hispida) and polar bear (Ursus maritimus) populations within the Canadian Arctic. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 52: 2594 – 2612. http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/f95-849#.VNep0y5v_gU

Stirling, I., Richardson, E., Thiemann, G.W. and Derocher, A.E. 2008. Uncommon predation makes an attempt of polar bears on ringed seals within the southern Beaufort Sea: attainable significance of adjusting spring ice situations. Arctic 61:14-22. http://arctic.synergiesprairies.ca/arctic/index.php/arctic/article/view/Three/Three

Stroeve, J., Holland, M.M., Meier, W., Scambos, T. and Serreze, M. 2007. Arctic sea ice decline: Quicker than forecast. Geophysical Analysis Letters 34:L09501. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2007GL029703

Wang, M. and Overland, J. E. 2012. A sea ice free summer season Arctic inside 30 years: An replace from CMIP5 fashions. Geophysical Analysis Letters 39: L18501. doi:10.1029/2012GL052868

Wang, M. and Overland, J.E. 2015. Projected future period of the sea-ice-free season within the Alaskan Arctic. Progress in Oceanography 136:50-59.

York, J., Dowsley, M, Cornwell, A., Kuc, M. and Taylor, M. 2016. Demographic and conventional information views on the present standing of Canadian polar bear subpopulations. Ecology and Evolution 6(9):2897-2924. DOI: 10.1002/ece3.2030

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