Polar Bears Are Thriving

Actually there has been a research paper looking into these fake sites that downplay real environmental issues

https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/68/4/281/4644513

Keep up with the blogs they are so, well, unscientific

 

The site posts are often based on, and linked to, peer-reviewed research.

 

Harvey et al 2018 is an infamous smear driven by professional embarrassment among its authors. Their target, Susan Crockford, soundly refuted their forecasts of doom for polar bears and as new data come in they continue to strengthen her case. The wiser course would have been to admit she was right and they were wrong, but they have chosen to attack the scientist when the science itself is unassailable.

 

Watts Up With That?

Constant dire predictions have been an attempt to counter effective criticism of polar bears as AGW icon, says outgoing PBSG chair

July 3, 2021

From Polar Bear Science

By Susan Crockford

Excerpt:

In an unexpected statement, Dag Vongraven (the out-going Chairman of the Polar Bear Specialist Group) suggests that much of the incessant dire warnings of doom about the future of polar bears from PBSG members has been a counter-measure to offset the effective efforts by myself and others to expose the flawed rhetoric this group promotes.


You may remember Vongraven, who in 2014 famously sent me an email alerting me to a PBSG statement that later came back to bite them (in part because it was included in a CBC documentary called The Politics of Polar Bears later that year, see below):

Will this be another? You be the judge.

LINK

 

The bears' annual cycle continues.
Polar bears have begun to come ashore on Western Hudson Bay
Posted on July 9, 2021 | Comments Offon Polar bears have begun to come ashore on Western Hudson Bay
So far, the first evidence I’ve seen of a bear ashore in Western Hudson Bay was one photographed near Churchill Manitoba on 28 June (below).


28 June 2021 near Churchill
However, by 5 July, the first of six collared females from Andrew Derocher’s WH study (below) had also come ashore, as did others along the shore of Wapusk National Park. This is not ‘early’ – just earlier than the last few years. Like last year, however, there is still a fair amount of sea ice left on the bay and some bears seem to be choosing to stay out longer on what ‘experts’ describe as unsuitable habitat. As you can see on his bear tracker map, Derocher uses a filter that shows only ice >50% concentration because he and his buddies have decided that bears so dislike anything less that they immediately head to shore as soon as ice levels fall below this threshold.

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Good habitat for the bears.
As much Beaufort Sea polar bear habitat at mid-July 2021 as there was in 1982
Posted on July 18, 2021 | Comments Offon As much Beaufort Sea polar bear habitat at mid-July 2021 as there was in 1982
Beaufort Sea ice coverage is about average for this time of year, again failing to decline in lock-step with other Arctic regions. Will there be lots of fat bears onshore like there was in 2019? Only time will tell.


Healthy polar bear male at Kaktovik, Alaska on the Southern Beaufort Sea, September 2019, Ed Boudreau photo, with permission.
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We can expect IPCC and COP26 climate hype to include scary (and fictional) polar bear narratives.

Tipping points, Attenboroughesque narratives of climate doom and dying polar bears
Posted on August 9, 2021 | Comments Offon Tipping points, Attenboroughesque narratives of climate doom and dying polar bears
Outlandish ‘tipping point’ rhetoric is about to be regurgitated once again during the promotion of the latest IPCC report, due today. Tipping points are those theoretical climate thresholds that, when breeched, cause widespread catastrophe; they are mathematical model outputs that depend on many assumptions that may not be plausible or even possible.


Polar bears often get caught up in motivational tales of sea ice tipping points.

Tipping points are not facts: they are scary stories made to sound like science.

This is why Sir David Attenborough has totally embraced the tipping points narrative. He even made a movie fully devoted to them, called, Breaking Boundaries – The Science of Our Planet. Tipping points are the animal tragedy porn of mathematical models and Attenborough has adopted them both.

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Another good season for the bears.
Polar bear habitat update at mid-August
Posted on August 20, 2021 | Comments Offon Polar bear habitat update at mid-August

Oddly, after light winter ice coverage on Canada’s east coast and a slightly earlier sea ice breakup on Hudson Bay, the Arctic melt season has stalled. That’s not my opinion but the observation of the sea ice experts at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC):

Sea ice loss during the first half of August stalled, though ice in the Beaufort Sea is finally starting to weaken. The Northern Sea Route appears closed off in 2021, despite being open each summer since 2008.


Overall, ice coverage is well above what it was in 2012 (the lowest September extent since 1979) and many years since:


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The alarmists couldn't find any bad news, so they made some up.
Svalbard polar bear paper falsely assumes that loss of genetic diversity has negative consequences
Posted on September 8, 2021 | Comments Offon Svalbard polar bear paper falsely assumes that loss of genetic diversity has negative consequences
A new paper published today deals with an animal conservation issue I’ve addressed twice before: the theoretical assumption that loss of genetic diversity must be detrimental to species survival despite there being little evidence that this has been the case in real life. For this new study, the authors carried out some complicated measuring of genetic diversity loss and inbreeding amongst and between Svalbard region polar bear populations between 1995 and 2016 (see map below), and then modelled what this could lead to in 100 generations (1210 years), with the over-anxious hand-wringing we’ve all come to expect from such prophesies. As far as I can see, it’s all meaningless number-crunching without relevance to the real world of polar bears. . . .
Conspicuous by its absence in this new publication is a citation of the recent paper that revealed the body condition of female Svalbard polar bears had increased significantly between 2004 and 2017 despite a pronounced decline in summer and winter sea ice extent (Lippold et al. 2019: 98. Nor did the paper cite data collected by the Norwegian Polar Institute that show the body condition of adult males in Svalbard has not changed since 1993 or that population numbers have not declined. . . .

 

"Consensus" polar bear researchers have taken to lying about their past predictions in an attempt to salvage their reputations. The falsehood is obvious.

Still waiting for two thirds of polar bears worldwide to disappear due to lack of summer sea ice
Posted on September 15, 2021 | Comments Offon Still waiting for two thirds of polar bears worldwide to disappear due to lack of summer sea ice
It’s hard to believe that a polar bear specialist would claim that their predictions have come true, given the facts of the matter: that polar bears arguably number over 30,000 worldwide and regions with the most dramatic sea ice declines have not documented reduced polar bear health or survival. But in mid-July this year, Andrew Derocher – one of the field’s most vocal promoters – did just that: proclaimed on twitter that “virtually all of our predictions are coming true.” Except, none of them did, especially the most widely-promoted one, which failed spectacularly.


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Despite the claims of continuously debunked "experts" the bear population shows robust growth.
Wrangel Island research team counted a record number of Chukchi Sea polar bears in 2020
Posted on September 21, 2021 | Comments Offon Wrangel Island research team counted a record number of Chukchi Sea polar bears in 2020
Many Chukchi Sea polar bears spend the summer on Wrangel Island and a survey there conducted by Russian researchers in 2020 reportedly collected data on a record 747 bears, well up from the 589 reportedly counted in 2017 by the same team (photo below is from 2015).


Note the latest survey of the Chukchi Sea estimated about 3,000 bears inhabit the region (AC SWG 2018; Regehr et al. 201, at least 1,000 more that the figure of 2,000 used in recent IUCN assessments and survival predictions (Amstrup et al. 2007; Regehr et al. 2016; Wiig et al. 2015). Wrangel Island is the primary terrestrial denning area in the Chukchi Sea (Garner et al. 1984; Rode et al. 2014) and a recently published study showed that the body condition (i.e. fatness) and litter size of Chukchi Sea polar bears has not been negatively affected by low summer sea ice (Rode et al. 2021).

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It is quite possible the "consensus" polar bear researchers don't want to share data that contradicts their narrative.

Alaska polar bear researchers claim poor sea ice limited spring field work in 2021 more than 2019
Posted on October 7, 2021 | Comments Offon Alaska polar bear researchers claim poor sea ice limited spring field work in 2021 more than 2019
According to an Inside Climate News report, polar bear researchers at the US Geological Survey had trouble darting bears in the Southern Beaufort Sea in March-May of 2019 and 2021. They claim their research program was hampered by thinner-than-necessary ice for safely landing the nearly 4,000 lb. outfitted helicopter (with crew and gear) in 2019 but that conditions in 2021 were even worse (it is implied work proceeded in 2020 despite pandemic restrictions but no data for that year are discussed).


However, this claim of worse conditions in 2021 is not corroborated by reports from sea ice experts and ice charts for the Southern Beaufort this spring, where thick first year and multiyear ice was present from March through June. Ice didn’t begin to pull away from landfast ice to form patches of open water near the Canadian border until late April 2021 compared to early May in 2019 (as it did in 2016), as shown in the video and charts below. Moreover, the researchers oddly fail to mention that the presence of thin ice and open water in spring is essential for polar bear survival in the Southern Beaufort, a fact which has been documented and discussed in the scientific literature by their colleagues.

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More data to undermine the alarmist narrative.
Churchill problem polar bear reports finally completed and posted online
Posted on October 8, 2021 | Comments Offon Churchill problem polar bear reports finally completed and posted online
Although since 2015 at least the Polar Bear Alert Program in Churchill Manitoba usually issued and published its problem bear reports weekly during the ice-free season, this year has been an odd exception. Two reports in early July, then nothing. Yesterday, there was a dump of reports that had been compiled on 1 September and 7 October, according to their metadata.


There are still a few weeks missing, including the two most recent weeks but at least now we have a more complete picture of what’s been going on with problem bears in The Polar Bear Capital of the World that can be compared to previous years. Such reports in various forms go back to the late 1960s, although only those from recent years have been publicly available (Kearney 1989; Towns et al. 2009).

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He has been silent since July 2 and ignored your reply to his last post.

The evidence is overwhelming which is why they employ the baseless fallacious attacks on sources argument which are silly since you are posting accepted science research here which they treat like holy water.....

They are desperate.

 

Just when the alarmists want them to look bad, the bears are looking great.
No signs of a climate emergency for W. Hudson Bay polar bears this year ahead of UN climate meeting
Posted on October 15, 2021 | Comments Offon No signs of a climate emergency for W. Hudson Bay polar bears this year ahead of UN climate meeting
I’ve been told that another complete aerial survey of the Western Hudson Bay polar bear subpopulation (from the Nunavut to Ontario boundaries) was conducted in August this year and that the bears have been hanging out further south than usual. It will be years before the results of the population count are published, of course (especially if it’s good news) but my contacts also say virtually all of the bears are in great condition again this year.


This is significant because W. Hudson Bay bears are one of the most southern subpopulations in the Arctic (only Southern HB bears live further south) and older data from this region is being used to predict the future for the entire global population based on implausible model projections (Molnar et al. 2020). And scary predictions of future polar bear survival are often taken to be proxies for future human disasters (see ‘Polar bears live on the edge of the climate change crisis‘), a point that some activists will no doubt make in the coming weeks, as the long-awaited UN climate change bash #26 (COP26) gets underway in Glasgow, Scotland on October 31.

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Walrus will apparently not be on the menu this year -- there's too much ice.
Most Chukchi Sea ice in 20 years means no walrus feasts for polar bears at famous Russian cliffs
Posted on October 20, 2021 | Comments Offon Most Chukchi Sea ice in 20 years means no walrus feasts for polar bears at famous Russian cliffs
After years of hype, including documentary over-reach by David Attenborough and his collaborators at WWF and Netflix, there has been relatively abundant ice in the Chukchi Sea this summer, particulary along the Russian coast and around Wrangel Island, which in recent years have been important summer refuge areas for polar bears and Pacific walrus.


Walrus carcasses at the base of the cliff at Cape Schmidt, September 2017. Credit: Y. Basov.
This year, there has been nothing like the complete retreat of ice into the Arctic Basin as happened in 2007, 2012, and 2020. The chart below shows the ice extent at 11 October 2021:




Wrangel Island was surrounded by ice in 2000 and 2001, which made access to walrus haulouts on the island impossible (Kochnev 2004). Most of the walrus haulouts along the Chukotka coast were also ice-covered in September in those years, as were all of the western locations in 2021 – as the ice charts below show. The extra ice will have drastically affected the distribution of walrus this year, which in turn will have meant no walrus carcasses for polar bears to feast on as they have done for many years now.

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The alarmists keep flailing, and keep looking silly.
Fact checkers fail to refute polar bear number increases despite extensive ‘expert’ rhetoric
Posted on October 27, 2021 | Comments Offon Fact checkers fail to refute polar bear number increases despite extensive ‘expert’ rhetoric
There’s seems to be something about polar bears that really sets off the climate change fact-checkers. Mention that the situation for the bears is not quite as dire as we were told they would be 15 years ago and they can’t wait to sink their teeth in. . . .
Sadly, the question of how many polar bears exist today compared to decades ago is unnecessarily complicated and messy, as I discovered years ago. I dealt with this topic in my latest book, The Polar Bear Catastrophe That Never Happened, so for now I’ll just quote a bit from one of the chapters and let you decide for yourselves if the experts quoted by the ABC fact-checkers have a strong enough case to say without question that Rinehart was wrong. For example, you might ask why the PBSG experts used the estimate generated for the Kara Sea subpopulation of about 3,000 bears compiled by Russian researchers (Matishov et al. 2014) for their official IUCN 2015 assessment (Wiig et al. 2015; Regehr et al. 2016) but didn’t include that number in this ‘fact-check document – or why they similarly used an estimate of 2,000 for East Greenland for the 2015 assessment but provide no number for this ‘fact-check’. I’ll probably have more to say later.

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Purveyors of hype are undeterred by contrary data.
‘Already too late’ to save Churchill polar bears claim a false NY Times climate change cliché for COP26
Posted on November 4, 2021 | Comments Offon ‘Already too late’ to save Churchill polar bears claim a false NY Times climate change cliché for COP26
Not only is it prime polar bear viewing week in Churchill, Manitoba but it’s the week of the 26th international elite COP climate change gab-fest: every media outlet on the planet is eager to promote climate catastrophe talking points.


Hence totally expected that the New York Times would print someone’s unsupported claim that the polar bears of Churchill (part of the Western Hudson Bay subpopulation) are on the verge of extirpation due to lack of sea ice and other similar nonsense. Also not surprising to find that Canadian government biologist Nick Lunn used the occasion to again offer unpublished and misleading data to a reporter. However, this time it’s good news meant to sound like an emergency: if correct, the data he shared indicate polar bears are heavier now than they were in the 1990s and early 2000s.

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The alarmists continue to oppose data with propaganda. That's an unsound tactic.
Conditions were not golden for polar bears in the 1980s despite what activist expert claims
Posted on November 9, 2021 | Comments Offon Conditions were not golden for polar bears in the 1980s despite what activist expert claims
Does the following statement stand up to scrutiny – i.e. a fact check – of the scientific literature on polar bear ecology?

In the 1980s, “the males were huge, females were reproducing regularly and cubs were surviving well,” Amstrup said. “The population looked good.”

[Steven Amstrup, Anchorage Daily News (Borenstein and colleagues), 5 November 2021: ‘How warming affects Arctic sea ice and polar bears’]

Steven Amstrup
In short, it does not.

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He has been getting more and more desperate as his climate religion is reaching a dead end, it is a well paid climate cult racket.

Global Climate Warning Change!

There are 2 separate CO2 molecules: one causes fires, the other floods. It started in 1850.

Warmist is an alarmist!

 

Expanded range for a growing population.
Polar bear habitat more extensive in most areas of the Arctic compared to previous years
Posted on November 14, 2021 | Comments Offon Polar bear habit more extensive in most areas of the Arctic compared to previous years
Mid-November is half-way through the Arctic fall season (October-December) and polar bear habitat is expanding slowly. Here’s a look at fall conditions compared to previous years, so you can see where bears may still be ashore and fasting (i.e. Hudson Bay and southern Foxe Basin) and where others have already resumed feeding.




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Too much ice for ships, but the bears don't mind.

Chukchi Sea ice that didn’t melt this summer is now 2+m thick between Wrangel Island and the shore
Posted on November 18, 2021 | Comments Offon Chukchi Sea ice that didn’t melt this summer is now 2+m thick between Wrangel Island and the shore
Thick multiyear ice between Wrangel Island and the shore is now more than 2m thick, potentially impacting fall feeding for bears that routinely summer on Wrangel or the north coast of Chukotka.




Rapidly-forming sea ice in the Laptev and East Siberian Seas this fall – generated by cold winds from Siberia in late October despite warmer than ususal temperatures earlier in the month – has trapped a number of Russian ships that are being rescued by ice-breakers (below), according to a report in the Barents Observer earlier this week.


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The bears are doing fine, thank you.
Late freeze-up for W. Hudson Bay polar bears at odds with ice conditions elsewhere
Posted on November 24, 2021 | Comments Offon Late freeze-up for W. Hudson Bay polar bears at odds with ice conditions elsewhere
Sea ice is finally starting to form along the western shore of Hudson Bay, lagging well behind ice formation in the rest of the Arctic. Oddly, however, last year it was just the opposite: some WH bears were able to start hunting as early as 31 October (see photo below) while ice formation lagged behind in the Chukchi and Barents Seas.


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Winter is coming.
Sea ice cometh to Hudson Bay: freeze-up has begun
Posted on November 26, 2021 | Comments Offon Sea ice cometh to Hudson Bay: freeze-up has begun
Although it may take until the end of the month for all Western and Southern Hudson Bay bears (except for pregnant females) to have returned to the ice, freeze-up has finally begun in earnest and today some bears are already heading out to resume feeding before winter sets in. This is 3.5 weeks later than last year when WH bears were first spotted have killed a seal on 31 October.


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Alarmist foolishness about polar bears does not survive a dose of actual knowledge.
BUSTED: ‘polar bear eating reindeer seen as evidence of climate change’ Proven False
POLAR BEARS DECEMBER 8, 2021