Polar Bears, Data, Opinions, and Global Warming

In #wordpress_migration

So I had a nice discussion with a student, who was confused after receiving some opposing viewpoints on Global Warming from different professors in a relatively short time period. In one of the statements, I had claimed that there were more polar bears now than there were 20-30 years ago. In another statement, another professor claimed that the polar bears were dying off due to arctic ice retreat due to global warming. This is actually a nice case of "follow the data", where the problem is defined in a relatively concrete way. Another example of this is the question "is it warmer now than 1000 years ago?". On the second question, www.realclimate.org would say "yes, it is warmer than 1000 years ago" and cite the proxy data, etc... www.climateaudit.org would say (I believe) "maybe, maybe not" and cite the issues with the analysis of the proxy data.

Now, back to the polar bears. From the polarbearsinternational it is confirmed that the population of polar bears from the 1960's was very low, in the few thousands, and in the early 2000s was up to between 22000-25000. These are also reflected in the usgs site on polar bears where you can actually get some of the data.

If you go to the polar bear specialist group which advises for the IPCC, you can find a table of the status of the polar bear in various regions. The problem with this table is that there is a column titled "Observed or predicted trend". Hello? Why would you mix observed trends and predicted trends in a table? Just show me the data. Anyway, there is a document here which has an explanation of the projections, and possibly some data, although I haven't read the 200 pages of the document to see if it is buried in the text (there is no figure with the data...just model predictions). I'd love to find a straightforward presentation of the estimates of the current numbers of polar bears, complete with error-bars to denote uncertainty.

It seems reasonable that with the decline of the arctic ice that the polar bear populations can be affected, some more than others, but the role of hunting (the regulation of which caused the surge in the bear numbers from the 1970s) still plays a role can is difficult to disentangle...I've seen unsubstantiated claims that the areas with the decrease are primarily hunting areas. I haven't confirmed this, but this could also be the fact that ice retreat will be more substantial in the more habitable areas, where there would be more people. Correlation does not equal cause and effect.

So, it is a fact that there are many more polar bears now than, say 30-40 years ago. It can also be true, although I have difficulty tracking the data down in a readable form, that arctic ice retreat could impact polar bear numbers adversely.

One question that I have now is, if it was warmer 1000 years ago, is there evidence that there was a significant retreat of the ice back then? If that is the case, then the polar bear scare is just that...a scare. Again, many of global warming consequences that are being reported are tied to the question of the size, extent, and effects of the Medieval Warming Period. That's why, in my opinion, that is the most important question of all.

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