http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051219/full/051219-6.html
Drowning polar bears worry researchers
It was claimed that polar bears were being forced by climate change into cannibalism and attempting suicidal swims. Well, it was noticed that the bears had to attempt longer swims than usual because of receding ice increasing the risk of drowning.

However a solution is at hand:
http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051219/full/051219-1.html
Man breaks world records with antartic swim

We suggest we send this man to the artic to give the polar some tips and possibly train them.

There was some greate pictures of 4-5 gleches in the paper some days ago, the pictures of the gleches where set beside eachother, 1 from around 1900 and 1 from around 2005.

All of the new ones where quite amazing, with almost no show or ice and green grass all over in the newest of the pictures , greate comparison.

this stuff pisses me off. people are suing the US because the polar bears are dying. that is ridiculous for two reasons.
1. animals go extinct all the time, big deal. should I sue because there are no more woolly mammoths?
2. it is impossible to tell exactly how much of the climate change is due to the US.

tree huggers piss me off.

1. animals go extinct all the time, big deal.

Your right, destroing an eco system is a big deal


2. it is impossible to tell exactly how much of the climate change is due to the US.

the US is responcible for quite a large far of the total global polution and up until reasontly they have been compleately unwilling to even just talk about reducing polution.

It asked that polar bears be designated as 'threatened' under the Endangered Species Act. If the case is successful, the necessary steps to list polar bears as threatened could take up to two years.

Is it very unreasonable to ask the polar bear to designate the polar bear as 'threatened'?

These Polar bears would be ROFL :D

http://www.churchillmb.net/~cnsc/ab-attrac-bears.html
http://gocanada.about.com/od/westerncanada/a/polarbears.htm

Throughout the fall and especially just before freeze-up of the bay, increasing numbers of bears move towards the coast.

http://biology.usgs.gov/s+t/noframe/s034.htm

Numbers of bears captured per unit of effort, in the Beaufort Sea, also have increased, providing another indication of population growth. The few catch/effort data from the Chukchi Sea also suggest an increasing trend

http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/hansart.nsf/V3Key/LC20050525043

More recent studies have found a 20 to 25 per cent increase in polar bear numbers across Canada.

What the hell does anyone need with the damned polar bears? ....except in zoos, of course, where we can all look at 'em! What good is the polar bear to ...well, to anyone or anything?

Baron Max

Soon the only ones left will be in a museum of natural curiosities, just like you and your kind.

Well, when the last dodo bird died, did it cause any major upheaval in the world?

How many other species have gone extinct in the last 200 years? And did the passing of any of them cause any major upheaval in the world?

I'm not trying to be an asshole here, Spider, but seriously ...what difference will it make to anyone? How many people on Earth would ever actually see a polar bear in the wild? And if no human ever saw one, would it be like the tree that falls in the forest and no one hears it?

We try to make big issues out of things like this, but then no one seems to be able to adequately answer those simple questions. ...well, other than some snide-ass remarks meant to denigrate the questioner. :)

Baron Max

The problem here is that you Baron wouldn't even care if your neighbours would go extinct. That's just you. But some people actually care about the world they live in.

Well, when the last dodo bird died, did it cause any major upheaval in the world?
Baron Max
It did within the dodo-bird community.

People are still talking about the Dodo. I guess the extinction did cause a major upheaval.

What is this? la-la-la-I-can't-hear-you-ism? Am I on the ignore list or so?

I show that Polar Bears, which, incidentely, survived the early Holocene Thermal maximum (Hypsithermal) and the Medieval Warming Period, are thriving, increasing their numbers considerably, yet people continue to let them go extinct?

It happens to me all the time. So I read the links. A few comments maybe to spark off some discussion:

from the 3rd link:
The estimates were more consistent in the simpler Petersen model, substantiating the observation that the trend of increase is valid, but not erasing concerns about the absolute size of the population.

If managers are to keep polar bear numbers at optimum sustainable population levels in the face of increased harvests and other local and global perturbations, they will need more accurate and precise population estimates and an understanding of the ecosystem forces that limit polar bear population size.

I highlighted global perturbations here. The researchers of this article were cautious about this for good reason. As they mentioned several times in the article. We do not really understand the complex interactions that govern the polar bear population. I would also like to point out the newest data in this article comes from 1992 if I have seen it correctly. That's more than a decade ago. Are there more recent figures you know off? It would be interesting to compare them. The other problem is that they measured local populations. Are they the populations that are effected first when ice retreats?

4th article:

This seems more a political pamflet to counter political claims by environmental groups. I can't really extract very useful information about it.

It is mentioned that populations of polar bears acrros canada have increased. But I would like to see the original research. Is the increase merely the increase of contact with humans, which could have many causes? Is it an increase in actual numbers of polar bears? etc.

Maybe I will surf a bit later on to see if there is some other objective data around.

Of course environmental groups will distort scientific data to abuse the goodwill of the media and the people. This doesn't mean that the fate of the polar bear is not uncertain.

this stuff pisses me off. people are suing the US because the polar bears are dying. that is ridiculous for two reasons.
1. animals go extinct all the time, big deal. should I sue because there are no more woolly mammoths?
2. it is impossible to tell exactly how much of the climate change is due to the US.

tree huggers piss me off.
i say we wage war on nature, just whip her ass.
nuke the whales!

What good is the polar bear
fur coats for ritzy women. the rest, throw it away.

I'm not trying to be an asshole here,
you are a natural born asshole baron,there is no "trying" to it.

you are a natural born asshole baron,there is no "trying" to it.

Well, that was certainly a nice thing to say. However, I noticed that you didn't answer the question I posed ...why not? Can't think of an good answer? Can't think of ANY answer? ...so you rely on a personal attack against the questioner, therefore feel that the question doesn't need to be answered? ...sorta' like killing the messenger if you don't like the message?

Merry Christmas to you,

Baron Max

why thank you baron, it came straight from the heart

why not what?

this ain't gonna turn into one of those who's on first deals is it?

merry christmas to you too

The real problem, as is also mentioned in this article, is Global Warming. Polar Bears need to go out far enough onto the ice to catch seals for food in the winter. Global Warming has not only made the ice sheet smaller, but thinner too, so they break through the ice.

This article is interesting because it seems to suggest that the Polar Bears know that they have to get out farther into the Arctic Ocean to capture seals, whether or not they walk out on ice or swim out to get them. Is this intelligence, or instinct?

No, the real problem is the scaremongering in a delicate unbalanced human society, where people seem to have a great need for recognition and a need for safety but face the fear of the unknown. So the Valichs of the world, searching for recognition admiration and power, are more than happy to create an image of great danger, threatening the world and humanity. The media are happy to exagerate that message a little because because that's what the people want to hear and they want their share of recognition. Good news is no news and we thrive on bad news. So the governments, that want to govern in peace, give the people what the people want, because happy people are prepared to pay the taxes required to stop the horror, so they support the scaremongers who are happy to comply and produce even more scare. This a powerful feedback system that tends to go out of control, regardless of the scare of the moment.

This way we have seen the eugenetic scare, anti-semitism, mutual assured destruction, nuclear waste et al, the nuclear meltdown scenarios, the coming ice age, the population bomb, the asteroid collision, the clash of the civilisations, Y2K and now it's called global warming with all it's extremities.

Usually and regardless of positive proof pro or con, those hypes fade slowly when signs stay out. The next hype will probably be clathrate destabilisation disasters when it finally becomes clear that those have been responsible for the spikes that we see in the ice cores and oceanic foram cores.

Where did you get this idea from? Are you condemning a person for striving for knowledge and looking for intelligence? I'm amongst the dumbest people on Earth. Why would I want to srtive for "admiration and power"???

The lead guy takes the back seat: not the front. The greatest leaders are those that never wanted to be one.

There is absolutely no doubt that Arctic ice is melting at a quick pace. Let's at least throw the bears a life-preserver!

Perhaps it's better to relax instead of all that scaremongering.

http://biology.usgs.gov/s+t/noframe/s034.htm

We are confident that the growth we detected in the Beaufort Sea population is real. A finite rate of growth of 1%-2% and a current population of approximately 1,500 are both reasonable. Increased numbers of polar bears seen along Alaska's north coast in recent years, increased encounter rates by researchers, and matrix models all suggest the population is larger now than in the recent past. This increase in numbers has occurred despite continued hunting by local resident Native people, and despite development of the nation's largest oilfield at Prudhoe Bay. The age structure and survivorship patterns of recent years suggest the population in the Beaufort Sea may be at or near the limits set by its environment.

And no, the Arctic is not melting that much and it has survived all those previous warm periods shown here,

http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/alley-3.GIF

there is no reason why it would not do so now , perhaps only if we put all the hot headed scaremongers on Greenland. No ice would resist that heat.

The Arctic is melting! See all the scientific posts on this and the Global Warming links. To deny this is to be dillusional. The Inuit natives from Northeast Canada and Greenland are now suing the United States and Canadian governments because they can no longer walk onto the ice far enough out in the winters to get fish to eat - to live!. The same goes for polar bears. Read the post "Polar Bears Drowning."

I think you've posted this graph before, no? And what does it show? It shows an increase in Global Warming since almost 1000 years ago! We are not interested in the climate 4,000 years ago. Notice the little red projected line after the year 2000? That's where we're at right now! And we have tons and tons of scientific proof!

The Arctic is melting!

Yes and? That has happened about 8-10 times in the last 10,000 years and much more severe than right now. What else is new?

Eventually it goes down again. That's nature. That's why I keep posting that graph, what's happening now is another mild -insignificant- natural spike in comparison what has happened in the past, even 1000 years ago the Arctic was much warmer then now, Why do you think that the Vikings called Greenland Greenland in that time?

Even 60 years ago the Arctic was about as warm as it is now.

The Inuit natives from Northeast Canada and Greenland are now suing the United States and Canadian governments because they can no longer walk onto the ice far enough out in the winters to get fish to eat - to live!.

Which is blatant evidence how silly mankind can get when caught in the slippery slope of the positive feedback spiral of fear and scaremongering. This is just as mad as my car doesn't start so I'm going to kill the cat of the neighbours.

The same goes for polar bears. Read the post "Polar Bears Drowning."

No you read my links to the abundance of evidence that there are many more Polar Bears than ever before in the last century.

I think you've posted this graph before, no? And what does it show? It shows an increase in Global Warming since almost 1000 years ago! We are not interested in the climate 4,000 years ago.

That's the must stupid remark you have made thusfar. The past climate should learn us about the future.

Notice the little red projected line after the year 2000? That's where we're at right now! And we have tons and tons of scientific proof!

Yes and? That's what happening, up and down, every once and awhile. This is the zillionth spike up, why must this be manmade all of a sudden? with zillion minus one spikes without any help of mankind.

I totally agree with you btw on your analysis of the climate data. We know to little to make clear statements. And our climate is always changing.

But we are not talking about reversing any global climate change that might or might not be there. We are asking if the USA could possible be so nice to put the polar bear on the endangered list as a safety precaution.

Is that unreasonable?

I don't know, Mark. Is there enough room on that list for all more or less stable but potentially vulnerable species?

It's not that nothing has been done:

http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/bear-facts/

Polar bears are a potentialy threatened (not endangered) species living in the circumpolar north. They are animals which know no boundaries. They pad across the ice from Russia to Alaska, from Canada to Greenland and onto Norway's Svalbard archipelago. No adequate census exists on which to base a worldwide population estimate, but biologists use a working figure of perhaps 22,000 to 25,000 bears with about sixty percent of those living in Canada.

In most sections of the Arctic where estimates are available, polar bear populations are thought to be stable at present. Counts have been decreasing in Baffin Bay and the Davis Strait, where about 3,600 bears are thought to live, but are increasing in the Beaufort Sea, where there are around 3,000 bears.

In the 1960s and 1970s, polar bears were under such severe survival pressure that a landmark international accord was reached, despite the tensions and suspicions of the Cold War. The International Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears was signed in Oslo, November 15, 1973 by the five nations with polar bear populations (Canada, Denmark which governed Greenland at that time, Norway, the U.S., and the former U.S.S.R.).

The polar bear nations agreed to prohibit random, unregulated sport hunting of polar bears and to outlaw hunting the bears from aircraft and icebreakers as had been common practice. The agreement also obliges each nation to protect polar bear denning areas and migration patterns and to conduct research relating to the conservation and management of polar bears. Finally, the nations must share their polar bear research findings with each other. Member scientists of the Polar Bear Specialist Group meet every three to four years under the auspices of the IUCN World Conservation Union to coordinate their research on polar bears throughout the Arctic.

With the agreement in force, polar bear populations slowly recovered. The Oslo agreement is one of the first and most successful international conservation measures enacted in the 21st century.


Perhaps another general example how the scaremongering - fear loop got out of control these days.

Andre,

Don't worry about the room on the list. They are already on it! ;)

Some (political/environmental/scientific) organizations would just like to see their status changed on the list from vulnerable to threatened by the Americans.

i can't be bothered to read the article again to see if I got the terminology right.

So basically we are talking about a rather small step. And I always am rather on the safe side of the polar bear, but that is just because I always like this particular species. Therefore I am rather biased in this matter.

if you would ask me about the panda I would probably say something like 'let's all grind them into sausages'

"Reports this week claimed that polar bears were being forced by climate change into cannibalism and attempting suicidal swims. Experts say it is too early to be sure, but that these are the kind of impacts expected as melting sea ice leaves the bears with longer distances to travel.

At the sixteenth biennial conference on the biology of sea mammals in San Diego, California, last week, marine biologists from the US Minerals Management Service reported finding four bears drowned off the northern coast of Alaska last autumn. They also spotted an unusually large number of bears swimming in the open sea, some as far as 95 kilometres offshore. Twenty percent of bears seen in the area in September were in the water, while records from previous years show that 4% of sighted bears were swimming.

Going, going, gone

Folkestad says the trend of melting Arctic ice, which is the main habitat for polar bears, presents real problems for the species. The ice sheet is shrinking at a rate of about 10% per decade, with Arctic summer temperatures climbing to around 2 °C higher than they were 50 years ago. About 1.3 million square kilometres, an area equivalent to three times that of California, have been lost over the past four years.

In June 2005, the world conservation union (IUCN) polar bear specialist group decided polar bears should have their conservation status upgraded from 'least concern' to 'vulnerable'. The panel, made up of the world's leading polar bear experts, did so because they expect a 30% decline within the next 35 to 50 years, due to loss of their ice habitat.

Most populations seem steady, but a study to be published next year by the US Geological Survey and Canadian Wildlife Service will show a serious decline in the population of polar bears in Hudson Bay, Canada. The number of bears has fallen by 22% since 1987, dropping to 935 animals last year.

Source: "Drowning polar bears worry researchers: Evidence hints that bear populations are on thin ice," by Tom Simonite, Nature, Published online: 20 December 2005. http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051219/full/051219-6.html

Come on, the poles are thickening.
Get with the program:

Ice and snow piling up over a large area of Antarctica
19 May 2005 - According to a new study published in the online edition of Science, the East Antarctic Ice Sheet gained about 45 billion tons of ice between 1992 and 2003. The ice sheets are several kilometers thick in places, and contain about 90% of the world's ice.

Using data from the European Space Agency's radar satellites ERS-1 and ERS-2, a research team from the University of Missouri , Columbia , measured changes in altitude over about 70% of Antarctica's interior. East Antarctica thickened at an average rate of about 1.8 centimeters per year over the time period studied, the researchers discovered.

The region comprises about 75% of Antarctica 's total land area and about 85% of the total ice volume. The area in question covers more than 2.75 million square miles - roughly the same size as the United States.

(This means that more than 90 percent of the world's glaciers are growing thicker … while the media keeps yelling about the ones that are melting.)

http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050516/full/050516-10.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/20/science/20ICE.html


See also expanding glaciers.

Polar bears do not live in antartica.

Polar bears do not live in antartica.That is correct and a direct result of the ancient PB/P agreement.

The Penguins ceded the artic to the PBs, in exchange for exclusive rights to Antarctica. Clause 37 of the treaty is the reason polar bears are drowning.

The PBs are trying to develop long-range swimming ability because they fear an invasion of the artic by the penguins who, in violation of clause 37, have already occupied the Gallops Islands.

BP thinking is like GWB's - better to go on the attack than to wait for them to arrive north of the artic circle, but it is a very long swim to the Gallops Islands, so there will be causalities. Long practice swims are a necessary first step in defense of the artic. Every bear must do his duty and as their leader says: “not waver” / “stay the course” :rolleyes:

The Arctic Ice is Shrinking and Will Disappear by 2050. How do polar bears then catch seals?!!!


http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/050929/050929_arcticice_hlrg.hlarge.jpg

"Satellite image on the left shows the minimum concentration of Arctic sea ice in 1979, while the image on the right shows the concentration of sea ice recorded on Sept. 21, 2005. New satellite observations show that sea ice in the Arctic is melting faster while air temperatures in the region are rising sharply.

New satellite observations show that sea ice in the Arctic is melting faster while air temperatures in the region are rising sharply. Since 2002, satellite data have revealed unusually early springtime melting in areas north of Siberia and Alaska. Now the melting trend has spread throughout the Arctic. The observations showed 2.06 million square miles of sea ice as late as Sept. 19. That’s the lowest measurement of Arctic sea ice cover ever recorded, the researchers said. It’s also 20 percent less than the average of end-of-summer ice pack cover measurements recorded since 1978.

At the same time, average air temperatures across most of the Arctic region from January to August 2005 were as much as 5.4 degrees warmer than average temperature over the last 50 years, said the team of researchers from two universities and NASA. “The melting and retreat trends are accelerating,” Ted Scambos, of the University of Colorado at Boulder’s National Snow and Ice Data Center, said in a statement released by the university. The results have not yet been published in a scientific journal." http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9527485/

Thanks for the convincing photos, Valich.

At present rate, in less than a decade, a modern Henry Hudson will find the "North West Passage." He probably will be Chinese or Japanese. - A short route to Russian oil and gas* reserves has a lot of economic value to both, after dollar and Euro collapse.

Global warming will be good for Russia also. NYC under water etc. is only part of reason. Russia is currently cursed with all it mains rivers flowing North. - Their artic river mouths are still frozen when the southern parts start heavy spring flows - so there are great floods in the north every year - one of reasons (in addition to very cold winters) for very low population density along the Russian artic coast.
_____________________________________
*Also of some value is the lower rate of gas evaporation /loss required to keep gas liquid during the trip thru still cold artic region.

That's cross posting (http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?p=943999#post943999). One is enough. No need to, but then perhaps also check this (http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?p=944146#post944146)