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Polar bear populations healthy not dwindling polar bears can survive a complete or nearly complete fast from June to late November (and pregnant females from June to early April the following year). That’s the beauty of their Arctic adaptation: …Starvation is the leading natural cause of death for polar bears because if they cannot put on the fat they need in spring, they will not survive the low food months of summer and winter, whether they are on land or out on the sea ice (Amstrup 2003). Polar bear survival depends on the consumption of large numbers of fat, newborn seals that are only available in abundance from March to mid May (depending on the location and species of seal): after this time, fewer seals are available and are very hard to catch.

***

POLAR BEARS

‘Inconvenient‘

* NO other icon of ‘Global Warming’ epitomises its very own false narrative like the polar bear does for ‘Climate Change’. WITH deadly irony, polar bear numbers have grown dramatically as carbon dioxide emissions have risen in lock-step. A CO2 correlation, at last! INDIGENOUS Inuit’s of Northern Canada are now facing the very real task of having to cull the population as “the polar bear may have exceeded the co-existence threshold.”

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* “Inuit believe there are now so many bears that public safety has become a major concern,” “Public safety concerns, combined with the effects of polar bears on other species, suggest that in many Nunavut communities, the polar bear may have exceeded the co-existence threshold.” Nunavut’s polar bear population is unsafe, government document says – The Globe and Mail

Nunavut’s polar bear population is unsafe, government

document says | The Globe and Mail * https://climatism.blog/2019/01/17/climatism-2019-state-of-the-climate-report/

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← Just look at what the ‘global heat wave’ is doing to polar bear sea ice habitat! Sea ice is critical habitat for polar bears from late fall through late spring only Posted on July 14, 2018 | Comments Offon Sea ice is critical habitat for polar bears from late fall through late spring only Sea ice is said to be “an essential habitat for polar bears” but that’s an overly simplistic advocacy meme as ridiculous as the “no sea ice, no polar bears” message with which the public is constantly bombarded. Polar bears require sea ice from late fall to late spring only: from early summer to mid-fall, sea ice is optional. Historical evidence of polar bears that spent 5 months on land during the summer of 1874 proves an extended stay ashore is a natural response of polar bears to natural summer ice retreat, not a consequence of recent human-caused global warming. Sea ice is a seasonal requirement for polar bears: it’s not necessary year round.

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[This PBI newsletter from 2011 repeats this meme and Andrew Derocher’s recent tweet conveys a similar message (“Sea ice loss = habitat loss for polar bears”)] As long as sea ice is available from late fall through late spring (December to early June) and accompanied by abundant seal prey (sometimes it isn’t, see Derocher and Stirling 1995; Stirling 2002; Stirling et al. 1981, 1982, 1984), polar bears can survive a complete or nearly complete fast from June to late November (and pregnant females from June to early April the following year). That’s the beauty of their Arctic adaptation: fat deposited in early spring allows polar bears to survive an extraordinary fast whether they spend the time on land or sea ice. Young and very old bears, as well as sick and injured ones, are the exception: these bears often come ashore in poor condition and end up dying of starvation — as a much-publicized bear on Baffin Island who likely had a form of cancer did last summer (Crockford 2018). Competition with bigger, stronger bears means these bears can’t keep what they are able to kill and they are most often the bears who cause problems. Starvation is the leading natural cause of death for polar bears because if they cannot put on the fat they need in spring, they will not survive the low food months of summer and winter, whether they are on land or out on the sea ice (Amstrup 2003). Polar bear survival depends on the consumption of large numbers of fat, newborn seals that are only available in abundance from March to mid May (depending on the location and species of seal): after this time, fewer seals are available and are very hard to catch.

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As I’ve stated previously (Crockford 2018:15): “Sea ice extent in June has declined, on average, from just over 12 mkm2 in the 1980s to just over 11 mkm2 from 2004-2017. 140 By late May to early June, the young seals that form the bulk of polar bear diets in spring take to the water to feed and are no longer available on the ice, leaving only predatory-savvy adults and subadults hauled out as potential prey. 141 This means few seals are actually caught and consumed by polar bears after about mid-June in Seasonal and Divergent sea ice ecoregions, or by mid-July in Convergent and Archipelago regions (see Section 6, Prey Base).” The most pessimistic predictions of March sea-ice extent at the end of the 21st century is about 12.0 million km2 (Stroeve et al. 2007), equal to the average extent of ice for May 2016 (shown below, from NSIDC), which is a perfectly adequate amount of ice to meet polar bear needs in all subpopulations during late winter/early spring:

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Not a single sea ice prediction suggests the disappearance of sea ice in winter or early spring due to human-caused global warming (Amstrup et al. 2007; Regehr et al. 2016) and predictions of catastrophic polar bear losses due to sea ice declines have failed to materialize (Crockford 2017).

From early summer to mid-fall, many bears lounge around on land with no ill-effects. As far as we know, they have always done so (see Historical Evidence below). There is also no biological reason to suggest that well-fed bears that historically did not have to spend much time ashore in summer (such as those in the Southern Beaufort) are incapable of doing so for 5 months if necessary.

The Myth of Extraordinary Species Extinction Due to Man-Made Global Warming Mar 5, 2019 | Posted by Dr. Jay Lehr & Tom Harris

Al Gore wrote in An Inconvenient Truth that global warming “is causing the loss of living species at a level comparable to the

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extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs 6.5 million years ago.” As is often the case when the former vice president addresses climate change, he could not be more wrong. It is estimated there are currently more than 10 million species on Earth—more than at any other time in history. New species are constantly replacing old. Although humans have been responsible for the extinction of some species in recent centuries, extinctions have always been an integral part of life. And, despite recent claims that the Australian brown rat is the first mammal to have been killed off by human-induced climate change, not a single species has been shown to even be threatened or endangered by so-called man-made global warming.

HISTORICAL EVIDENCE

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Back in 1874 — well before human-caused global warming reared its ugly head — hundreds of fat, healthy Chukchi Sea polar bears (see drawing below) spent four to five months on St. Matthew Island in the Bering Sea during the summer (at about 60°N latitude, not quite as far south as Churchill, Manitoba); some females stayed on to have their cubs in maternity dens dug into the hills (Eliott and Coues 1875; Elliott 1875; Klein and Sowls 2011).

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Figure 2. A drawing of polar bears on St. Matthew Island that accompanied the May 1, 1875 Harper’s Weekly Journal of Civilization article written by

Henry Elliot. See here. From my 2013 post on this topic: “Elliott’s government report (Elliott and Coues 1875: Appendix) notes that the bears they saw were “in most excellent condition, fat and sleek.” They encountered both males and females with twin cubs. Maynard’s report apparently mentions twins and triplets – “about one third grown” (cited in Klein and Sowls 2011:430), i.e. one year old cubs. Elliott and Maynard found empty maternity dens that had been dug into the hillsides and “bear roads” winding around the island. Fresh water was abundant on the island and while there were walrus and a few seals offshore, there was only scant evidence (the carcass of one young walrus) that the bears were feeding on them. The bears appear to have been fasting – except for the odd bit of scavenging and grass-chewing, which all land-bound polar bears appear to do.” The fact that well-fed Chukchi Sea polar bears spent 5 months onshore in the late 1800s suggests that well-fed polar bears throughout the Arctic have always had the ability to fast for this length of time: it is not a new phenomenon associated with recent sea ice changes blamed on human-caused global warming (Overland and Wang 2013; Wang and Overland 2012, 2015).

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Note that polar bears no longer den or spend the summer on St. Matthew Island because they were exterminated by commercial hunters. Wrangel Island to the north is now the primary denning/summering location.

MODERN EVIDENCE Wrangel Island One of the largest terrestrial denning area in the Arctic is on Wrangel Island, off the Russian coast of the Chukchi Sea, where in 2017 almost 600 bears were estimated onshore for the 3-4 month summer ice-free season. Bears in the Chukchi Sea are doing very well, better than they were in the 1980s (Rode and Regehr 2010; Rode et al. 2013, 2014, 2018), despite a dramatic reduction in summer sea ice (Serrez et al. 2016). Last year, polar bear biologist Eric Regehr (US Fish & Wildlife Service) told the Daily Mail (23 November 2017) that the Chukchi Sea subpopulation “appears to be productive and healthy.”

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Photo below of a fat Wrangel Island bear. Shutterstock. Svalbard Despite concerns over the effect of spring sea ice loss around the Svalbard archipelago in recent years (circled in yellow in the maps below, from Walsh et al. 2017), polar bear data collected by researchers up to the spring of 2018 show little to no negative impact from these low ice springs (see previous post here, with references).

It must be remembered that the polar bear subpopulation region that encompasses Svalbard is called “Barents Sea” (see map below from the PBSG) and includes the archipelago of Franz Josef Land to the east that has a much colder climate (Barr 1995). Franz Josef Land is where most Barents Sea polar bears live (Aars et al. 2009) and provides abundant denning habitat for pregnant females as well as a refugium for bears that prefer to stay on land during the summer when sea ice retreats. It is likely that most females that formerly made terrestrial dens on Svalbard have now shifted to Franz Josef Land (Aars 2015; Aars et al. 2017; Descamps et al. 2017), except for years (like 2014) with abundant fall ice.

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Western and Southern Hudson Bay Here are critical words to remember (more details here) from biologist Martin Obbard and colleagues (2016:29) on the relationship between body condition and sea ice for Southern Hudson Bay (SH) polar bears, which apply equally well to bears in other regions: “Date of freeze-up had a stronger influence on subsequent body condition than date of break-up in our study. Though models with date of freeze-up were supported over models with other ice covariates, we acknowledge that lower variability in freeze-up dates than in ice duration or break-up dates could have influenced the model selection process. Nevertheless, we suggest that a stronger effect of date of freeze-up may be because even though break-up has advanced by up to 3-4 weeks in portions of Hudson Bay it still occurs no earlier than late June or early July so does not yet interfere with opportunities to feed on neonate ringed seal pups that are born in March-April in eastern Hudson Bay (Chambellant 2010). Therefore, losing days or weeks of hunting opportunities during June and July deprives polar bears of the opportunity to feed on adult seals, but does not deprive them of the critical spring period (Watts and Hansen 1987) when they are truly hyperphagic. No doubt, the loss of hunting opportunities to kill adult seals has a negative effect on body condition, but it appears that

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for bears in SH a forced extension of the fast in late fall has a greater negative effect on subsequent body condition.” [my bold] In other words, by mid-June at least, polar bears have largely finished their intensive feeding that’s so critical to their survival over the rest of the year. They may catch a few seals over the coming months but for most bears, this makes little difference to their overall condition or potential survival.

Most bears are at their fattest in early summer (when they come off the ice to spend the summer ashore) after having gorged on newborn seals in early spring.

Breakup dates for Western Hudson Bay have not become progressively earlier each year since 1979: rather, a step-change occurred about 1997/1998 that meant breakup dates since then have been about 3 weeks earlier than before (with much year to year variation). There has been no trend in breakup or freeze-up dates since 1995 or 2001 depending on how you calculate the data (Castro de la Guardia et al. 2017; Lunn et al. 2016). For both Western and Southern Hudson Bay, very late freeze up has had the most negative impact on polar bear survival. When bears come ashore in less than good condition (as they did in 1983), many bears can struggle to survive. However, poor feeding conditions on the bay during early spring (about which virtually nothing is known), can also impact the body condition and survival of bears. REFERENCES Aars, J. 2015. Research on polar bears at Norwegian Polar Institute. Online seminar (‘webinar”), January 14. pdf here. Aars, J., Marques,T.A, Lone, K., Anderson, M., Wiig, Ø., Fløystad, I.M.B., Hagen, S.B. and Buckland, S.T. 2017. The number and distribution of polar bears in the western Barents Sea. Polar Research36:1. 1374125. doi:10.1080/17518369.2017.1374125 Aars, J., Marques, T.A., Buckland, S.T., Andersen, M., Belikov, S., Boltunov, A., et al. 2009. Estimating the Barents Sea polar bear subpopulation. Marine Mammal Science 25: 35-52. Amstrup, S.C. 2003. Polar bear (Ursus maritimus). In Wild Mammals of North America, G.A. Feldhamer, B.C. Thompson and J.A. Chapman (eds), pg. 587-610. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore. Amstrup, S.C., Marcot, B.G. & Douglas, D.C. 2007. Forecasting the rangewide status of polar bears at selected times in the 21st century.US Geological Survey. Reston, VA. Pdf here

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Barr, S. 1995. Franz Josef Land. Oslo: Norwegian Polar Institute. ISBN 82-7666-095-9. Castro de la Guardia, L., Myers, P.G., Derocher, A.E., Lunn, N.J., Terwisscha van Scheltinga, A.D. 2017. Sea ice cycle in western Hudson Bay, Canada, from a polar bear perspective. Marine Ecology Progress Series 564: 225–233. http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v564/p225-233/ Crockford, S.J. 2017. Testing the hypothesis that routine sea ice coverage of 3-5 mkm2 results in a greater than 30% decline in population size of polar bears (Ursus maritimus). PeerJ Preprints 2 March 2017. Doi: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.2737v3 Open access. https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.2737v3 Crockford, S.J. 2018. State of the Polar Bear Report 2017. Global Warming Policy Foundation Report #29. London. pdf here. Derocher, A.E. and Stirling, I. 1995. Temporal variation in reproduction and body mass of polar bears in western Hudson Bay. Canadian Journal of Zoology 73:1657-1665. http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/z95-197 Descamps, S., Aars, J., Fuglei, E., Kovacs, K.M., Lydersen, C., Pavlova, O., Pedersen, Å.Ø., Ravolainen, V. and Strøm, H. 2017.Climate change impacts on wildlife in a High Arctic archipelago — Svalbard, Norway. Global Change Biology 23: 490-502. doi: 10.1111/gcb.13381 Elliott, H.W. 1875 . Polar bears on St. Matthew Island. Harper’s Weekly Journal of Civilization. May 1 issue. Harper and Brothers, New York. Elliott, H.W. and Coues, E. 1875. A report upon the condition of affairs in the territory of Alaska. US Government Printing Office, Washington. http://tinyurl.com/a8zk6yk Klein, D.R. and Sowls, A. 2011. History of polar bears as summer residents on the St. Matthew Islands, Bering Sea. Arctic 64:429-436. http://arctic.synergiesprairies.ca/arctic/index.php/arctic/article/view/4142 Lunn, N.J., Servanty, S., Regehr, E.V., Converse, S.J., Richardson, E. and Stirling, I. 2016. Demography of an apex predator at the edge of its range – impacts of changing sea ice on polar bears in Hudson Bay. Ecological Applications, in press. DOI: 10.1890/15-1256 Obbard, M.E., Cattet, M.R.I., Howe, E.J., Middel, K.R., Newton, E.J., Kolenosky, G.B., Abraham, K.F. and Greenwood, C.J. 2016. Trends in body condition in polar bears (Ursus maritimus) from the Southern Hudson Bay subpopulation in relation to changes in sea ice. Arctic Science, in press. 10.1139/AS-2015-0027

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Overland, J.E. and Wang, M. 2013. When will the summer Arctic be nearly sea ice free? Geophysical Research Letters 40: 2097-2101. Regehr, E.V., Laidre, K.L, Akçakaya, H.R., Amstrup, S.C., Atwood, T.C., Lunn, N.J., Obbard, M., Stern, H., Thiemann, G.W., & Wiig, Ø. 2016. Conservation status of polar bears (Ursus maritimus) in relation to projected sea-ice declines. Biology Letters 12: 20160556. http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/12/12/20160556Supplementary data here. Rode, K. and Regehr, E.V. 2010. Polar bear research in the Chukchi and Bering Seas: A synopsis of 2010 field work. Unpublished report to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of the Interior, Anchorage. pdf here. Rode, K.D., Douglas, D., Durner, G., Derocher, A.E., Thiemann, G.W., and Budge, S. 2013. Variation in the response of an Arctic top predator experiencing habitat loss: feeding and reproductive ecology of two polar bear populations. Oral presentation by Karyn Rode, 28thLowell Wakefield Fisheries Symposium, March 26-29. Anchorage, AK. Rode, K.D., Regehr, E.V., Douglas, D., Durner, G., Derocher, A.E., Thiemann, G.W., and Budge, S. 2014. Variation in the response of an Arctic top predator experiencing habitat loss: feeding and reproductive ecology of two polar bear populations. Global Change Biology 20(1):76-88. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.12339/abstract Rode, K. 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 K. Simac. 2018. Spring fasting behavior in a marine apex predator provides an index of ecosystem productivity. Global Change Biologyhttp://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.13933/full Serreze, M.C., Crawford, A., Stroeve, J.C., Barrett, A.P. and Woodgate, R.A. 2016. Variability, trends and predictability of seasonal sea ice retreat and advance in the Chukchi Sea. Journal of Geophysical Research 121 (10):7308–7325. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016JC011977/abstract Stirling, I. 2002. Polar bears and seals in the eastern Beaufort Sea and Amundsen Gulf: a synthesis of population trends and ecological relationships over three decades. Arctic 55 (Suppl. 1):59-76. http://arctic.synergiesprairies.ca/arctic/index.php/arctic/issue/view/42 Stirling, I., Andriashek, D., and Calvert, W. 1993. Habitat preferences of polar bears in the western Canadian Arctic in late winter and spring. Polar Record 29:13-24. http://tinyurl.com/qxt33wj

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Stirling, I., Calvert, W., and Andriashek, D. 1984. Polar bear ecology and environmental considerations in the Canadian High Arctic. Pg. 201-222. In Olson, R., Geddes, F. and Hastings, R. (eds.). Northern Ecology and Resource Management. University of Alberta Press, Edmonton. Stirling, I, Cleator, H. and Smith, T.G. 1981. Marine mammals. In: Polynyas in the Canadian Arctic, Stirling, I. and Cleator, H. (eds), pg. 45-58. Canadian Wildlife Service Occasional Paper No. 45. Ottawa. Stirling, I, Kingsley, M. and Calvert, W. 1982. The distribution and abundance of seals in the eastern Beaufort Sea, 1974–79. Canadian Wildlife Service Occasional Paper 47. Edmonton. Stroeve, J., Holland, M.M., Meier, W., Scambos, T. and Serreze, M. 2007. Arctic sea ice decline: Faster than forecast. Geophysical Research Letters 34:L09501. Walsh, J.E., Fetterer, F., Stewart, J.S. and Chapman, W.L. 2017. A database for depicting Arctic sea ice variations back to 1850. Geographical Review 107(1):89-107. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1931-0846.2016.12195.x Wang, M. and Overland, J.E. 2012. A sea ice free summer Arctic within 30 years: An update from CMIP5 models. Geophysical Research Letters 39:L18501. Wang, M. and Overland, J.E. 2015. Projected future duration of the sea-ice-free season in the Alaskan Arctic. Progress in Oceanography136:50-59. https://polarbearscience.com/2018/07/14/sea-ice-is-critical-habitat-for-polar-bears-from-late-fall-through-late-spring-only/ POLAR BEAR Numbers Not Declining Despite Media Headlines Suggesting Otherwise

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“NOAA mysteriously forgot to mention that Arctic ice is expanding in their Arctic Report Card.”

POLAR BEAR Numbers Not Declining Despite Media Headlines Suggesting Otherwise Posted: January 22, 2018 | Author: Jamie Spry | Filed under:

polarbearscience In scanning comments generated by the recent flurry of internet interest in polar bears and blogs I noticed that a good many people, fed alarming

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media stories, are still convinced that polar bear numbers are declining rapidly when nothing could be further from the truth.

In some cases, the media have made a possible future problem sound like a current problem. In others, people are remembering data from 2010 or so, not realizing that the picture has changed — or they assume that a conservation status of ‘threatened’ or ‘vulnerable’ (e.g. Amstrup et al. 2007) must mean numbers are declining (because that’s true for virtually all species classified that way, except polar bears). The sea ice situation hasn’t really improved or deteriorated since 2007 but the polar bear picture is much better: there is information on more subpopulations and studies show most are holding stable or increasing (Aars et…

https://climatism.wordpress.com/2018/01/22/polar-bear-numbers-not-declining-despite-media-headlines-suggesting-otherwise/

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← Histrionics over Arctic temperatures & sea ice extent: implications for polar bears State of the Polar Bear Report 2017 shows polar bears are thriving Posted on February 27, 2018 | Comments Off on State of the Polar Bear Report 2017 shows polar bears are thriving My new report reveals that polar bears are doing well despite recent reductions in sea-ice. It shows in details why this is so, with summaries of critical recent research. Press release and pdf below. And read my op-ed in the National Post here.

ARCTICICEEXTENTEXPANDINGhttps://youtu.be/3GyqrfTR3do“NOAA mysteriously forgot to mention that Arctic ice is expanding in their Arctic Report Card.” Gee, could it be

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because it doesn’t fit the climate alarmists’ narrative?

i love #DeplorableClimateScienceBlog for documenting the fraud Arctic Sea Ice Increasing For Eleven Years Posted on 14 Oct 2017 by Iowa Climate Science Education Leave a Comment Day 285 Arctic sea ice extent has been increasing since the start of MASIE records in 2006. This year is fifth highest since 2006.

fmasie_4km_allyears_extent_sqkm.csv Meanwhile, criminals in the press and scientific community continue to report the exact opposite of what the data shows. https://iowaclimate.org/2017/10/14/arctic-sea-ice-increasing-for-eleven-years/

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@ccdeditor Arctic Sea Ice Volume Up 15% Over The Past Decade | The Deplorable Climate Science Blog https://buff.ly/2z7Tccz

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“InanewreportpublishedbyLondon-basedthinktank,theGlobalWarmingPolicyFoundation,zoologistSusanCrockfordsaysthatpredictionsthatclimatechangeisbringingaboutthedemiseoftheseiconiccreatureshaveproventobefarfromthemark.DrCrockford’sreport,publishedtomarkInternationalPolarBearday,makesclearthatalthoughArcticsea-icehasdeclinedtolevelsnotexpecteduntil2050andwidelypredictedtocausecatastropheforpolarbears,theirnumbershaveremainedstable,orhaveevenincreasedslightly.Assheexplains“IcelevelsduringthekeyfeedingperiodinSpringhavebeengood,andpreyspecieshavebeenabundant.It’snotreallyasurprisethatpolarbearsaredoingsowell.”AndintheSouthernBeaufortSea,theoneareawherepolarbearnumbershavefallen,thereasonappearstobetoomuchseaiceratherthantoolittle.“Thefearmongeringfromthemediaandthepolarbearspecialistsisnowbackfiring”,saysCrockford.“Theyconvincedtheworldthatpolarbearsweredoomedbutthefactsgotout.Nowwouldbeagoodtimetosetthestorystraight”.

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TheStateofthePolarBearReport2017summarizesclear,reliableandconciseinformationonthecurrentstateofpolarbearsintheArcticsince2014,relativetohistoricalrecords.Ithighlightsup-to-datedataandresearchfindingsinabalancedandfactualformatthatavoidshypeandexaggeration.Itisintendedforawideaudience,includingscientists,teachers,students,decision-makersandthegeneralpublicinterestedinpolarbearsandArcticecology.”Hereitis,inpdfform:StateofthePolarBearReport2017Citeas:Crockford,S.J.2018.StateofthePolarBearReport2017.GlobalWarmingPolicyFoundationReport#29.London.

Less Svalbard polar bear habitat during the early Holocene than now Posted on April 21, 2018 | Comments Off on Less Svalbard polar bear habitat during the early Holocene than now Svalbard in the western Barents Sea has recently had less sea ice extent than it had in the 1980s, especially in the west and north, but this is not unprecedented.

New evidence from clams and mussels with temperature-sensitive habitat requirements confirm that warmer temperatures and less sea ice than today existed during the

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early Holocene period about 10.2–9.2 thousand years ago and between 8.2 and 6.0 thousand years ago (based on radio carbon dates) around Svalbard. Barents Sea polar bears almost certainly survived those previous low-ice periods, as they are doing today, by staying close to the Franz Josef Land Archipelago in the eastern half of the region where sea ice is more persistent. As this sea ice chart for 18 April 2018 shows, ice this month has been virtually absent from the west and north coasts of the Svalbard Archipelago, while Franz Josef Land to the east is surrounded by highly concentrated pack and land-fast ice.

From a new paper by Jan Mangerud and John Svendsen (2018) [my bold]: Svalbard, located between 74° and 81°N, is the warmest place on Earth at this latitude (Drange et al., 2013). This is

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because of the North Atlantic Current and large-scale atmospheric circulation which transport warm water and air masses from lower latitudes northwards across the Atlantic and along the coast of Norway to Svalbard (Figure 1). Yet, during the Holocene Thermal Maximum, the climate of Svalbard was considerably warmer than at present. The transition from Younger Dryas cold to Holocene Thermal Maximum warm conditions took place very rapidly, according to records from nearby Greenland (Taylor et al. 1997), warming in “steps” of about five years each over a period of about 40 years. This was at last as fast, if not faster than, recent Arctic warming between the 1980s and 2015. And since polar bears of the Barents Sea and adjacent Arctic areas appear to have survived this change to Holocence Thermal Maximum conditions, it challenges the notion that recent warming has been (or will be) too fast to allow polar bears to survive without huge changes in their present distribution (Amstrup et al. 2007). The summer water temperature map from Mangerud and Svendsen (below) not only illustrates why western Svalbard is subject to periods of no or low sea ice in winter but why Franz Josef Land to the east (surrounded by near-zero temps (in blue), even in summer) is the perfect refugium for polar bears during low-ice years (Aars 2015; Aars et al. 2017; Andersen and Aars 2016; Barr 1985; Chernova et al. 2014; Descamps et al. 2017; Fauchald et al. 2014), see previous post here. Franz Josef Land provides the most stable sea ice habitat for Barents Sea polar bears because it is largely beyond the influence of warm water influxes from the North Atlantic.

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The schematic below from Mangerud and Svendsen shows the warm water incursions from the Atlantic flowing past the west coast of Svalbard at about 11 thousand years ago, when the Laurentide Ice Sheet still covered the eastern half of Canada and the northern US, excluding fish, seals and polar bears from most of Canadian Arctic and Hudson Bay.

Here is the abstract from Mangerud, J. and Svendsen (2018) [my bold, link added]: “Shallow marine molluscs that are today extinct close to Svalbard, because of the cold climate, are found in deposits there dating to the early Holocene. The most warmth-

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demanding species found, Zirfaea crispata, currently has a northern limit 1000 km farther south, indicating that August temperatures on Svalbard were 6°C warmer at around 10.2–9.2 cal. ka BP, when this species lived there. The blue mussel, Mytilus edulis, returned to Svalbard in 2004 following recent warming, and after almost 4000 years of absence, excluding a short re-appearance during the Medieval Warm Period 900 years ago. Mytilus first arrived in Svalbard at 11 cal. ka BP, indicating that the climate was then as least as warm as present. This first warm period lasted from 11 to 9 cal. ka BP and was followed by a period of lower temperatures 9–8.2 cal. ka BP. After 8.2 cal. ka, the climate around Svalbard warmed again, and although it did not reach the same peak in temperatures as prior to 9 ka, it was nevertheless some 4°C warmer than present between 8.2 and 6 cal. ka BP. Thereafter, a gradual cooling brought temperatures to the present level at about 4.5 cal. ka BP. The warm early-Holocene climate around Svalbard was driven primarily by higher insolation and greater influx of warm Atlantic Water, but feedback processes further influenced the regional climate.” Survival of Barents Sea polar bears during low-ice years does not require emigration to another sea ice ecoregion or even another subpopulation area. The eastern Barents Sea (located in Russian territory), as defined by the Polar Bear Specialist Group (see map below), provides ample habitat for polar bears to thrive despite extended fluctuations in seasonal sea ice cover in the western portion. Although it must be frustrating for Norwegian researchers and their colleagues to see “their” bears abandoning Svalbard for Franz Josef Land because of recent low ice levels, they are not witnessing a biological catastrophe. Bottom line: Barents Sea polar bears are loyal to this region because the eastern portion has the habitat they require to

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thrive even when sea ice cover in the western portion essentially disappears for thousands of years at a time.

a REFERENCES Aars, J. 2015. Research on polar bears at Norwegian Polar Institute. Online seminar (‘webinar”), January 14. pdf here. Aars, J., Marques,T.A, Lone, K., Anderson, M., Wiig, Ø., Fløystad, I.M.B., Hagen, S.B. and Buckland, S.T. 2017. The number and distribution of polar bears in the western Barents Sea. Polar Research 36:1. 1374125. doi:10.1080/17518369.2017.1374125 Aars, J., Marques, T.A., Buckland, S.T., Andersen, M., Belikov, S., Boltunov, A., et al. 2009. Estimating the Barents Sea polar bear subpopulation. Marine Mammal Science 25: 35-52. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1748-7692.2008.00228.x Amstrup, S.C., Marcot, B.G. & Douglas, D.C. 2007.

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Forecasting the rangewide status of polar bears at selected times in the 21st century. US Geological Survey. Reston, VA. Pdf here Amstrup, S.C., Marcot, B.G., Douglas, D.C. 2008. A Bayesian network modeling approach to forecasting the 21st century worldwide status of polar bears. Pgs. 213-268 in Arctic Sea Ice Decline: Observations, Projections, Mechanisms, and Implications, E.T. DeWeaver, C.M. Bitz, and L.B. Tremblay (eds.). Geophysical Monograph 180. American Geophysical Union, Washington, D.C. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/180GM14/summary and http://alaska.usgs.gov/science/biology/polar_bears/pubs.html Andersen, M. & Aars, J. 2016. Barents Sea polar bears (Ursus maritimus): population biology and anthropegenic threats. Polar Research 35: 26029. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3402/polar.v35.26029 Barr, S. 1995. Franz Josef Land. Oslo: Norwegian Polar Institute. ISBN 82-7666-095-9. Chernova NV, Friedlander AM, Turchik A, Sala E. 2014. Franz Josef Land: extreme northern outpost for Arctic fishes. PeerJ 2:e692 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.692 https://peerj.com/articles/692/ Descamps, S., Aars, J., Fuglei, E., Kovacs, K.M., Lydersen, C., Pavlova, O., Pedersen, Å.Ø., Ravolainen, V. and Strøm, H. 2017. Climate change impacts on wildlife in a High Arctic archipelago — Svalbard, Norway. Global Change Biology 23: 490-502. doi: 10.1111/gcb.13381 Fauchald, P., Arneberg, P., Berge, J., Gerland, S., Kovacs, K.M., Reigstad, M. and Sundet, J.H. 2014. An assessment of MOSJ – the state of the marine environment around Svalbard and Jan Mayen. Norwegian Polar Institute Report Series no. 145. Available at http://www.mosj.no/en/documents/ [accessed

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15 February 2017] Mangerud, J. and Svendsen, J.I. 2018. The Holocene Thermal Maximum around Svalbard, Arctic North Atlantic; molluscs show early and exceptional warmth. The Holocene 28(1): 65–83. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0959683617715701 Taylor, K.C., Mayewski, P.A., Alley, R.B., Brook, E.J., Gow, A.J., Grootes, P.M., Meese, D.A., Saltzman, E.S., Severinghaus, J.P., Twickler, M.S., White, J.W.C., Whitlow, S., and Zielinski, G.A. 1997. The Holocene-Younger Dryas Transition Recorded at Summit, Greenland. Science 278:825-827. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/278/5339/825https://polarbearscience.com/2018/04/21/less-svalbard-polar-bear-habitat-during-the-early-holocene-than-now/No, climate change hasn’t driven polar bears to take over a Russian town Anthony Watts / 2 days ago

Dr. Susan Crockford writes:

The MSM have gone mad for this story today. I wrote up a post yesterday debunking the AGW claim.

Polar bears have been terrorizing a Russian town on the Barents Sea since December Since early December, a group of 52 polar bears have terrorized the Russian village of Belushaya Guba on southern Novaya Zemlya. The aggressiveness of some of the bears, their boldness in entering local buildings and fearlessness in the face of the usual deterrents has caused the local government to call a state of emergency to help the town residents.

Global warming is blamed for the problem but as is so often the case, that claim does not stand up to scrutiny.

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Large group of polar bears at the Belushya Guba town dump on Novaya Zemlya, Russia. From the 11

Feb. 2019 story at The Daily Mail.

BARENTS SEA BEARS ARE THRIVING

According to recent research results, despite low ice cover since 2016, the population of polar bears around Svalbard and presumably in the Barents Sea as a whole are still increasing, as they recover from decades of over-hunting in the 19th and 20th centuries (Aars 2018; Aars et al. 2009, 2017; Crockford 2017). This incident of winter problems with polar bears and others like itreported from the Russian Arctic, almost certainly reflect the confluence of a growing human presence in the Arctic and thriving polar bear populations, not lack of sea ice due to global warming. Recall that explorer William Barents and his crew, who became stranded on the shore of northeast Novaya Zemlya over the winter of 1596-1597, had endless problems with polar bears (back when polar bears and sea ice

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were really abundant). That story provides an important perspective on this year’s troubles.

Republished with permission of the author, originally published at https://polarbearscience.com

REFERENCES

Aars, J. 2018. Population changes in polar bears: protected, but quickly losing habitat. Fram Forum Newsletter 2018. Fram Centre, Tromso. Download pdf here (32 mb). Aars, J., Marques, T.A., Buckland, S.T., Andersen, M., Belikov, S., Boltunov, A., et al. 2009. Estimating the Barents Sea polar bear subpopulation. Marine Mammal Science 25: 35-52. Aars, J., Marques,T.A, Lone, K., Anderson, M., Wiig, Ø., Fløystad, I.M.B., Hagen, S.B. and Buckland, S.T. 2017. The number and distribution of polar bears in the western Barents Sea. Polar Research36:1. 1374125. doi:10.1080/17518369.2017.1374125 Crockford, S. 2017. Testing the hypothesis that routine sea ice coverage of 3-5 mkm2 results in a greater than 30% decline in population size of polar bears (Ursus maritimus). PeerJ Preprints 2 March 2017. https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.2737v3

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/02/11/no-climate-change-hasnt-driven-polar-bears-to-take-over-a-russian-town/

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See: Morano’s new book shoots to #1 at Amazon in 4 Categories! Climatology, Earth Sciences, Env. Science & Nature & Ecology The book has also been getting extremely positive reviews with a nearly 5 star average at Amazon: Order Your Book Copy Now! ‘The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change’ By Marc Morano Book Excerpt: – Chapter 5: The Ice Caps Are Melting!

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The Polar Bears The photogenic polar bear has been the icon for the modern global warming movement. “They are looking for poster children,” explains geologist Bob Carter. “It suits that advertising purpose. It has nothing to do with science.” The fact is that polar bear populations are at or near historic highs. Scientists point out that the computer models predicting polar bear population collapse simply do not reflect reality or account for the adaptability of these animals. “Polar bears have survived several episodes of much warmer climate over the last 10,000 years than exists today,” evolutionary biologist and paleozoologist Susan Crockford of the University of Victoria explains. “There is no evidence to suggest that the polar bear or its food supply is in danger of disappearing entirely with increased Arctic warming, regardless of the dire fairy-tale scenarios predicted by computer models.” As her research shows, “Polar bears have not been harmed by sea ice declines in summer.” And so she rejects predictions of doom: “While the decline in ice extent is greatest in September, all evidence suggests this is the least important month of the year for polar bears—the yearly ice minimum in September occurs after the critical spring/summer feeding period, after the spring/summer mating period and well before the winter birth of cubs,” she added. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has estimated that the polar bear population was as low as 5,000 to 10,000 bears in the 1950s and 1960s. A 2002 U.S. Geological Survey of wildlife in the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain noted that the polar bear populations “may now be near historic highs.” And in 2016, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature estimated the current polar bear which according to Crockford is “the highest estimate in 50 years.” As Crockford wrote in 2016, “So far there is no convincing evidence that any unnatural harm has come to them. Indeed, global population size appears to have grown slightly since 1993, as the maximum estimated number was 28,370 in 1993 but rose to 31,000.” Climatologist Judith Curry has said, “It seems like the polar bears are doing well and have managed to evolve and adapt over a very long time. It’s not clear what we’re doing up in the Arctic that’s particularly jeopardizing them.” According to geologist Don Easterbrook, “There are five times as many polar bears now as they were in the 1970s so doesn’t look like

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they are hurting too much. And I can also tell you on a factual basis that the past 10,000 years we’ve had temperatures that were…a half to 5° warmer and Greenland and the polar bears survive[d] that so there’s not any problem now.” In 2008, scientists spoke out publicly against the polar bear climate fears and I wrote a report for the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. What follows is based up on that report. Award-winning quaternary geologist Ólafur Ingólfsson, a professor at the University of Iceland, has also rejected bear fears. “We have this specimen that confirms the polar bear was a morphologically distinct species at least 100,000 years ago, and this basically means that the polar bear has already survived one interglacial period,” said Ingólfsson, who has conducted extensive expeditions and field research in both the Arctic and Antarctic. “This is telling us that despite the on-going warming in the Arctic today, maybe we don’t have to be quite so worried about the polar bear,” he added. Biologist Matthew Cronin, a research professor at the School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, rejected climate fears as well. “Polar bear populations are generally healthy and have increased worldwide over the last few decades,” Cronin said. Biologist Josef Reichholf, who heads the Vertebrates Department at the National Zoological Collection in Munich is also skeptical of bear fears. “In warmer regions it takes far less effort to ensure survival,” Reichholf said. “How did the polar bear survive the last warm period? Look at the polar bear’s close relative, the brown bear. It is found across a broad geographic region, ranging from Europe across the Near East and North Asia, to Canada and the United States. Whether bears survive will depend on human beings, not the climate.” The Nunavut government in Canada is not concerned about the fate of polar bear populations. Territorial Environment Minister Daniel Shewchuk said, “Through direct consultation, [Inuit communities] are unanimous in their belief that polar bears have not declined…. Based on hunter observations, polar bears are presently still healthy and abundant across Nunavut—and for that reason, not a species of special concern.” The Los Angeles Times reported in 2012, “Doomsday predictions of the polar bear’s demise tend to draw an Inuit guffaw here in

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Nunavut, the remote Arctic territory where polar bears in some places outnumber people….Heart-rending pictures of polar bears clinging to tiny islands of ice elicit nothing but derision.” Internationally known forecasting pioneer J. Scott Armstrong of the Wharton School at the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania and his colleague, forecasting expert Kesten Green of Monash University in Australia, coauthored a January 27, 2008, paper with Harvard astrophysicist Dr. Willie Soon, which found that polar bear extinction predictions violate “scientific forecasting procedures.” As they explained, their “study analyzed the methodology behind key polar bear population prediction and found that one of the two key reports in support of listing the bears had ‘extrapolated nearly 100 years into the future on the basis of only five years data—and data for these years were of doubtful validity.” Polar bear expert Dennis Compayre, formerly of the conservation group Polar Bears International, who has studied the bears in their natural habitat for almost thirty years, weighs in. “I tell you there are as many bears here now as there were when I was a kid,” Compayre, author of the 2015 book on polar bears Waiting for Dancer, said. “Churchill [in Northern Canada] is full of these scientists going on about vanishing bears and thinner bears. They come here preaching doom, but I question whether some of them really have the bears’ best interests at heart.” Famed environmental campaigner David Bellamy—botanist, former lecturer at Durham University, and host of a popular UK TV series on wildlife—protested, “Why scare the families of the world with tales that polar bears are heading for extinction when there is good evidence that there are now twice as many of these iconic animals, most doing well in the Arctic, than there were 20 years ago?” In 2017, the case for polar bear alarm has grown so weak that it appeared even climate activists were finally abandoning the animal as an icon for their cause. “There have been no new reports of falling polar bear numbers, and images of fat, healthy polar bears abound,” paleozoologist Susan Crockford noted. “A number of recent climate change reports even failed to mention polar bears in their discussion of Arctic sea ice decline. The polar bear does not get mentioned once in the draft of the US Climate Science Special Report, even in the fifty page discussion on changes in the Arctic. And NOAA’s annual Arctic Report Card has not mentioned the polar bear since 2014, in spite of

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highlighting the dangers faced by bear populations in every issue since 2008.”

According to Crockford, “Even Al Gore seems to have forgotten to include the plight of polar bears in his newest climate change movie. The polar bear played a prominent role in his 2007 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, the polar bear example was left out of [2017’s] An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power. It doesn’t even get a mention. After years of campaigners’ and researchers’ claims that populations were in terminal decline, the ‘canary in the coal mine’ has been retired.” “Extremely Unhelpful” “Polar bear expert Mitch Taylor barred from conference over ‘extremely unhelpful’ skeptical global warming view,” reported the UK Telegraph in 2009. “Canadian biologist Mitchell Taylor, the former director of wildlife research with the government of Nunavut who teaches at Lakehead University in Canada, has also debunked the warmists’ polar bear claims.” According to Taylor, the bears “appear to be as abundant and as productive as ever, in most populations.” But a meeting of the Polar Bear Specialist Group refused to allow Taylor to attend. He “was voted down by its members because of his views on global warming. The chairman, Dr Andy Derocher, a former university pupil of Dr Taylor’s, frankly explained in an email . . .that his rejection had nothing to do with his undoubted expertise on polar bears: ‘it was the position you’ve taken on global warming that brought opposition.’” Porky the Polar Bear A 2015 population survey of polar bears found that key populations had increased 42 percent over the past eleven years and noted that

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some of the bears are “as fat as pigs.” http://www.climatedepot.com/2018/04/10/fat-healthy-polar-bears-prompts-gore-to-abandon-use-as-a-global-warming-icon-new-book-excerpt/ REVIEWS #The climate change industry is focused on one variable out of millions, and is using that one variable to leverage wealth redistribution from local to international levels. What the industry uses as scare tactics, such as blaming any weather pattern or catastrophic weather event or lack of catastrophic weather on man, really has no limits. Like with any mass movement or belief system, it is necessary to look at the motivations and to find the sources of their information. The motivations are simply guilt and punishment. There is no "settled science" and no consensus. The endless regurgitation of faulty statistics such as "97% of scientists" masks any real science there is and unfortunately, much of the world has been hoodwinked in a modern day eugenics like mania. # ByWillie Maeon March 24, 2018 Leif Eriksson and the Norse had two colonies on Greenland that lasted for four centuries. That's almost twice as old as the United States of America. The Norse could grow crops and pasture animals in Greenland. How could the climate possibly have been warm enough for human beings to grow crops and pasture animals in Greenland? Then the climate changed. It got colder. Those Greenland colonies died out. It has never gotten warm enough since then to grow crops and pasture animals in Greenland. How could those historic facts make me a climate change denier? But do I believe that last summer was warmer than when the Norse were growing crops in Greenland? No! I am sick of the Global Warming Religionists throwing out that religious term "deniers" against people who don't march in lockstep with their dogma, and Mark Morano's book is a welcome respite from the drumbeat of "consensus of scientists" nonsense. A consensus of scientists not so long ago

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believed in eugenics, and where did that get us. A consensus that some races were superior kept slavery going for a long time. A consensus that the sun revolved around the earth almost got Galileo killed. There is only one thing that is sure in science, and that is that nothing is sure in science. Everything should and must be questioned. "Consensus" does not rule. Thank you, Marc Morano. Report abuse 5.0 out of 5 starsTerrific. Empowering. ByAmazon Customeron March 7, 2018 Format: Kindle Edition Wow. #This is just what a climate sceptic needs to challenge alarmists of any kind in any forum, be it a university classroom, scientific conference, legislature, government ministry, election, public meeting, church, newsroom, television studio, comments section of a newspaper or a website, and a discussion with family, friends and colleagues. The book is brilliantly organized in two ways: first, no doubt because of the author’s long experience in dealing with climate alarmists, its chapters frame and counter the most common arguments alarmists use to promote AGW and their proposed solutions and to criticize sceptics; secondly - and this is what I particularly like about the book – it provides a large quantity of footnoted observations, expert reviews, newspaper articles, research, official documents, etc. to strongly and seriously support the sceptical position vis-à-vis each alarmist argument, solution and criticism. (30% of the Kindle edition consists of invaluable footnotes.) You know when you go to a political debate during an election and each candidate has a binder with speaking points that anticipate what other candidates might say or what questions journalists and audience members might ask? Well, this book is a binder like that for sceptics but with a difference: it it doesn’t just include the sceptic’s talking points, it includes a large amount of easily quotable support for each talking point. It’s this support that can be devastating to alarmists and their arguments.

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This book will empower you to hold your own in any discussion about climate change. ByKrovon March 14, 2018 I ask everyone who has an interest in this issue to read this book. Perhaps it will not convince the hard-core warmers but it will demonstrate that there is a very large group of highly intelligent and extremely well educated scientists who disagree with the entire CAGW meme and it might just be a good idea to take their criticisms onboard. FINANCIALPOST

Polar bears keep thriving even as global warming alarmists keep pretending they’re dying Susan Crockford: Polar bears are flourishing, making them phony icons, and false idols, for global warming alarmists

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A polar bear eats a piece of whale meat as it walks along the shore of Hudson Bay near Churchill, Man.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press SPECIAL TO FINANCIAL POST SUSAN CROCKFORD February 27, 2018 6:30 AM EST

One powerful polar bear fact is slowly rising above the message of looming catastrophe repeated endlessly by the media: More than 15,000 polar bears have not disappeared since 2005. Although the extent of the summer sea ice after 2006 dropped abruptly to levels not expected until 2050, the predicted 67-per-cent decline in polar bear numbers simply didn’t happen. Rather, global polar bear numbers have been stable or slightly improved. The polar bear’s resilience should have meant the end of its use as a cherished icon of global warming doom, but it didn’t. The alarmism is not going away without a struggle.

Part of this struggle involves a scientific clash about transparency in polar bear science. My close examination of recent research has revealed that

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serious inconsistencies exist within the polar bear literature and between that literature and public statements made by some researchers. For example, Canadian polar bear biologist Ian Stirling learned in the 1970s that spring sea ice in the southern Beaufort Sea periodically gets so thick that seals depart, depriving local polar bears of their prey and causing their numbers to plummet. But that fact, documented in more than a dozen scientific papers, is not discussed today as part of polar bear ecology. In these days of politicized science, neither Stirling nor his colleagues mention in public the devastating effects of thick spring ice in the Beaufort Sea; instead, they imply in recent papers that the starving bears they witnessed are victims of reduced summer sea ice, which they argued depleted the bears’ prey. There are also strong indications that thick spring-ice conditions happened again in 2014–16, with the impacts on polar bears being similarly portrayed as effects of global warming.

The polar bear's resilience should have meant the end of its use as an icon of global warming doom

One reason that the 2007 predictions of future polar bear survival were so far off base is that the model developed by American biologist Steven Amstrup (now at Polar Bears International, an NGO) assumed any polar bear population decline would be caused by less summer ice, despite the Beaufort Sea experience. Moreover, Amstrup and fellow modelers were overly confident in their claim that summer ice was critical for the polar bear’s survival and they had little data on which to base their assumption that less summer ice would devastate the polar bears’ prey.

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Consequently, many scientists were surprised when other researchers subsequently found that ringed and bearded seals (the primary prey of polar bears) north of the Bering Strait especially thrived with a longer open-water season, which is particularly conducive to fishing: These seals do most of their feeding in summer. More food for seals in summer means more fat seal pups for polar bears to eat the following spring, a result that’s probably true throughout the Arctic.

As long as polar bears have lots of baby seals to eat in spring, they get fat enough to survive even a longer-than-usual summer fast. And while it’s true that studies in some regions show polar bears are lighter in weight than they were in the 1980s, there is no evidence that more individuals are starving to death or becoming too thin to reproduce because of less summer ice.

Not all bears get enough to eat in the spring, of course. Starvation has always been the leading natural cause of death for polar bears, due to a number of factors including competition, injury, tooth decay and illness. Some cancers induce a muscle-wasting syndrome that leads to faster-than-usual weight loss. This is likely what happened to the emaciated Baffin Island bear captured on video in July 2017 and promoted by National Geographic late last year. The videographers claimed it showed what starvation due to sea-ice loss looked like — an implausible conclusion given the time of year, the isolated nature of the incident, and the fact that sea ice that year was no more reduced than previously.

That starving-bear video may have convinced a few more gullible people that only hundreds of polar bears are left in the world. But it also motivated others to locate the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)

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Red List report for 2015 that estimated global polar bear numbers at somewhere between 22,000-31,000, or about 26,000, up slightly from 20,000-25,000, or about 22,500, in 2005. Newer counts not included in the 2015 assessment potentially add another 2,500 or so to the total. This increase may not be statistically significant, but it is decidedly not the 67-per-cent decline that was predicted given the ice conditions that prevailed.

The failure of the 2007 polar bear survival model is a simple fact that explodes the myth that polar bears are on their way to extinction. Although starving-bear videos and scientifically insignificant research papers still make the news, they don’t alter the facts: Polar bears are thriving, making them phony icons, and false idols, for global warming alarmists.

Susan Crockford, a zoologist and adjunct professor at the University of Victoria,

is author of State of the Polar Bear Report 2017, released Tuesday. She will

present her findings at Grounds for Thought in Toronto. www.susancrockford.com

Also post on Facebook Post

James Grant Matkin · Works at Self-Employed Arctic ice is stable and not melting away as predicted. Yes, polar bears are thriving, sea levels are not rising much if at all, Pacific islands are rising not sinking. The fear mongering of the alarmists is revealed as politics not science. “No matter if the science is all phony; there are collateral environmental benefits…. Climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.” Christine Stewart, former Minister of the Environment of Canada That Paris conference agenda got a useful boost from U.S. government agency scientists at NASA and NOAA who conveniently

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provided “warmest years ever” claims. Both have histories of stirring overheated global warming stew pots with alarming and statistically indefensible claims of recent “record high” temperatures. Global cooling from unstoppable solar cycles of dimimuished sunspots is rearing its ugly head as it did in the seventies. BEWARE cooling is a real threat. http://business.financialpost.com/opinion/polar-bears-keep-thriving-even-as-global-warming-alarmists-keep-pretending-theyre-dying

Polar Bears & The Sleazy New York Times Published on April 16, 2018 Written by Donna Laframboise SPOTLIGHT: Journalistic professionalism evaporates in front of our eyes. BIG PICTURE: When historians document the demise of the mainstream media, an article published this week by the New York Times will make an excellent case study. Titled “Climate Change Denialists Say Polar Bears Are Fine. Scientists Are Pushing Back,” it’s written by Erica Goode who isn’t just any journalist. She’s a former Environment Editor of the Times. In 2009, she “founded and led a cluster of reporters dedicated to environmental reporting.” Currently, she’s a visiting professor at Syracuse University. Out here in the real world, a debate exists about polar bears. Will they be adversely affected by climate change or will they continue to adapt as they have historically? Since the future hasn’t yet arrived, it’s impossible to know whose opinions will turn out to be correct. But rather than presenting a range of perspectives to her readers, Goode takes sides. Apparently clairvoyant, she knows that experts concerned about the long term prospects of polar bears are correct. She knows that dissenting

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voices are wrong. No other possibility is conceivable within the confines of her exceedingly narrow mind. She doesn’t tell us that researchers with significant academic records and decades of experience can be found on both sides of this question. Instead, in the first sentence of her article, Goode negates all possibility that a legitimate debate might be in progress. Climate “denialists,” she declares, are “capitalizing” on the iconic status of polar bears “to spread doubts about the threat of global warming.” Goode knows the dissenters are playing politics. She knows their motives are profane. With a wave of her hand, she thus relieves herself of the obligation to take seriously these alternative viewpoints. People who think polar bears are currently doing well – a separate question from how they might fare in the future – are similarly labeled “climate denialists” by Goode in paragraph four. Individuals on the other side of the fence, meanwhile, are portrayed as “real experts” and “mainstream scientists.” Last November, a shocking paper was published online. It has now appeared in the print edition of the journal BioScience. Titled “Internet Blogs, Polar Bears, and Climate Change Denial by Proxy,” the PDF version fills five pages of text, followed by two pages of references. This is an assault by a gang of 14 authors on an individual scholar. The target is Susan Crockford, a Canadian zoologist and adjunct professor with more than 35 years experience in her field. As the author of PolarBearScience.com, Crockford performs a public service. She encourages us to look past activist spin and media hype. Not everything we’re told about polar bears, she says, rests on a solid foundation. While it’s appropriate for these 14 people to challenge Crockford’s assertions, their tone is anything but scholarly. This is five pages of name-calling. PolarBearScience.com is labeled a “denier blog” at the outset. So are online venues that cite Crockford’s work. The term ‘denial’ is used 9 times. ‘Denier’ 18 times. ‘Deniers’ 12 times. The entire exercise is brazenly political. This paper sends a message to everyone else: think twice before departing from the polar bear party line. Our ugly gang of bullies will come looking for you next.

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How does Goode present these events? Is 14 against one viewed as a tad unsporting? Does anyone in her article express astonishment that a naked political screed somehow got published in a peer-reviewed academic journal? Is free inquiry lauded? The importance of vigorous scientific debate championed? I’m afraid not. She’s an extension of the gang, you see. Smugly certain that Crockford is a ‘climate denier,’ Goode considers this female scholar in a male-dominated field unworthy not only of a hearing, but of empathy, as well. According to Goode, the 14 are merely “scientists banding together against climate change denial.” She quotes Michael Oppenheimer: “Some climate scientists basically have had enough of being punching bags.” Voilà, the victim is transformed into an aggressor who deserves what she got. Goode tells us Oppenheimer is “a professor of geoscience and international affairs” at Princeton. She fails to mention that he spent two decades cashing paycheques at the overtly activist Environmental Defense Fund. This man isn’t impartial. He has a flashing neon sign of an agenda. In the world inhabited by Goode, polar bear dissenters are dismissed out-of-hand because she knows they’re politically motivated. But orchestrated political behaviour by a gang of 14 is OK. And scientists affiliated with organizations that lobby for political change are reliable commentators. Rather than inform its readers in a fair and even-handed manner, the Times this week became a mouthpiece for one side in a scientific debate. Erica Goode chose to be prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner in the case of Susan Crockford. She sided not with the brave dissident, but with the numerous and the powerful. Crockford wasn’t merely assaulted in BioScience, her assault was justified and amplified in the pages of the Times. By another woman. TOP TAKEAWAY: Environmental reporting at the New York Times is a disgrace. https://principia-scientific.org/polar-bears-the-sleazy-new-york-times/

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Polar bears not starving, says Nunatsiavut wildlife manager Jim Goudie says there are lots of bears the in northern Labrador/Quebec region Geoff Bartlett · CBC News · Posted: Apr 21, 2018 11:00 AM NT | Last Updated: 6 hours ago

This monster polar bear was photographed in Labrador in 2016. Research suggests numbers of the animals have been increasing since before 2007. (Submitted by Edwin Clark) One of the people who oversees an Indigenous hunt of polar bears says the population is doing well, despite heart-wrenching photos online suggesting some bears are starving. Every year, the Nunatsiavut government awards polar bear

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licences to Inuit hunters living in the northern Labrador settlement area. The Inuit set a quota of 12 polar bears this winter. Nunatsiavut wildlife manager Jim Goudie said all 12 were taken within the first seven days of the season.

A 2007 study showed that there were roughly 2,150 bears in the Davis Strait region, which was nearly 1,300 more than previously

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thought. A new study is currently underway to determine if that trend has continued. (pbsg.npolar.no) Goudie said it's just the latest evidence that polar bears are on the rebound in northern Canada — a trend he said officials have been recording for years. "There are lots of signs of bears," he told CBC Radio's Labrador Morning. "Lots of bears and a continuation of what we've seen over the last three or four years." The Nunatsiavut hunt takes place over an area stretching from Cape Chidley at the northern tip of Labrador to Fish Cove Point further south near Rigolet. Goudie said the majority of the bears are killed in the Nain and Hopedale areas. Photo of legally hunted polar bear draws social media

outrage, racist comments "You can go wherever you want to within Nunatsiavut or the Labrador Inuit settlement area to harvest your polar bear," he said. "Anywhere outside of Nunatsiavut boundaries, the harvest would be illegal."

This polar bear was hunted near Makkovik by Darrell Voisey earlier this year. (Submitted by Darrell Voisey)

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Those who hunt bears are legally obligated to donate any meat they don't use, but they are free to do what they want with the pelts. Most opt to sell them to wealthy buyers from Canada to East Asia, and each pelt is embedded with a computer chip to prove it was acquired through a legal hunt. Healthy numbers, misinformed public Goudie said prior to a 2007 survey, it was estimated there were about 880 polar bears in the northern Labrador and northern Quebec regions. Polar bear hunting in Nunatsiavut legal and sustainable,

hunter says However, the study actually found 2,152 animals, a significant increase over the earlier estimate. Researchers are now two years into a new study, and Goudie said word of mouth indicates the population is continuing to rebound. "I think our polar bear population is very, very healthy," he said. "The Davis Strait polar bear population is probably one of the most healthy in Canada, and certainly in the world." Goudie said while there are a few different polar bear groups that are in trouble, the majority are thriving. He said despite that, most people have no idea and — from what he sees online — many seem to think that polar bears are in trouble and in decline globally. Goudie points to one post he saw recently from National Geographic that showed what appeared to be a starving polar bear, but in reality was an animal that was sick. "It's an easy story to put out there, that polar bears are in massive trouble. Sometimes I have to bite my tongue or

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keep my fingers off the keyboard when I see those social media posts," he said. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/polar-bear-population-hunt-nunatsiavut-1.4628156

‘Fat, healthy polar bears’ prompt Gore to abandon their use as a ‘global warming’ icon – New Book Excerpt Marc Morano In 2017, the case for polar bear alarm

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has grown so weak that it appeared even climate activists were finally abandoning the animal as an icon for their cause. “There have been no new reports of falling polar bear numbers, and images of fat, healthy polar bears abound,” paleozoologist Susan Crockford noted. “A number of recent climate change reports even failed to mention polar bears in their discussion of Arctic sea ice decline...Crockford, “Even Al Gore seems to have forgotten to include the plight of polar bears in his newest climate change movie. The polar bear played a prominent role in his 2007 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, the polar bear example was left out of [2017’s] An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power. It doesn’t even get a mention. After years of campaigners’ and researchers’ claims that populations were in terminal decline, the ‘canary in the coal mine’ has been retired.”

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April 10, 2018 12:10 PM with 0 comments The New York Times is circling the wagons for the global warming establishment to smear and dismiss skeptical scientists and research showing that polar bears are not threatened by “global warming.” See: NYT: “Climate Change Denialists Say Polar Bears Are Fine. Scientists Are Pushing Back” The Times cites the usual climate campaigner suspects like environmental activist Michael Oppenheimer, a recipient of Big Hollywood funding (Barbra Streisand) and a UN lead author. One skeptical scientist Dr. Susan Crockford is fighting back at the New York Times. See: “Climate mauling, polar bears, and the self-inflicted wounds of the self-righteous” – Crockford: “The unprofessional attack on me and my work distracts from that objective, and the continual use of the pejorative “denier/denial” label is combative and unnecessary.” The new best selling book, “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change,” reveals the polar bear climate scare is collapsing and even former Vice President Al Gore seems to have abandoned using the iconic animal as a symbol for his scare campaign. Climate Depot’s Marc Morano new book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change, has skyrocketed to number one in multiple Amazon book rankings including Nature & Ecology; Environment, Environmental Science, Climatology and more! See: Sold out! Politically Incorrect Climate Book sells out at Amazon, Target & Walmart! Ranked as ‘Best Seller’

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WRITTEN BY JAMES DELINGPOLE ON APRIL 11, 2018. POSTED IN ACTIVISM, CLIMATE, GROUPTHINK, LATEST NEWS, MEDIA, POLAR, SCIENCE

Climate Alarmists Maul Inconvenient Polar Bear Expert

Susan Crockford is a polar bear expert with a message that climate alarmists don’t want to hear: polar bear populations are thriving and are certainly in no danger from thinning summer sea ice supposedly caused by ‘man-made

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global warming.’ That’s why the alarmist establishment is currently trying to destroy her. First came a hatchet job in Bioscience, described by climate scientist Judith Curry as “absolutely the stupidest paper I have ever seen published.” Crockford’s rebuttal is epic and can be read in full here. Now, the New York Times has weighed in with a piece entitled ‘Climate Change Denialists Say Polar Bears Are Fine. Scientists Are Pushing Back’. The headline has been poorly subbed. “Scientists” should be in danger quotation marks. Its introductory paragraph will give you a taste of its quality: Furry, button-nosed and dependent on sea ice for their survival, polar bears have long been poster animals for climate change. But at a time when established climate science is being questioned at the highest levels of government, climate denialists are turning the charismatic bears to their own uses, capitalizing on their symbolic heft to spread doubts about the threat of global warming. Yep, the “furry, button-nosed” and “charismatic” are dead giveaways. This is not an article remotely interested in the actual species Ursus maritimus, only the fantasy creature that appears in David Attenborough documentaries and the like in order to serve one overriding purpose: to act as the cute, fluffy, white ursine harbinger of man-made climate doom. The reality is rather different, as Dr. Crockford, a Canadian zoologist and polar bear expert, summarized in a recent paper for the Global Warming Policy Foundation. Its findings are summarized here: • Global polar bear numbers have been stable or risen

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slightly since 2005, despite the fact that summer sea ice since 2007 hit levels not expected until mid-century: the predicted 67% decline in polar bear numbers did not occur. • Abundant prey and adequate sea ice in spring and early summer since 2007 appear to explain why global polar bear numbers have not declined, as might have been expected as a result of low summer sea ice levels. • The greatest change in sea ice habitat since 1979 was experienced by the Barents Sea polar bears and the least by those in Southern Hudson Bay, the most southerly region inhabited by bears. • As far as is known, the record low extent of sea ice in March 2017 had no impact on polar bear health or survival. • Some studies show bears are lighter in weight than they were in the 1980s, but none showed an increase in the number of individuals starving to death or too thin to reproduce. • A just-released report of Southern Beaufort Sea bears having difficulty finding prey in 2014– 2016 suggests that the thick ice events that have impacted the region every ten years or so since the 1960s have continued despite reduced summer sea ice. • Claims of widespread hybridization of polar bears with grizzlies were disproven by DNA studies. • Overly pessimistic media responses to recent polar bear issues have made heartbreaking news out of scientifically insignificant events, suggesting an attempt is being made to restore the status of this failed global warming icon. Naturally, this all went down like a cup of frozen narwhal sick with the climate loons. Hence this current series of very personalized attacks, designed to discredit Crockford’s expertise. They can’t attack Crockford’s science because it’s rock solid. So instead they have resorted to the usual ad

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hominem. There’s perhaps one person in the world who knows more about polar bears than Crockford: Mitchell “Mitch” Taylor who has been studying polar bears since 1978. His verdict on this sorry affair is well worth a read: It has become a lot more difficult to talk about polar bears since they became an icon for climate change as a cause. The information has become secondary to the mission for a number of people who were formerly chiefly concerned with research and management of polar bears. The mission is nothing less than saving the planet by saving the polar bears, and ironically the biggest obstacle to this initiative has been the polar bears themselves. The real story has been the extent to which polar bears have managed to mitigate the demographic effects of sea ice loss so far. In retrospect, this is perhaps not so surprising because polar bears have been around since the Pliocene which means they have persisted through not only glacial cycles but also through all the natural climate cycles during the glacial periods and interglacial periods. Did Susan misrepresent the predictions from Amstrup’s “Belief Network”? Has she misunderstood the population estimates provided by the various technical committees and specialists groups? That is easy to check because these papers are published. They are part of the record. I have been active in polar bears since 1978. I didn’t recognize 12 of the 14 names written on the paper criticizing Susan for publishing an article about polar bears because she does not have any direct experience in polar bear research or management. Does anyone need to point out how hypocritical this is? Since when does anyone need to tag a polar bear to compare what was predicted to what has happened, based on published information?

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It is also germane that the IUCN Redbook authority was unwilling to continue listing polar bears as a “vulnerable” species based on current population estimates and Amstrup’s Bayesian Network model expectations. This was somehow not mentioned in the article criticizing Susan. Polar bears remain an IUCN “vulnerable” species, but now that is based on a Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) polar bear population model that is driven by speculation but is also presented as “expert” predictive. The new guarantees that polar bears will decline was achieved by decoupling the model population projections from climate model forecasts of sea ice conditions … and just using the time-series regression of sea ice decline since 1980 to forecast sea ice (index for polar bear carrying capacity) forward. And the IUCN went for it. There is an International Agreement for the Conservation of Polar Bears, and occasionally the parties to that Agreement (USA, Canada, Denmark-Greenland, Norway, and Russia) have a formal meeting. The signatory nations (parties) have no independent scientific advisors, and they take their information only from the IUCN/SSC Polar Bear Specialists Group (PBSG). If you don’t believe that climate science is settled, you can’t be a member of the PBSG, even if you started working on polar bears in 1978. Susan is also not a member. There are two ways to get a scientific consensus. One is to present the data and the analysis in a manner that is so persuasive that everyone is convinced. The other way is to exclude or marginalize anyone who does not agree. This occurs so commonly now that it has become an accepted practice. The practice of science has become secondary to governments, NGOs, journals, and scientists who feel that the ends justify the means.

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The response to Susan’s work is politically motivated, not an argument against her conclusions. The journal’s response to this article and to her complaint was also political. Sadly, BioScience not a credible scientific journal anymore. We have fake news and fake science. Is it really so difficult to see what the Amstup predictions were indexed to, to see if that index has changed, and see if the demographic data are consistent with Amstrup’s predictions or not? Susan has already done the work to show that the polar bear demographic data and sea ice data (all collected and reported by others) do not support the Amstrup et al. (2007) predictions. If you can’t refute the argument, the only thing left is to discredit the author. Where did they get their funding? How many bears have they tagged? Are they in the club or not? … and if not in the club, what the hell are they doing voicing an opinion. How are right-thinking good people like us going to maintain the impression of omnipotent knowledge and scientific consensus if people like Susan are allowed to hold us accountable for what we publish? Bad enough that the IUCN won’t do as its told, at least not without a new crystal ball. There are currently some valid indications that some polar bear subpopulations may be experiencing demographic impacts from reduced sea ice. There are also methodology issues and high variance associated with those studies. Much of the past work has become dated and much of the population work in the last decade is either agenda driven and unreliable or compromised by data collection issues to the point that accurate population demography estimates are not possible. However, there are also many new studies

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that report their findings objectively. So just because some researchers and journals have lost perspective does not mean polar bears are not currently impacted by sea ice decline or never will be. To me, the loss of credible information is the real harm that has resulted from turning scientific inquiry into an agenda driven exercise … even for a good cause. Some may see parallels within climate science world to the polar bear experience. There are a number of crimes which have been committed by the climate alarmist establishment. Not the least of these is the damage these charlatans, cheats, and bullies have done to the integrity of science and scientists.

https://climatechangedispatch.com/contact-us/

By P Gosselin on 14. April 2018

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New York Times journalist Erica Goode misses a mountain of polar bear research, instead lets herself get swept up by alarmist polar bear activism. The New York Times recently published an article penned by Erica Goode on the controversial Harvey et al paper, where 14 scientists (sophomorically) attacked polar bear researcher Susan Crockford and climate science skeptics. If the Harvey publication makes anything clear, it is that its authors are deeply frustrated by the large share of the public who reject their alarmist climate science. But instead of looking at themselves and the mountain of blunders they have made in the past to see what they could improve, the Harvey scientists chose to lash out and blame their woes on mean-spirited “deniers”. The inconvenient reality, however, is that alarmist climate and polar bear science (and journalism) has not been clean, and at times it’s been outright sloppy, deceptive and shrill. That’s the real big reason skeptics have been so successful. Sloppy biased journalism So it is no surprise that Erica Goode at the New York Times sided up with the 14 scientists of the Harvey publication to attack the so-called climate “denialists” in her most recent article. Unfortunately Goode made the fatal journalistic error of failing to keep a healthy distance from the alarmist side and as a result was blinded from seeing the glaring mountain of scientific research showing polar bears are in fact doing fine. As a result Goode’s work couldn’t have been

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sloppier. A mountain of recent scientific publications gets missed The reality is that there are many polar bear scientists out there who have produced a considerable body of recent scientific findings, which show that the polar bear populations are in reality stable or even thriving. How could Goode have missed it? Whatever the reasons, it appears to be to a classic case of journalistic negligence. Had the seasoned New Times journalist done just the minimum of research one expects of even a beginner journalist, she would have discovered, for example, two very recent papers on polar bears published in the journals Ecology and Evolution and Polar Record, and many others. According to expert polar bear scientists (other than Dr. Susan Crockford) there is no evidence to support recent claims polar bears as a species are in grave danger due to climate change and thinning sea ice. Somehow Goode allowed herself to be talked into the absurd idea that Susan Crockford is the only skeptic polar bear scientist out there, and so did not bother to check for others, so it seems. And the only crises we find are those from dubious computer-modelled 2050 scenarios. 1) York et al 2016 One scientific publication by York et al in 2016 found that given the paleoclimate record of a much warmer (+4 to + 7.5 °C) Arctic, there was much more reduced sea ice thickness and extent in the past relative to today. They concluded: “it seems unlikely that polar bears (as a species) are at risk

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from anthropogenic global warming.” The authors wrote in their summary: Considering both [observations from native populations] and scientific information, we suggest that the current status of Canadian polar bear subpopulations in 2013 was 12 stable/increasing and one declining (Kane Basin).” We do not find support for the perspective that polar bears within or shared with Canada are currently in any sort of climate crisis.” Why didn’t Goode contact these scientists and present their results? There are many other scientists who share Crockford’s view. 2) Wong et al 2017 Another published scientific paper by Wong et al., 2017, “Inuit perspectives of polar bear research: lessons for community-based collaborations”, the authors investigated Inuit observations. Here’s an excerpt of their findings:

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Wong, a researcher at the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, and her team also found in early 80s, and mid 90s: “there were hardly any bears” and “there’s too many polar bears now”. Also they noted: “Bears foraging for land-based foods have been reported in the literature prior to recent concerns over climate change (Russell 1975; Derocher and others 1993; Gormezano and Rockwell 2013a).” Also: “Observations of bears consuming garbage are not uncommon (Russell

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1975; Lunn and Stirling 1985; Gormezano and Rockwell 2013b)” More fuel for skeptics One has to wonder if the activist Harvey team of scientists and the New York Times live in an alternative universe. It is precisely that kind of gross omission and one-sidedness that has been fuelling the skeptics over the years. And there’s much more that they ignored. Laforest et al., 2018 A publication by Laforest et al titled Traditional Ecological Knowledge of Polar Bears in the Northern Eeyou Marine Region looked at the perception of communities in Quebec on the prevalence of problem polar bears. Results: One-third of participants reported that polar bears will be unaffected by, or even benefit from, longer ice-free periods. A majority of participants indicated that the local polar bear population was stable or increasing. Moreover they cited the fact that polar bears are capable of hunting seals in open water as a factor contributing to the stable body condition of the bears. and that none of the participants explicitly linked the effects of a warming climate to specific impacts on polar bears. The publication also states that a recent aerial survey of the Southern Hudson Bay subpopulation found that the abundance of polar bears has remained steady since 1986 (943 bears; SE: 174) (Obbard et al., 2015). 11 more recent papers show bears survive without ice Not long ago Kenneth Richard reported on almost a

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dozen papers showing that polar bears easily survived ice-free and far warmer conditions than those seen today or those expected by mid century. Even more research shows that polar bear population is up 42% since 2004. Russia “scientists know little or nothing” Goode’s non-researched article also mentions that “scientists know little or nothing” about the situation in Russia and other remote areas (and so it’s got to be bad?). If it is unknown, then how can one be either rationally alarmed or relieved about the situation there? Yet, given the positive situation from Canada and Alaska, there is no rational reason to assume all is bad in Russia. New York Times’ image of bias So what can we take home from this? Why did Goode ignore so much polar bear research, and why has she unconditionally lapped up everything handed down to her by the alarmist clique? We can only speculate it’s about activism. Erica Goode and New York Times again shot themselves in the foot on this one and reaffirmed their reputation for bias.

Had Goode resisted getting distracted from the “us” versus “them” narrative and actually dug a little into the actual scientific results – and the scientists behind them – like honest journalists do, she would not have produced such a piece of journalism.

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Climate Hustle knows: Ten dire predictions that have failed as global polar bear population hits 22-31k Posted on May 1, 2016 | Comments Off on Climate Hustle knows: Ten dire predictions that have failed as global polar bear population hits 22-31k May release of the intentionally funny documentary, Climate Hustle (across the US and a few Canadian locations) because host Marc Morano knows that polar bear numbers have not declined as people have been led to believe, see the trailer below]

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Climate Hustle Trailer #1 on www.youtube.com</a>, or enable JavaScript if it is disabled in your browser.</div></div> Grim predictions of the imminent demise of polar bears – their “harsh prophetic reality” as it’s been called – have been touted since at least 2001. But such depressing prophesies have so widely missed the mark they can now be said to have failed. While polar bears may be negatively affected by declines in sea ice sometime in the future, so far there is no convincing evidence that any unnatural harm has come to them. Indeed, global population size (described by officials as a “tentative guess“) appears to have grown slightly over this time, as the maximum estimated number was 28,370 in 1993 (Wiig and colleagues 1995; range 21,470-28,370) but rose to 31,000 in 2015 (Wiig and colleagues 2015, pdf here of 2015 IUCN

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Red List assessment; range 22,000-31,000). Here are the failed predictions (in no particular order, references at the end): Prediction 1. Western Hudson Bay (WHB) polar bear numbers will continue to decline beyond 2004 due to ever-earlier breakup and ever-later freeze-up of sea ice. FAIL – An aerial survey conducted by Seth Stapleton and colleagues (2014) in 2011 produced an estimate of about 1030 bears and their report stated: “This figure is similar to a 2004 mark–recapture estimate but higher than projections indicating declining abundance since then.” This 1030 figure is the one being used by the IUCN PBSG and Environment Canada for WHB, as a limited mark-recapture study conducted the same year (Lunn and colleagues 2014) did not survey the entire WHB region and therefore not comparable to the 2004 count. Prediction 2. Breakup of sea ice in Western Hudson Bay (WHB) will come progressively earlier and freeze-up dates progressively later (after 1999), as CO2 levels from burning fossil fuel increase global temperatures. FAIL – Researchers Nick Lunn and colleagues (2014) determined that there has been no trend in breakup or freeze-up dates between 2001 and 2010. While no analyses of breakup or freeze-up dates for WHB since 2010 have been published, this pattern seems to have continued to at least 2015. Prediction 3. Chukchi Sea polar bears will be the most harmed by summer sea ice declines because they experience some of the largest sea ice losses of any subpopulation (and thus, the longest open-water season each year).

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FAIL – A recent study of Chukchi bears (2008-2011) found them in better condition than they were in the 1980s when summer open-water seasons were short – indeed, only Foxe Basin bears were fatter than Chukchi bears. They were also reproducing well (Rode et al. 2010, 2013, 2014), with some females raising litters of triplets (see lead photo), a rare sight outside Western Hudson Bay. Prediction 4. Cannibalism will increase as summer sea ice extent declines worsen. FAIL – Cannibalism is a natural phenomenon in polar bears and none of the few incidents reported recently have involved obviously thin or starving polar bears (even the most recent example, filmed in mid-August 2015 in Baffin Bay when sea ice levels in the region were high), despite the fact that 2012 recorded the lowest summer ice extent since 1979. Incidents of cannibalism cannot be said to be increasing because there is no scientific baseline to which recent occurrences can be compared. Prediction 5. Drowning deaths of polar bears will increase as summer sea ice continues to decline (driven home by a high-profile incident in 2004). FAIL – There have been no further confirmed reports of polar bear drowning deaths associated with extensive open water swimming since that contentious 2004 event, even though the two lowest extents of summer sea ice have occurred since then (2007 and 2012). A more rigorous study of swimming prowess found polar bears, including cubs, are capable of successfully making long-distance swims. Indeed, challenging open-water swims don’t happen only in summer: in late March 2015, a polar bear swam through open water from the pack ice off Newfoundland to the Hibernia oil platform well offshore. Prediction 6. There will be more and more problems

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onshore in summer with starving polar bears because of reduced sea ice. FAIL – There have been more problem bears in summer over the last few years in Western Hudson Bay as well as other regions but few of those bears were shown to be thin or starving. A well-publicized attack occurred in Churchill in the fall of 2013 but was not associated with an especially early break-up of sea ice nor a late freeze-up. Incidents last summer in the Kara Sea (Russia) involved bears in good condition. Polar bears are potentially dangerous no matter what their condition but death by starvation of young or old bears (or injured ones) are natural events that occur often, not evidence of declining sea ice. Prediction 7. Southern Beaufort Sea polar bears can be used to predict how bears living in the Chukchi Sea and the Barents Sea are doing because they are similar ‘sea ice ecoregions’, says the Circumpolar Action Plan for future research proposed by Dag Vongraven and colleagues in 2012. FAIL – Recent research has shown that Chukchi Sea bears actually fared better with the long open-water seasons of the late 2000s than in the short seasons of the 1980s. In contrast, Southern Beaufort Sea bears have suffered profoundly from periodic episodes of thick spring ice (every 10 years or so since the 1960s), a phenomenon that is unique to that region. In fact, sea ice conditions for Chukchi Sea and Southern Beaufort bears could hardly be more different. With Southern Beaufort bears the more vulnerable to decline from natural variations in sea ice, the plan to treat these two regions as equivalent is a farce and totally undermines the Circumpolar Action Plan proposed by the IUCN PBSG. Prediction 8. Western Hudson Bay (WHB) polar bears can

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be used to predict how bears living in Foxe Basin, and Davis Strait are doing because these are all similar ‘sea ice ecoregions’, says the Circumpolar Action Plan for future research proposed by Dag Vongraven and colleagues in 2012. FAIL – WHB bears not only have variable breakup and freeze-up dates to contend with but also face occasional years with thick spring ice and springs with either very thick or very thin snow cover that strongly affects the availability of their ringed seal prey. Davis Strait bears, on the other hand, face some variability in sea ice conditions but have access to a super-abundant supply of harp seal prey in spring. With WHB polar bears by far the more vulnerable to decline from natural variations in sea ice and prey availability than Davis Strait bears, the plan to treat these two regions as equivalent is a farce and totally undermines the proposed Circumpolar Action Plan. Prediction 9. Continued late formation of fall sea ice off Svalbard in the Barents Sea will devastate polar bears that traditionally den in this region. FAIL – Preliminary results from the latest population count of Svalbard area polar bears showed a 42% increase over the estimate for 2004, despite very late ice formation in the fall of 2013 around maternity denning areas. Other research has shown that bears move back and forth readily between Svalbard, Norway and Franz Josef Land, Russia (which so far has always had sea ice by late fall). This means that Svalbard bears have been able to adapt easily to recent low ice conditions. Prediction 10. Summer sea ice will decline as CO2 rises; 2007 marked the beginning of a sea ice ‘death spiral’ that is expected to continue as CO2 levels rise. FAIL – Sea ice at September has been variable since 2007

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but there has been no declining trend, a pattern sea ice experts admit may continue for 10 years or more beyond 2014 even if declining sea ice predictions are true (Swart and colleagues, 2015). In other words, CO2 levels have not been the control knob for polar bear health. CONCLUSION Polar bears are not fragile canaries in an Arctic climate-change coal mine but resilient and adaptable predators remarkably suited to their highly variable habitat. Here’s a summary of what the 2015 Red List assessment (Wiig et al. 2015) said: The previous status of ‘Vulnerable’ was upheld but no projections were made beyond 2050. They said there is only a 70% chance that numbers will decline by 30% over the next 35 years, which is only slightly higher than a 50:50. It also means there is a 30% chance that the numbers WILL NOT decline by 30% over the next 35 years.It stated explicitly that the risk of a population decline of 80% or greater by 2050 is virtually zero (pg. 16). In other words, the status of ‘Vulnerable’ is based only on a possible decline in population numbers, despite their current high numbers, and there is no imminent risk of extinction. The current population trend is stated as UNKNOWN. [Don’t miss this follow-up post: Biggest threat to polar bears reconsidered (27 February 2016, International Polar Bear Day post] REFERENCES FOR THE PREDICTIONS Amstrup, S.C. 2011. Polar bears and climate change: certainties, uncertainties, and hope inawarmingworld.In:R.T.Watson,T.J.Cade,M.Fuller,G.HuntandE.Potapov(eds.),GyrfalconsandPtarmiganinaChangingWorld,Volume1.ThePeregrineFund,Boise,Idaho.Amstrup,S.C.,Marcot,B.G.andDouglas,D.C.2007.Forecastingtherangewidestatusofpolarbearsatselectedtimesinthe21stcentury.

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AdministrativeReport,USGeologicalSurvey.Reston,Virginia.Amstrup,S.C.,Marcot,B.G.andDouglas,D.C.2008.ABayesiannetworkmodelingapproachtoforecastingthe21stcenturyworldwidestatusofpolarbears.Pp.213–268inArcticSeaIceDecline:Observations,Projections,Mechanisms,andImplications,E.T.DeWeaver,C.M.BitzandL.B.Tremblay(eds.).GeophysicalMonograph180.AmericanGeophysicalUnion,Washington,D.C.Amstrup,S.C.,DeWeaver,E.T.,Douglas,D.C.,Marcot,B.G.,Durner,G.M.,Bitz,C.M.andBailey,D.A.2010.Greenhousegasmitigationcanreducesea-icelossandincreasepolarbearpersistence.Nature468:955–958.Atwood,T.C.,Marcot,B.G.,Douglas,D.C.,Amstrup,S.C.,Rode,K.D.,Durner,G.M.andBromaghin,J.F.2014.Evaluatingandrankingthreatstothelong-termpersistenceofpolarbears.USGSOpen-FileReport2014–1254.Derocher,A.E.,Aars,J.,StevenC.Amstrup,S.C.andnineothers.2013.Rapidecosystemchangeandpolarbearconservation.ConservationLetters6(5):368-375.Derocher,A.E.,Lunn,N.J.andStirling,I.2004.Polarbearsinawarmingclimate.IntegrativeandComparativeBiology44:163–176.Durner,G.M.,Douglas,D.C.,Nielson,R.M.,Amstrup,S.C.,McDonald,T.L.and12others.2007.Predicting21st-centurypolarbearhabitatdistributionfromglobalclimatemodels.AdministrativeReport,USGeologicalSurvey.Reston,Virginia.Durner,G.M.,Douglas,D.C.,Nielson,R.M.,Amstrup,S.C.,McDonald,T.L.and12others.2009.Predicting21st-centurypolarbearhabitatdistributionfromglobalclimatemodels.EcologicalMonographs79:25–58.Hassol,S.J.2004.ImpactsofaWarmingArctic:ArcticClimateImpactAssessment.CambridgeUniversityPress,CambridgeUK.Obbard,M.E.,Theimann,G.W.,Peacock,E.andDeBryn,T.D.(eds)2010.PolarBears:Proceedingsofthe15thmeetingofthePolarBearSpecialistsGroupIUCN/SSC,29June-3July,2009,Copenhagen,Denmark.Gland,SwitzerlandandCambridgeUK,IUCN.http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/meetings/Overland,J.E.andWang,M.2013.WhenwillthesummerArcticbenearlyseaice-free?GeophysicalResearchLetters40:2097–2101.Stirling,I.andDerocher,A.E.2012.Effectsofclimatewarmingonpolarbears:areviewoftheevidence.GlobalChangeBiology18(9):

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Rode,K.D.,Regehr,E.V.,Douglas,D.,Durner,G.,Derocher,A.E.,Thiemann,G.W.andBudge,S.2014.VariationintheresponseofanArctictoppredatorexperiencinghabitatloss:feedingandreproductiveecologyoftwopolarbearpopulations.GlobalChangeBiology20(1):76–88.Schliebe,S.,Rode,K.D.,Gleason,J.S.,Wilder,J.,Proffitt,K.,Evans,T.J.,andS.Miller.2008.Effectsofseaiceextentandfoodavailabilityonspatialandtemporaldistributionofpolarbearsduringthefallopen-waterperiodinthesouthernBeaufortSea.PolarBiology31:999-1010.StapletonS.,Atkinson,S.,Hedman,D.,andGarshelis,D.2014.RevisitingWesternHudsonBay:usingaerialsurveystoupdatepolarbearabundanceinasentinelpopulation.BiologicalConservation170:38-47.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320713004618#Stirling,I.2002.PolarbearsandsealsintheeasternBeaufortSeaandAmundsenGulf:asynthesisofpopulationtrendsandecologicalrelationshipsoverthreedecades.Arctic55(Suppl.1):59–76.Stirling,I.andLunn,N.J.1997.Environmentalfluctuationsinarcticmarineecosystemsasreflectedbyvariabilityinreproductionofpolarbearsandringedseals.In:EcologyofArcticEnvironments,Woodin,S.J.andMarquiss,M.(eds).BlackwellScience.Stirling,I.andØritsland,N.A.1995.Relationshipsbetweenestimatesofringedseal(Phocahispida)andpolarbear(Ursusmaritimus)populationsintheCanadianArctic.CanadianJournalofFisheriesandAquaticSciences52:2594–2612.Stirling,I.,Pearson,A.M.andBunnell,F.L.1976.PopulationecologystudiesofpolarandgrizzlybearsinnorthernCanada.Transactionsofthe41stNorthAmericanWildlifeConference41:421–430.Stirling,I.,Schweinsburg,R.E.,Kolenasky,G.B.,Juniper,I.,Robertson,R.J.andLuttich,S.1980.Proceedingsofthe7thmeetingofthePolarBearSpecialistsGroupIUCN/SSC,30January-1February,1979,Copenhagen,Denmark.Gland,SwitzerlandandCambridgeUK,IUCN,pp.45–53.Stirling,I,Kingsley,M.andCalvert,W.1982.ThedistributionandabundanceofsealsintheeasternBeaufortSea,1974–79.CanadianWildlifeServiceOccasionalPaper47.Edmonton.Stirling,I.,Lunn,N.J.,Iacozza,J.,Elliott,C.andObbard,M.2004.PolarbeardistributionandabundanceonthesouthwesternHudsonBay

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coastduringopenwaterseason,inrelationtopopulationtrendsandannualicepatterns.Arctic57:15–26.Stirling,I.,Richardson,E.,Thiemann,G.W.andDerocher,A.E.2008.UnusualpredationattemptsofpolarbearsonringedsealsinthesouthernBeaufortSea:possiblesignificanceofchangingspringiceconditions.Arctic61:14–22.Swart,N.C.,Fyfe,J.C.,Hawkins,E.,Kay,J.E.andJahn,A.2015.InfluenceofinternalvariabilityonArcticsea-icetrends.NatureClimateChange5(2):86–89.Wiig,Ø.,Born,E.W.,andGarner,G.W.(eds.)1995.PolarBears:Proceedingsofthe11thworkingmeetingoftheIUCN/SSCPolarBearSpecialistsGroup,25-27January,1993,Copenhagen,Denmark.Gland,SwitzerlandandCambridgeUK,IUCN.http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/meetings/Wiig,Ø.,Amstrup,S.,Atwood,T.,Laidre,K.,Lunn,N.,Obbard,M.,Regehr,E.&Thiemann,G.2015.Ursusmaritimus.TheIUCNRedListofThreatenedSpecies2015:e.T22823A14871490.http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/22823/0https://polarbearscience.com/2016/05/01/climate-hustle-knows-ten-dire-predictions-that-have-failed-as-global-polar-bear-population-hits-20-31k/#more-81937

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About the author

Dr Susan Crockford is an evolutionary biologist and has been working for 35 years in archaeozoology, paleozoology and forensic zoology. She is an adjunct professor at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, but works full time for a private consulting company she co-owns (Paci c Identi cations Inc). She is the author of Rhythms of Life: Thyroid Hormone and the Origin of Species, Eaten: A Novel (a polar bear attack thriller), Polar Bear Facts and Myths (for ages seven and up, also available in French and German), Polar Bears Have Big Feet (for preschoolers), and the fully referenced Polar www.polarbearscience.com.

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Contents

About the author vii Executive summary ix Introduction 1

1. 1 A conservation success story 1 2. 2 Fewer populations in decline 1 3. 3 Abrupt summer sea ice decline has not affected polar bear

numbers as predicted 4 4. 4 Chukchi Sea population is thriving 5 5. 5 More prey means healthier polar bears 5 6. 6 Polar bears are adaptable 6 7. 7 Southern Beaufort numbers have rebounded 6 8. 8 Barents Sea numbers have increased 6 9. 9 Low sea ice in 2012 had no harmful effect on Southern Beaufort

bear numbers 7 10. 10 Other species impacted by high polar bear numbers 7 11. 11 Western Hudson Bay population numbers are stable 7 12. 12 Hudson Bay sea ice is not changing much 10 13. 13 Problem bears in Churchill are not lean or starving 10 14. 14 Churchill Manitoba had the most problem bears in 1983 and

2016 10 15. 15 Marginal sea ice declines during the feeding period 11 16. 16 No evidence that subsistence hunting is affecting bear

populations 12 17. 17 Stressful research methods have been curtailed 12 18. 18 No recent reports of polar bear cannibalism 13 v

19. 19 Polar bears appear unaffected by pollution 14 20. 20 Polar bears have survived past warm periods 14

Executivesummary

1. Polarbearsarestillaconservationsuccessstory:therearemorepolarbearsnowthantherewere40yearsago.

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2. Fewerpopulationsareindeclinethanin2010(onlyone,ofcially)andonlysixaredatadecient(downfromnine).

3. Abruptsummerseaicedeclinehasnotaffectedpolarbearnumbersaspre-dicted:eventhoughseaicelevelsdroppedtomid-centurylevelsin2007,theexpecteddecimationofpolarbearsfailedtooccur.

4. TheChukchiSeapopulationisthriving,despiteapronouncedlengtheningoftheice-freeseasonsince2007.

5. LessseaiceinthesummerintheChukchiSeahasmeantahealthypreybaseforpolarbearsbecauseringedsealsfeedprimarilyintheice-freeseason.

6. Polarbearshaveshownthemselvestobeadaptabletochangingiceconditionsinseveralregions.

7. SouthernBeaufortnumbershavereboundedsincethelastsurveycount.

8. BarentsSeanumbershaveprobablyincreasedsince2005andhavedenitelynotdeclined,despitemuchlessseaicecover.

9. Thereisnoevidencethatrecord-lowsummerseaicein2012hadaharmfuleffectonSouthernBeaufortbearnumbers.

10. Otherspeciesarebeingnegativelyimpactedbyhighpolarbearnumbers,es-peciallynestingseabirdsandducks.

11. WesternHudsonBaypopulationnumbershavebeenstablesince2004,despitewhatscientistsaretellingthemedia.

12. HudsonBayseaicehasnotchangedsinceabout1999:thebreakupdatesandfreeze-updatesarehighlyvariablebuttheice-freeperiodwasnotanylongerin2015thanitwasin2004.However,thisfallfreeze-upisshapinguptobetheearliestindecades.

13. ProblembearsinChurchillarenotleanorstarving.14. ChurchillManitobahadthemostproblembearsin1983and2016,whichwerelatefreeze-upyears,butmanyoftheincidentsin2016canbeattributedtoin-creasedvigilanceonthepartofpatrolofcersafteranattackin2013.

15. Therehavebeenonlymarginalsea-icedeclinesduringthefeedingperiodinspring,whenpolarbearsneedseaicethemost.

16. Theisnoevidencethatsubsistencehuntingisaffectingbearpopulations.

17. StressfulresearchmethodshavebeencurtailedinmuchofCanada.

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ix

18. Therehavebeennoreportsofpolarbearcannibalismsince2011.

19. Polarbearsappearunaffectedbypollution:studiessuggestonlythatharmistheoreticallypossible,notthatithashappened.

20. Polarbearshavesurvivedpastwarmperiods,whichisevidencetheyhavetheabilitytosurvivefuturewarmperiods.

Conclusion

• Polarbearsarethriving:theyarenotcurrentlythreatenedwithextinction.

• Tensofthousandsofpolarbearsdidnotdieasaresultofmorethanadecadeoflowsummerseaice,aswaspredicted.

• Polarbearsdon’tneedseaicenlatesummer/earlyfallaslongastheyarewell-fedinthespring.

• 1 A conservation success story • Polar bears are still a conservation success story. With a

global estimate almost certainly greater than 28,000, we can say for sure that there are more polar bears now than there were 40 years ago (Fig. 1). Sadly, although completing a global survey was one of the primary objectives of the Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) at its inception 49 years ago, it has so far been unable to do so because at least four subpopulations have never been counted.

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• • Figure 1: Official estimates of polar bear numbers. Upper graph uses

totals reported in PBSG status tables (to 2013), with min/max; lower graph uses the same figures, but adds back in the so-called

‘inaccurate’ estimates dropped between 2005 and 2013 (in 2014, the PBSG finally did the same). The 1960 figure is a ballpark estimate.

See https://polarbearscience.com/2014/02/18/graphing-polar-bearpopulation-estimates-over-time/ and Crockford 2017.

• • The PBSG global estimate was listed in July 2014 as

“approximately 25,000” bears. This number has not been revised even though the estimate PBSG members provided the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) for its 2015 assessment was 22,000-31,000 or about 26,000. Surveys completed or published since bring the total higher still.

• Even with the lack of precision inherent in these

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estimates, global numbers are still too high to qualify the polar bear as ‘vulnerable’ to, or ‘threatened’ with, extinction based on current population levels. Polar bears today are also well distributed throughout their available habitat (winter sea ice), which is a recognized characteristic of a healthy species. All concerns expressed regarding polar bear survival are about the future.

• 2 Fewer populations in decline • A recent status assessment for polar bears, published by

Environment Canada in May 2014, showed only two subpopulations are ‘likely declining’, down from four listed by the PBSG as declining in 2013 and seven in 2010 (Fig. 2). Baffin Bay, which earned its ‘likely declining’ status due to suspicions of overharvesting (not sea ice decline), was reported in 2017 to be likely stable. Kane Basin, assessed as declining in 2010 and 2013 (but ‘data deficient’ in 2014), was reported in 2017 to be stable or likely increasing (but see Section 10).

• This leaves only the Southern Beaufort bear population as ‘likely declining’ and even this is a highly questionable assessment (see Section 7). Note also that the number of subpopulation considered ‘data deficient’ (Fig. 2, areas in brown) has been reduced from 9 in 2014 to 6 in 2017: three bear populations (Barents Sea, Kara Sea, and Kane Basin) have recently been surveyed and now have population estimates showing probable increases.

• For example, a first-ever Kara Sea population estimate completed in late 2014 potentially adds another 3200 or so bears to the global total. This estimate (range 2,700–3,500), derived by Russian biologists, was added to the official global count published in 2015 by the IUCN Red List. A former ball-park estimate was about 2000, suggesting an increase may have taken place.

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• • Figure 2: Global polar bear population status assessment even

better than this. Figures from the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group assessment (2013) and Environment Canada (May 2014). Brown, data deficient; red, declining; yellow, likely decline; light blue, likely stable; dark blue, stable; light green, likely increase; dark green, increase. More recent surveys show BB, BS, KB, and KS are stable or likely increasing.

https://polarbearscience.com

08.21.2015 60 comments

Polar ice caps stable since

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1979 By Rick Manning

1979isaveryimportantyearinglobalwarmingscience…Theglobaliceareaisvirtuallythesametodayasitwasin1979.Afteralltheworryaboutpolarbearsdyingfromlackofseaicehabitat(Note:Polarbearsmaywellbemoreabundanttodaythanin1979.)andcarbon-dollar-capturingAlGore,Jr.’sdirepredictionofthetotaldisappearanceoftheArcticicecapby2013andtheresultingrisingtides,itturnsoutthattherehasbeenlittle,ifany,change.What’smore,thesatellitesystem,which–unlikegroundmonitoringstations–isnotimpactedbylocalizedvariantscausedbydevelopment,hasfoundthattheglobalwarmingpausenowstandsatseventeenyears.Infairness,theaveragetemperaturesarehigherthanallbutacoupleofyearsbetween1979and1988,butthepredictedescalationoftemperaturesthatundergirdstheentirepushformassivechangestotheworld’selectricitygenerationsystemarepaltry.Withpolaricecapsremainingstablesincethebeginningoftheglobalwarmingcrisis,andtheearth’stemperaturesstubbornlyrefusingtoriseforalmosttwodecades,despiteincreasingcarbonemissions,everyassumptionusedbytheEnvironmentalProtectionAgencytojustifytheirregulatoryassaultonAmerica’slegitimateenergysectorneedstoberethought.Littledidthosewholaunchedtheclimatesatellitein1979knowthattheywereputtingintoplacethescientificdatacollectiontechnologythatchangedeverythingintheglobalwarmingdebate.Onewonderswhatitfeelsliketobehoistedonone’sownpetard.RickManningisthePresidentofAmericansforLimitedGovernment.

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JamesMatkin•afewsecondsago"THEGLOBALICEAREAISVIRTUALLYTHESAMETODAYASITWASIN1979.'Yes,fearsofunusualwarmingbyAlGoreandtheUNarebasedonmisleadingdataandpseudo-sciencenotreality.Thescientistserrorexposedbynewsatellitedatahavebeendupedbytheoldesttrickinthebooks,CHANCE-whendeducingatheoryfromafalsetrendoveratooshorttimeline.Seehttps://www.academia.edu/33...Polarbearsarethrivingbecausepolaricemeltismoderateandnotunusual.Recentresearchwithrealdatashowsnounusualwarmingfromfossilfuels.FromTIBETrecentpeerreviewofclimatehistoryderivedfrom2000yearsoftree-ringsshowed"that"noobviouswarmingtrendsincetheindustrialrevolutionwasobserved,"WHICHMEANSTHEAGWTHEORYFAILS.A2000-YearTemperatureHistoryofChina'sAnimaqinMountainshttp://www.co2science.org/a......Sadly,theterriblewasteanddistortionofpublicresourcesismassiveandwillneverberecoveredtobeusedtoaddressrealissues.Thisisthegreatestscientifichoaxever.NoteeveniftheAGWtheoryhadanymerittherealityistheearth'sclimateis"anti-fragile"andclimatechangecannotbestopped.See-NobellaureateIvarGiaever'sspeechattheNobelLaureatesmeeting1stJuly2015.

- https://www.youtube.com/wat...

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http://netrightdaily.com/2015/08/polar-ice-caps-stable-since-1979/

•

WRITTEN BY THOMAS RICHARD, EXAMINER.COM ON JULY 21, 2015. POSTED IN LATEST NEWS

Plentiful Arctic spring ice helping polar bears thrive (despite misleading news) Polar bear expert and zoologist Susan Crockford is firing back today at recently published articles that say polar bears are somehow starving and “food deprived” because of global warming. The problem is that since 1979, polar bears are thriving and far from starving. This is due to plentiful Arctic sea ice they need (except when it’s too thick) to hunt for food before the summer arrives. Unlike most carnivores, polar bears are unique mammals that do all their primary feeding in the spring, and very little during the summer. Other mammals hunt and gather food in the late spring, summer, and fall, but because of the Arctic’s unique climate, late winter/spring is the time that polar bears hunt and fatten

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up. According to Crockford, “polar bears are at their lowest weight in March and at their highest in June/July.” She notes that other large mammals don’t have this unique eating pattern because no other carnivore lives on the surface of the sea ice. “Summer is warm across the Arctic,” she writes. “It’s the perfect time for polar bears to fast, as little energy is needed for keeping warm, especially if they don’t swim around.” She also notes the “polar-bears-are-doomed crowd can’t hide the fact that this year, spring sea ice habitat for polar bears worldwide has been excellent.” For example, Hudson Bay sea ice extent on July 19 this year was 150,000 square kilometers higher than in recorded on that date in 2009 (526.2 vs. 368.5 mkm2). Norwegian polar bear researchers also reported a good crop of cubs this spring because conditions have been excellent for pregnant females around Svalbard. Worldwide, the amount of Arctic sea ice on July 18, 2015, was the same on that date in 2006, and by July 19, there was actually more sea ice than the same date in 2006 (8.4 vs. 8.3 mkm2). Put simply, the recent summer ice melt has not interfered with the spring feeding period “that is so critically important for polar bears.” Leftover sea ice in early summer meant there was plenty of sea ice in the spring (April-June), even in the Southern Beaufort Sea. The only polar bear region with below-average sea ice extent over the last five years was the Chukchi Sea, but researchers have already shown that polar bears in that region are “doing very well even with no summer sea ice.” Even though the Chukchi Sea currently has below-average summer sea ice, it doesn’t affect a polar bear’s eating habits, as fasting during the summer is normal for them. These

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Arctic carnivores put on hundreds of pounds of fat during the spring feeding period, chowing down on plump, plentiful young seals that are easy to catch, in preparation for the summer months. This time period, known as the “walking hibernation,” is likely an adaptation to their environment and not a physiological mechanism. What all this means, Crockford writes, is that summer sea ice declines predicted in the Arctic “cannot possibly have any significant impact for otherwise healthy bears.” In 2012, this was evidenced by the record-breaking low September ice extent in the Southern Beaufort Sea that showed no noticeable effect on polar bear health or survival. Why? Summer ice extent has “nothing to do with polar bear health or survival.” Spring ice conditions are what matter most to all polar bear populations. It’s the time of year they spend fattening up for the upcoming summer. http://climatechangedispatch.com/plentiful-arctic-spring-ice-helping-polar-bears-thrive-despite-misleading-news/ . DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION Scientists: Polar Bears Are Thriving Despite Global Warming MICHAEL BASTASCH 10:22 AM 07/09/2015

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Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2015/07/09/scientists-polar-bears-are-thriving-despite-global-warming/#ixzz3j8nfWtF0

Two recent reports warned that global warming threatens polar bear populations across the world, but the warnings in those reports obscure today’s reality about polar bears — they are doing just fine, according to experts. “They appear to be as abundant and as productive as ever, in most populations,” Dr. Mitchell Taylor, a polar bear expert with more than 30 years of experience who teaches at Lakehead University in Canada, told the Roy Green Show. Taylor was responding to a recent study by the U.S. Geological Survey which warned that one-third of polar bears could be in danger from global warming by 2025 if nothing is done to curb carbon dioxide emissions. “Addressing sea ice loss will require global policy solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and likely be years in the making,” Mike Runge, a USGS research ecologist, said in a statement. “Because carbon emissions accumulate over time, there will be a lag, likely on the order of several decades, between mitigation of emissions and meaningful stabilization of sea ice loss.” But Taylor said this warning was based on climate models, not empirical data. Taylor said in “essence it’s an expression of their opinion … it’s simply their idea of what

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will happen if the carbon models are correct.” “[I]t’s not an empirical result, it’s not taken from data, it’s simply a collection of the people who contributed to this Bayesian network model,” Taylor told the Roy Green Show. “But I guess in the north country, where the polar bears live, we prefer to go by the data and by what local people say.” Today, there are significantly more polar bears than there were 40 years ago, despite the animal being listed under the Endangered Species act in 2008 over fears global warming would destroy its Arctic habitat. Official estimates put the total number of bears between 20,000 and 25,000, but this number is really just a “qualified guess” and the actual number is likely higher. Traditionally, polar bear’s biggest enemy was overhunting by humans, but in the last few decades international efforts to restrict hunting and trading of polar bear parts have replenished once diminished populations. Mobile_Inline

“[T]hey’ve said that polar bears were declining in Western Hudson Bay, subsequent surveys showed they were wrong … said polar bears were declining in Western Hudson Bay and polar bears are not declining there, polar bears are staying about the same,” Taylor said. “They’re – they’re warning that this will happen, that no-one is seeing it happen yet.” “And for us, living up in the north, where 365 days a year – you know, climate has been evolving over a number of years, bears have been around for hundreds of thousands of years and they’ve gone through various cycles of climate

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change,” echoed Gabriel Nirlungayuk, the Deputy Minister of the Environment in Nunavut. “But in my lifetime, anyhow, we haven’t – I have yet to see declining of polar bears, of climate change,” Gabriel told the Roy Green Show. “And one is Western Hudson Bay, which was projected to be in decline 20 years ago – up to now, it should be less than 300 bears but we’re seeing that the numbers have not really changed.” It was only a couple weeks later the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released its 5-year conservation plan for polar bears — the underlying theme was that global warming was a major threat to polar bears. “Today, polar bears roam the frozen north, but as their sea-ice habitat continues to shrink due to Arctic warming, their future in the U.S. and ultimately their continuation as a species is at risk,” according to the Fish and Wildlife Service report. “Their eventual reprieve turns on our collective willingness to address the factors contributing to climate change and, in the interim, on our ability to improve the ability of polar bears to survive in sufficient numbers and places so that they are in a position to recover once the necessary global actions are taken.” The report was criticized by veteran zoologist Dr. Susan Crockford who argued the conservation plan was flawed and an attempt to drive more funding to government programs. “It’s still based on the same flawed ecological premise as all previous models – it assumes that sea ice was a naturally stable habitat until human-caused global warming came along,” Crockford wrote on her blog. “It also uses slight-of-hand maneuvers to correlate declining summer sea ice and

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declining polar bear population numbers.” “What the report does is assure the FWS funds, over the next five years, to continue spreading alarm regarding greenhouse gases, continue their current and planned polar bear subsistence harvest management plans, and make additional plans to deal with polar bear problems that may or may not arise,” Crockford wrote. Won’tSomeoneThinkofthePolarBears?!?http://www.corbettreport.com/mp4/polarbears.mp4

00:00

00:00 Podcast:Playinnewwindow|Download|EmbedThosecute,furrylittleGlobalWarmingiconsareindangeraccordingtothebought-and-paid-forcampaignersintheglobalwarmingalarmistindustry.Thetruth,however,is(asalways)thepolaroppositeofwhatthealarmistswantyoutobelieve.JoinJamesfortoday’sThoughtfortheDayashebreaksdowntheliesandmisinformationaboutpolarbearpopulationsandhowtheselieshavebeenusedtoselltheclimatechangehype.SHOWNOTES1993Coca-ColaPolarBearCommercialFirstCoca-ColaPolarBearCommercialTurns20DrowningpolarbearpaperFemalepolarbeartrackedmakingcontinuousswimof687kmover9daysReportonDeadPolarBearsGetsaBiologistSuspendedInspectorgeneral’stranscriptofdrownedpolarbearresearcherbeing

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grilledMeltingpolarbearinMontrealdrawsattentiontoArcticwarmingScienceMagretractsphotoshoppedpolarbearimageRainingDeadPolarBearsCommercial–planetstupidUrsusmaritimus–IUCNRedListHow“Science”CountsBearsorWhyitTakesaVillageIUCNRedListcategorycriteriaGraphingpolarbearpopulationestimatesovertimeIUCNRedBookofficialsforcedscientificstandardsonpolarbearpredictivemodelsUncountedpolarbearpopulationsinArcticbasinPolarBearpopulationestimates1981-2013Polarbearsfacingextinctionasnumbers‘tofallbyathirdovernext40years’ReasonstoPetitionCongresstoInvestigateUSGS’DubiousPolarBearClaimsIce-freeArcticsinthepastTwentygoodreasonsnottoworryaboutpolarbearsWalrusesCrowdShoreasArcticSeaIceNearsMinimumHijackingSuccessfulWalrusConservationMasshauloutsoffemalePacificwalrusasasignofpopulationhealth

Comments(5) nosoapradio says: 12/01/2015 at 5:25 pm I really appreciate your

painstaking efforts to unveil the more, or often less, sophisticated mechanisms of highly successful propaganda. Thanks to your videos it has become much easier to make an impact on the very busy and thoroughly brain-washed members of my entourage. Many thanks. Log in to Reply

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graviv says: 12/03/2015 at 5:37

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am https://www.corbettreport.com/geoengineering-the-real-climate-change-threat/ Log in to Reply

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graviv says: 12/03/2015 at 6:25 am Bears thriving is great news, really.

Thanks for the clarity, James. As a long time trusting person, I appreciate any help getting my head around the scale of deceit. I find this history about Jefferson very helpful. We’ve been lied to for a long time, by very good liars.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCBz5nuuB-U&feature=player_embedded “…regarding the Indians, we will push our trading uses and be glad to see the good and influential individuals among them run in debt, because we observe that when these debts get beyond what the individuals cam pay, they become willing to lop them off by accession of lands” Jefferson 1803 Joy Raviv Log in to Reply

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Terraset says: 12/03/2015 at 8:16 am These are easily your best

formatted videos. You pick one small topic and stick to it and debunk it in 5 – 15 minutes. You also show on the screen the sources you’re pulling information from. Ive noticed people respond to that much better than stating the information then seperatly posting a link to the source. It seems to leave them still feeling like “well he’s just saying that.” They could just go click the link but that takes effort and if there’s one thing sheep don’t like to put into their own lives it’s effort. Scrolling through the actual USGS and WWF pages right on the screen takes that excuse away from them because it’s more obvious that it’s not your opinion it’s some other source’s. These videos are /almost/ perfect for what I like to call “truth bombing” where you load the video up on your phone or other device get into a conversation on the topic with someone you know is willfully ignorant on the subject, preferably around a group of people who are on the fence or simply well meaning but lack the information. Wait for said ignorant bigot to make a hard claim such as “But all the polar bears

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are dying, government said so!!” the *BAM* pull out your phone and push play on the video. No time wasted searching for information, no stalling and saying “Give me a second I want to show something to you.” No chance for them to get scared and run from new information and no warning. It’s quite fun really but just make sure you know some self-defense or are at least prepped for that first right hook because bigots have a decent chance of getting violent when they get shown up. Also not recommended to use it on, for example, a landlord or other person who holds tangible power over your life situation. But if you have fallbacks set up in case they’re dumb enough to think that your mere opinion is /so dangerous/ that it warrants eviction or other forms of corporeal punishment then the jokes on them. The reason I say /almost/ is because in a lot of these videos you throw in offhand comments about “The eugenicist, globalist, misleaders” and whatnot. I’ve learned as likely have many others that the moment sheep hear that type of stuff they completely turn their brains off and refuse to listen any further. Granted that’s not such a problem because you could argue to them that they’re just judging a book by it’s cover. But I would hold off on the insults till at least half way through a video so that you’ve at least given out some real information to hook fragile brains into wanting to hear more. At least if you wanted to format such videos to be used as quick, succinct debunking tools for activists to use against mainstream rhetoric. Don’t get me wrong, the insults are warranted and nice to hear and it’s probably pretty obvious that I’m no stranger to using them. Typically after I’ve proven them wrong and they inevitably get mad and aggressive. Then I can justify it. It’s quite fun. But IF you want to format these thought of the day videos to be convenient little shots of Truthinide to be stuck in the arm of anyone afflicted with Ignoramalgia you might want to switch to a different preservative. Log in to Reply

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BennyB says: 12/03/2015 at 1:26 pm James, Thanks. This was a really well presented, thorough, and humorous video, which I found useful and will definitely make a mental note of should future reference be warranted. The polar bear has become one of the most iconic pieces of propaganda on this issue and, as such, it appears not to have much solid

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ground (or ice) to stand on, and deserves to be washed out

unceremoniously to sea Nice work. https://www.corbettreport.com/wont-someone-think-of-the-polar-bears/

Polar bear capital of the world stuck between fear-mongering and science Posted on February 14, 2016 | Comments Off on Polar bear capital of the world stuck between fear-mongering and science https://polarbearscience.com/2016/02/14/polar-bear-capital-of-the-world-stuck-between-fear-mongering-and-science/ CBS News published a predictably one-sided “Cover Story” this morning (14 February 2016) about Churchill, Manitoba – the self-proclaimed Polar Bear Capital of the World. This is the online version of a Sunday morning TV special that’s not available where I live. It’s yet another example of how the media feeds the politics of polar bears and prevents the advancement of science. Here’s my take on this CBS effort.

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The story presented by Lee Cowan (“The polar bear capital of the world”) included numerous quotes from an interview, presumably from last fall, with Polar Bears International employee Steven Amstrup. Amstrup, an American biologist, again repeated his scientifically-flawed and overly pessimistic opinion about the future of polar bears in general and for Churchill bears in particular [I discussed that misinformation last fall here]. The story also quoted the badly out-of-date population estimate of 20,000-25,000, which the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group has not used since July 2014, when they listed the global number as “about 25,000.” By November 2015, a new IUCN Red List assessment for polar bears put the global estimate at 20,000-31,000 (an average of about 25,500). Poor old Churchill: it’s kind of stuck in the middle. On one side are the self-serving promotional activities of Steven Amstrup and Polar Bears International, essentially speaking on behalf of the town. On the other, there’s the most respected species protection organization in the world (the IUCN Red List), who have recently attempted to dampen the

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unscientific influence that Amstrup has imposed on international polar bear conservation. I was contacted by the producer of this piece (Dustin Stephens) back in June 2015 and warned him that Amstrup and PBI were not the voice of science they claimed to be. Wasted time and words: Amstrup’s fear-mongering and misinformation won out. It almost makes you wonder: do Amstrup and Polar Bears International control Churchill as thoroughly as it appears to outsiders? Does Churchill even care about getting the science of polar bears right?

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Here is the comment I left below the CBS piece (see my last few posts (like this one or this one) which discuss the 2015 Red List decision): “It’s true – Amstrup’s predictions for the future of polar bears in 2008 were grim. The model he developed used his personal opinions about polar bear reactions to possible future scenarios as facts. A few people complained about the methods but most took his word for it – the bears were screwed. But its 2015 2016 and the situation has changed. [my typo in original] In 2015, when forced to use acceptable scientific and statistical methods for such predictive biological models, the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group members who authored the assessment for their parent organization, the IUCN Red List, found the situation is so much less than dire it can only be said to be only mildly worrying. They estimated the global population size at 20,000-31,000 bears (Nov. 2015) and only a 70% chance of a 30% decline in global polar bear numbers by 2050 IF summer sea ice declines as predicted. That’s a slightly better than 50:50 chance of a significant decline in numbers – far from the ‘sure thing’ that Amstrup describes. Oddly, Amstrup seems not to have mentioned that 2015 Red List assessment to this CBS reporter, even though he was a co-author of it. The report was submitted to the Red List folks in the summer of 2015, so Amstrup knew in October 2015 that its release was imminent. It was published on November 18 – conveniently after the 2015 Churchill polar bear season. What’s also odd is that the PBSG has not updated their own website with this information. Don’t take my word for it, search “IUCN Red List polar bears

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2015.” Be sure to open and read the “supplemental” file (a pdf), which describes the details of the analysis. The Red List maintained the status of ‘vulnerable’ but it’s clear the criteria were only barely met. The Red List Standards Committee is to be commended for forcing polar bear biologists to clean up their science. However, allowing future threats to be equated with current threats – as if they require the same kind of conservation response – is misleading, confusing, and unscientific. Compare the Red List conservation situations for lions and polar bears: Lions in 2015 were listed as ‘vulnerable’ to extinction because their entire population had already declined by an estimated 43% over the last 20 years (leaving only about 7,450 remaining). Lions may already be in trouble and steps might be needed to prevent further losses. Polar bears in 2015 were listed as ‘vulnerable’ to extinction even though their population trend could only be described as “unknown” (with an estimated global population of 20,000-31,000), but a prediction for the next 3 generations (35 years) suggested it *could* decline by 30% by 2050. In what universe are these two conservation situations so similar that the label ‘vulnerable’ describes them both? At best, the Red List needs a new status category for polar bears – something like ‘potentially vulnerable’ or ‘future vulnerable’ – so the people will immediately know that concern is about a prophesied outcome, not one that has already taken place. Dr. Susan Crockford, zoologist (see PolarBearScience)”

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Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2015/07/09/scientists-polar-bears-are-thriving-despite-global-warming/#ixzz3j8nOAnOLThe poster boys of climate change thrive in the icy Arctic: Polar bears defy concerns about their extinction

Polar bear populations have stablised and may even be

increasing This is despite dire predictions

of 70 per cent decline in numbers by 2050

One resident of Alaskan village says 'this has been a great

year for bears' By CAROLINE GRAHAM FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY PUBLISHED: 23:11 GMT, 28 September 2013 | UPDATED: 23:14 GMT, 28 September 2013 A bitter wind blows off the Arctic Ocean but the mother polar bear and her two cubs standing just 50ft in front of me are in their element. For more than an hour I watch from a boat just offshore, transfixed and oblivious to the below-freezing temperatures, as the four-month-old twins gambol across the snow. For years polar bears have been the poster boys of global warming – routinely reported to be threatened with extinction due to melting ice-packs and rising sea temperatures.

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Hope: Despite concerns about future extinction, polar bear populations appear to have stabalised Indeed, when they were put on the US Endangered Species list in 2008, they were the first to be registered solely because of the perceived threat of global warming. One prominent scientist said their numbers would be reduced by 70 per cent by 2050 while global warming proponents – including Al Gore and Sir David Attenborough – used emotive imagery to highlight their ‘demise’. Yet there is one small problem: many polar bear populations worldwide are now stable, if not increasing. RELATED ARTICLES • • Met office proof that global warming is still 'on pause'

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as... • And now it's global COOLING! Return of Arctic ice cap as

it... • It's not as bad as we thought - but global warming is still...

According to a report compiled this year on Canadian polar bear populations by academics at Lakehead University, Ontario, only one out of 13 areas showed declining numbers. In fact, in some areas numbers have steadily increased. In the Foxe Basin area in the Arctic Circle, aerial surveys

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show polar bear numbers have risen from 2,200 in 1994 to 2,580 in 2010, while the population in West Hudson Bay has increased from 935 in 2004 to 1,013 in 2011.

Great year: This bear was photographed in Kaktovik, Alaska, where the population is growing At the same time, a new report to be published tomorrow from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that while global warming is a fact, the situation in some areas is not as bad as was predicted in 2007. Last week I travelled to Kaktovik, Alaska – an Inupiat village of 239 hardy souls on Barter Island at the edge of the Arctic – which has become an unlikely boom town thanks to an influx of polar bears. Village administrator Tori Sims, 26, beamed as she told me: ‘This has been a great year for the bears. 'They are fat, happy and healthy. We’re seeing a boom in tourism which brings much-needed revenue to the village and helps us continue to live the traditional life we cherish. ‘I’ve lived here all my life and there are more bears every year. I read stories about polar bears being on the brink of extinction because of global warming, look out of my window and start to laugh.’ For decades, large-scale hunting had decimated the polar bear population, and in 1973 a global hunting ban was imposed.

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In the 1960s, Russian scientist Savva Uspenskii estimated that global numbers as low as 5,000 to 8,000.

Good news: Mail on Sunday reporter Caroline Graham travelled to Kaktovik last week to check progress But today, even the WWF cites estimates of 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears living in Canada, Greenland, the northern Russian coast, islands off the Norwegian coast, and the north-west Alaskan coast. In Kaktovik, bear numbers are embraced in the South Beaufort Sea sub-population and the most recent study by the US Fish & Wildlife Service in 2006 reported that numbers had dropped from 1,842 bears to 1,525 over the previous five years. A new study is under way with a report due early in 2014. But on Barter Island it is a more positive story: official figures have fluctuated from 51, when records started in 2002, to a pitiful ‘low’ of only 18 bears in 2010. But there were a record 80 bears recorded last year and this year US Fish & Wildlife puts the figure at 58, though locals believe it is higher. Carla Sims Kayotuk, who heads the ‘nanook patrol’ which keeps the bears out of the village in Kaktovik, said: ‘Bears come and go. They are notorious for going long distances. ‘Authorities say there are 58 but that’s just what they counted here in Kaktovik. They also monitored a wider area from the air and counted 91 bears.

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Boom town: The rise in polar bear numbers is bringing in tourists who are eager to catch a glimpse of them ‘I took a trip outside town yesterday and came across another 20 bears. People here think there are more bears than ever.’ Others, however, disagree, and say that while Kaktovik appears to have plenty of bears, it doesn’t mean there is a healthy wider population. Guide Bruce Inglangasuk said: ‘Any idiot can see that climate change is affecting us here. There is no ice where there should be ice.’ Walt Audi, 74, a former pilot who now owns the 11-room Waldo Arms hotel, agreed. He said: ‘I’ve been here 50 years. We used to have icebergs floating offshore at this time of year and the ice would come right in, even during summer. ‘Now it’s 150 miles offshore. The bears are hungry so they are coming here looking for food until the ocean freezes and they can head back out to hunt seals.’ Those who insist the bear population is healthy are not popular. Dr Susan Crockford, an evolutionary biologist and expert on polar bears, was criticised as a ‘climate change denier’ when she published a paper called Ten Good Reasons Not To Worry About Polar Bears earlier this year. Population forecasting expert Dr J Scott Armstrong agrees: ‘The decision by the US Senate in 2008 to name the polar bear as an endangered species because of global warming was based on flawed information. 'The fact is it is almost impossible to get an accurate figure for the number of polar bears – they do not stay in one territory.’ Seeing the polar bear in the wild is a privilege – but perhaps, thankfully, no longer the rare sight we had previously been led to believe. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2436882/The-poster-boys-climate-change-thrive-icy-Arctic-Polar-bears-defy-concerns-extinction.html#ixzz3j8swYWyT

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EXPERTS SMEARED BY MEDIA AND GREENPEACE FOR DEBUNKING GLOBAL WARMING

By ROBERT WILDE 23 FEB, 2015

http://www.breitbart.com/author/robert-wilde/ 2561 5122

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/02/23/experts-smeared-by-media-and-greenpeace-for-debunking-global-warming/

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A not so funny, but somewhat predictable, event occurred after Dr. Matt Briggs co-authored a major peer-reviewed climate physics paper that exposed significant errors in the billion-dollar computer models used by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Briggs and his colleagues were smeared by the New York Times, the Guardian, the Washington Post and the Boston Globe because the revealed errors suggest that there is no climate crisis after all.

Dr. Briggs joined Breitbart News Executive Chairman, Stephen K. Bannon, on Breitbart News Sunday and explained that he, lead author Lord Monckton, physicist Dr. Willie Soon, and David Legates, professor of Geography at the University of Delaware, developed a simple climate model that exposed the errors in the more complex computer models used by the IPCC. The report was released in a joint article titled: “Why Models Run Hot: Results from An Irreducibly Simple Climate Model.”

Dr. Briggs, who has a Ph.D. in mathematical statistics from Cornell, was assistant editor for the Monthly Weather Review, and is widely published on matters concerning climate. He explained that for decades “the computer climate models on which the IPCC and others rely, make forecasts where the temperature will be way up there. But, the reality is the temperature has been way down here. So these models are running hot!”

The reason that the models are running hot is based on a “firm scientific principle,” says Briggs. “If a model is making

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bad predictions, which these climate models are, the theory that underlies them must be wrong. So these models must be wrong.”

Briggs explained that atmospheric reaction to carbon dioxide, known as climate sensitivity, is probably too high for these models. “If you take this climate sensitivity model and tone it down, you get a much closer match to reality.” He contends that the computer models are overcompensating for the addition of CO2’s to the atmosphere.

Although their findings weren’t that controversial scientifically, it was “unwelcome news” to the IPCC and other “Global Warmists”—“and that’s when the whole thing began to blow-up,” Briggs said.

Chairman Bannon asked Briggs how he reacts to all the “smug” entertainers, celebrities, personalities, and others who assert that global warming is a settled science. Briggs responded by explaining that what is settled, “is the fundamental, unshakable scientific principle, that if you have a theory that makes bad predictions, that theory must be wrong. And we have had lousy predictions from these climate models for years and years and years. Something must be wrong. This is undeniable.”

Briggs elaborated that his paper has been downloaded 10,000 times, making it one of the most downloaded reports on climate change ever. But the statistician acknowledged that a lot of money and careers are on the line, largely relying on the premise that the planet is heating up.

Consequently, he said, reporters from the aforementioned media outlets have done their best to smear the authors’

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names. Moreover, they made attempts to get Soon and Legates fired from their jobs. Accusations were made that the authors wrote the paper for financial gains. Yet, no money was ever given or received for writing it. Briggs said the reporters “did not want to believe the truth I was telling them.”

Greenpeace was able to access all of eminent solar physicist Willie Soon’s emails from his employer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center regarding the paper. But they found nothing suggesting any kind of foul play, deception or receiving of illegal funds. Mr. Bannon mocked the Harvard-Smithsonian center for having released Soon’s correspondence, sarcastically referring to the institution as a “profiles in courage” for providing all of Soon’s private emails.

Eventually, Greenpeace sent the emails to the media in a desperate attempt to unveil some sort of mistake in the study, or deception on the part of the authors. Bannon observed, “so they were trying to smear you, ruin your reputations?” Briggs said that they tried, but every point was refuted entirely.

Briggs emphasized that “if you don’t remember anything else from this radio program listen to this: If you have a theory and that theory makes bad predictions, that theory is in error….Climate forecasters have made, for decades, lousy predictions. They are therefore in error….People should not rely on them to make decisions. Certainly, they should not rely on them to make legislation.”

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James Matkin • Yes, not one of the 30 computer models

predictions of the climate alarmists have happened over the past two decades. For example the models predicted Arctic ice melting away by the summer of 2013. Wrong. Polar ice increased >40% from 2012 to 2013 and maintained the increase in 2014. Antarctic ice has broken all records for expansion in the past decade. Also record breaking freezing winters in Britain, the US and Beijing over the past winters defy any theory of unusual warming. The alarmists have resorted to pure nonsense in their desperate attempt to preserve their climate religion, including reporting that polar bears will soon be extinct because the ice will melt and saying the bears can't swim which is like saying humans can't walk. Canada monitors polar bears for Inuit in the Arctic who have hunted polar bears for sustenance for the past 1000 years. Taylor who is a researcher with 50 peer reviewed articles holds that the polar bear population is strong and increasing over the past two decades now with more than 22, 000 bears. The worst is demonizing C02 which is a life giving, plant growing essential gas and has no pollution aspects. We need more, not less C02 and there are businesses who do just that for the agriculture industry. Time for the Climate alarmists to chill out, stop fear mongering and accept their alarmist theories are mistaken.

5122 http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/02/23/experts-smeared-by-media-and-greenpeace-for-debunking-global-warming/

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ken1496 • a day ago Hopefully more real scientists will continue to

do more work disproving the sham that is man made climate change, although the lemmings will never listen to real scientific data, just the made up crap pushed by the enviro-nazi's.

FauxScienceSlayer ken1496 • a day ago Climate alchemy

was created at the behest of the Club of Rome to demonize energy use and create Universal feudalism. This is a three sided debate between the elitist directed Darth BIG Warmists, the controlled opposition Luke LITTLE Warmists and the informed and independent Obie NO Warmists. What Briggs, Legates and Monckton fail to mention is that there is.... NO magic greenhouse gas and NO phantom back radiation warming force. Read "Greenhouse Gas Ptolemaic Model" for a summary of defects. Gas molecules cannot capture, store, redirect (as claimed)

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or amplify radiant energy photons moving at the speed of light. In addition, all of the "Laws" of radiation are in error, including Kirchoff, Stephan, Boltzman and Planck. The Nobel winning Planck's Constant is a fraud, see.... "The Theory of Heat Radiation Revisited" by Robitaille & Crothers ptep-online.com/index_files/20...

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KJinAZ FauxScienceSlayer • a day ago There you go again, using real

physics and logic is not going to work for these people who do everything based on emotion. We have to hold them hostage, and extort them for a few years, before they will begin to understand. That's the way they've been trying to sell this garbage with us.

FauxScienceSlayer KJinAZ • a day ago Carbon climate forcing is the

most defective science hypothesis since the world was flat. Unfortunately, those claiming to be 'skeptics' or 'deniers' only

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disagree with this mortally flawed hypothesis by DEGREE....magic gas warms, just not that much. In fact, more than 30% of solar radiation never makes it to Earth as it is FILTERED out by the atmosphere, which COOLS the planet. I have personally met Lindzen, Singer, Patrick, Spencer, Curry, Watts, Monckton and a host of Luke Warmists, and told them face to face, they are WRONG....as time will soon prove. There is NO Carbon climate forcing. Period.

Scoobym3 FauxScienceSlayer • a day ago You might as well be arguing religion with a scientologist. It's a lose, lose proposition. This global warming business is not something they WANT to debate. Even if they are wrong they are right. It doesn't matter. This issue is a leftist's wet dream. It involves two things leftists love, a huge increase in taxes and control over the big energy producers.