Ten years ago, polar bears were classified as an endangered species due to model-based assumptions that said the recession of Arctic sea ice would hamper the bears’ seal-hunting capabilities and ultimately lead to starvation and extinction.
The Inuit, who have observed these bears catch seals in open water for generations (and likely know more about polar bears than Western scientists), disagree.
“There is no evidence that the fast reduction of sea-ice habitat in the area has yet led to a reduction in population size.” (Aars et al., 2017 )
Inuit observations: “… back in early 80s, and mid 90s, there were hardly any bears … there’s too many polar bears now. Bears can catch seals even—even if the—if the ice is really thin … they’re great hunters those bears … they’re really smart … they know how to survive.” (Wong et al., 2017)
Inuit observations: “No, because polar bears can go and follow the seals further [if sea ice retreats], so they won’t have trouble hunting. Also the snow covers the [seals’] breathing holes but polar bears can still hunt, it’s just for people. There is more rough ice, more thin ice. But it won’t affect polar bears’ hunting.” (Dowsley, 2007)
“Reduction in the heavy multiyear ice and increased productivity from a longer open water season may even enhance polar bear habitat in some areas. … It seems unlikely that polar bears (as a species) are at risk from anthropogenic global warming.” (York et al., 2016)
Sometimes the “Western scientific understanding” of how the natural world operates conflicts with observations.
“The view of polar bears as effective open-water hunters is not consistent with the Western scientific understanding that bears rely on the sea ice platform for catching prey. … [Participants] indicated that polar bear body condition is stable; 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.” (Laforest et al., 2018)
“‘Inuit believe there are now so many bears that public safety has become a major concern,’ says the document, the result of four years of study and public consultation. … The plan leans heavily on Inuit knowledge, which yields population estimates higher than those suggested by western science for almost all of the 13 included bear populations. … Scientists say only one population of bears is growing; Inuit say there are nine. Environment Canada says four populations are shrinking; Inuit say none are.” (ctvnews.ca 2018)
The paleoclimate evidence, which shows that sea ice was thinner and less extensive than today for most of the last 10,000 years, also contradicts the assumptions about modern polar bear endangerment due to thinning ice. One must ask: How did polar bears survive sea ice free summers in the ancient past if they existentially rely on thick sea ice to hunt prey today?
When the observations don’t agree with the models and assumptions, real scientists are supposed to reconsider their hypotheses.
Climate scientists, on the other hand, too often discard the data that conflict with their modeled assumptions and proceed to call those who question their models and assumptions names (i.e., “deniers”).
This begs the question: Why is climate science so much different than real science?
In the 3 new papers referenced below, extensive observational evidence suggests that polar bear populations are currently healthier than in the past, and their numbers have been stable or growing in recent decades.
Laforest et al., 2018
Traditional Ecological Knowledge of Polar Bears in
the Northern Eeyou Marine Region, Québec, Canada
“Traditional Ecological Knowledge of Polar Bears […] Québec, Canada … Communities also differed in their perception of the prevalence of problem polar bears and the conservation status of the species, with one-third of participants reporting 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.”
“[Participants] indicated that polar bear body condition is stable; 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. … None of the participants explicitly linked the effects of a warming climate to specific impacts on polar bears. … Five participants indicated that polar bears are adept swimmers capable of hunting seals in open water. Residents of communities along Baffin Bay have also expressed this viewpoint (Dowsley and Wenzel, 2008), whereas Inuvialuit of the Western Arctic had variable perceptions of the ability of bears to catch seals in open water (Joint Secretariat, 2015).”
“The view of polar bears as effective open-water hunters is not consistent with the Western scientific understanding that bears rely on the sea ice platform for catching prey (Stirling and McEwan, 1975; Smith, 1980). The implications of this disagreement are paramount, given that scientists suggest that the greatest threat to polar bears associated with a decrease in sea ice is a significant decrease in access to marine mammal prey (Stirling and Derocher, 1993; Derocher et al., 2004) … A recent aerial survey of the Southern Hudson Bay subpopulation concluded that the abundance of polar bears has remained steady since 1986 (943 bears; SE: 174) (Obbard et al., 2015). The survey included the entire coastal range and offshore island habitat of the Southern Hudson Bay subpopulation, except for the eastern James Bay coast. Taken together, the results of the aerial survey and the participant responses from Wemindji and Chisasibi indicate that the local population has remained stable. However, the unanimous responses from participants in Whapmagoostui/Kuujjuarapik suggest that there has been a localized increase in the number of bears near Whapmagoostui/Kuujjuarapik.”
Laidre et al. 2018
Traditional Knowledge About Polar Bears
(Ursus maritimus) in East Greenland:
Changes in the Catch and Climate Over Two Decades
“Half the hunters from Ittoqqortoormiit reported that they catch more polar bears than 10–15 years ago and 38% said it was the same (Table 1). A few noted the conditions vary from year to year and the ice conditions determine whether they catch a polar bear in a given year. … When asked about changes in the number of polar bears in their hunting areas in the past 10–15 years (since the introduction of the quota), 63% of hunters in both regions said there are “more polar bears.” The remaining hunters said they did not know, there was no change, or there were fewer polar bears (Table 4). A variety of responses were given as explanations; the bulk of responses mentioned quotas, sea ice timing, and restrictions on what categories of polar bears hunters are allowed to catch (authors’ note: it is forbidden to catch females with cubs, dependent cubs and bears in dens).”
[snip – cheap shot deleted] But you failed to notice that it’s not about discarding data, it is about the interpretation of data.
Is it? [snip – gratuitous whining deleted] I see a lot of junk science presented from the skeptic side to argue against AGW. You should ask yourself why this kind of science is so much different from actual science.
And yet one can find hundreds of articles about declining polar bear populations, them finding less food because of a shorter seasons, etc
Anyway, this “it was warm before, how did they survive that” meme doesn’t really work. The current climate change is rapid. It’s similar to ocean acidification. With enough time and mixing this would not be as large a problem. Species can adapt well enough to slow changes …
But I guess skeptics will only change their mind after a big enough extinction event occured. Not while it is happening and certainly not before. Observations are required so we can use our time machines to go back to the year 2000 and change everything. And since there are no records of time travel, it can’t be such a bad future … right? And nope, this is not an analogy 😉
Can you at least cite 3 papers about polar bear population?
Not asking for hundred, but 10 would be enough.
Hundred, this is indeed impressive if you can make an effort instead of quoting out of your pale side. Shine it or show us for real!
It’s not that difficult to not wait for the other side to come up with lists of papers and do your research yourself. You are a skeptic after all … right? So don’t just believe what is presented here and dig deeper.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6375/568
“…as sea ice becomes increasingly short-lived annually, polar bears are likely to experience increasingly stressful conditions and higher mortality rates.”
https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1890/14-1129.1
“Reduced spatial and temporal availability of sea ice is expected to increasingly force population dynamics of polar bears as the climate continues to warm. However, in the short term, our findings suggest that factors other than sea ice can influence survival.”
https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1890/09-1641.1
“We evaluated the impacts of climate change on polar bears in the southern Beaufort Sea by means of a demographic analysis, combining deterministic, stochastic, environment‐dependent matrix population models with forecasts of future sea ice conditions from IPCC general circulation models (GCMs). … Model averaging was used to produce the vital rate estimates, and a parametric bootstrap procedure was used to quantify model selection and parameter estimation uncertainty. … The stochastic model was linked to a set of 10 GCMs compiled by the IPCC; the models were chosen for their ability to reproduce historical observations of sea ice and were forced with “business as usual” (A1B) greenhouse gas emissions. The resulting stochastic population projections showed drastic declines in the polar bear population by the end of the 21st century.”
https://polarbearsinternational.org/research/research-qa/are-polar-bear-populations-increasing-in-fact-booming/
“About half of our population estimates are only educated guesses. Planetary physics require the world to warm as greenhouse gas concentrations rise, so without greenhouse gas mitigation, the ice will continue to melt. For an animal dependent on sea ice to survive, the prospects are not good. As the ice decline continues, the plight of the polar bear only can worsen.”
https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/22823/14871490
“Population trend: ? Unknown”
Even Kenneth, managed to link to an article about climate change denial by proxy (polar bears): https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/68/4/281/4644513
“The scientific consensus is that polar bears will ultimately disappear if Arctic sea-ice declines continue unabated (Amstrup et al. 2010).”
Google Scholar link: https://scholar.google.de/scholar?q=polar+bear+decline
Yes, some studies/papers are about predicting the future and by that not reports of future observations (obviously).
Models vs observations, Seb?
You need to try harder than that.
How do you observe the future, Newminster? If I tell you that a ball thrown into your direction will hit you, will you also say that this is only based on a model and hasn’t been observed yet?
Silly analogy, but will let Newminster respond.
Please not that I didn’t [add the actual quotes from the links to the papers and webpages].
[SebastianH chose the links, KR examined them and added the quoted text pertaining to population trends from the link. All but the italicized/emboldened text in quotes below the links are SebastianH’s words. Apparently he was hoping we wouldn’t actually look at the links, which do not support his claim that “one can find hundreds of articles about declining polar bear populations”.]
We read text very differently … must be confirmation bias.
Sebastian flat out LIES with this unsupported absurdity:
“And yet one can find hundreds of articles about declining polar bear populations, them finding less food because of a shorter seasons, etc.”
Your lie easily destroyed by this link:
Global polar bear population larger than previous thought – almost 30,000
https://polarbearscience.com/2017/02/23/global-polar-bear-population-larger-than-previous-thought-almost-30000/
============================================
Tough question for this resident troll:
Where do Polar Bears Den at?
That website looks like it is part of the proxy-denial thing Kenneth linked to in the article.
Easily destroyed … right. See links I posted as a reply to John Brown’s comment above.
All those links do is repeat what the “consensus” is: global warming will reduce sea ice, and therefore polar bears will “disappear” in the future. They don’t provide population observations/estimates that show the overall polar bear numbers are declining due to less sea ice. They’re model-based projections based on conjecture.
Do you have anything based on observation to support your viewpoint that Inuit hunters are less informed and demonstrably wrong about the polar bears’ existential dependency on sea ice for seal-hunting (because they’re incapable of catching seals in open water), and therefore Western scientists like Michael Mann (co-author of the Harvey et al. paper) are right to tout the consensus that polar bears will literally “disappear” in the near future?
Sebastian clearly doesn’t read the link I posted, since they are based on estimated BEAR COUNTS:
The results of three recently-released studies that were not included in the last IUCN Red List assessment add more than 2,050 bears (on average)1 to the official 2015 global polar bear estimate, a point you won’t likely hear next Monday (27 February) from most polar bear specialists, conservation organizations, their cheerleaders and corporate sponsors on International Polar Bear Day.
This means the adjusted 2015 global estimate for polar bears should be about 28,500 (average), a marked increase over the official estimate of 26,500 (average) for 2015 — and an even larger increase over the 2005 estimate of about 22,500 (average)2, despite the dramatic loss of summer sea ice since 2007 that we hear about endlessly.
https://polarbearscience.com/2017/02/23/global-polar-bear-population-larger-than-previous-thought-almost-30000/
====================================================
This is why you are stupidly ignorant.
By the way you still haven’t answered the question:
Where do Polar Bears Den at?
Meanwhile are you aware that low to zero Summer ice level is largely irrelevant to Polar Bear dietary and life style?
There have been large periods of time in the early Holocene of little to zero Summer ice, that lasted for hundreds of years, yet the world still alive and the Polar Bears still around.
They consume most of their calories for the YEAR, by early July.
Cronin and Cronin, 2015
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41063-015-0019-3
“Pliocene Arctic Ocean summer SSTs were appreciably warmer than modern and seasonally sea-ice free conditions existed in some regions. … At Lake El’gygytgyn (Lake ‘‘E’’) in Siberia summer temperatures were 8°C warmer than modern and at Ellesmere Island, Canada, summer and MAT [mean annual temperatures] were 11.8°C and 18.3°C higher than today.”
“[A] seasonally ice-free marginal and central Arctic Ocean was common … regionally during the early Holocene [6,000 to 10,000 years ago]. … Some species thought to be dependent on summer sea ice (e.g., polar bears) survived through these periods.”
—
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091229105913.htm
“The U.S. Geological Survey found that summer sea-surface temperatures in the Arctic were between 10 to 18°C (50 to 64°F) during the mid-Pliocene, while current temperatures are around or below 0°C (32°F).”
—
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00063657509476459
“Between 1000 and 1300 [AD, i.e., the Medieval Warm Period] average summer temperatures were about 1°C higher than today, with the mean annual temperature higher by perhaps 4°C in a largely ice-free Arctic.”
I posted another comment just before this one you approved:
sunsettommy 26. October 2018 at 4:24 PM | Permalink | Reply
By the way you still haven’t answered the question:
Where do Polar Bears Den at?
might be in the spam bin?
It appears that Sebastian isn’t going to answer the question, probably because it would destroy his belief that Polar Bears MUST have sea ice to survive, I thinks he knows that too.
“Tough question for this resident troll:
Where do Polar Bears Den at?”
Hint, majority of the Bears live in Canada…….
Those are model-based projections of what might possibly maybe perhaps happen in the future due to the assumption surmise belief that less sea ice means declining numbers and starvation. But the observations don’t support this. The Inuit hunters – who know far more about polar bears than Western part-time visitors do – report that the sea ice composition doesn’t affect polar bear habitat to any significant degree, and that polar bear numbers are stable to increasing in recent decades. Is Traditional Ecological Knowledge like this “junk science”?
Oooh, it’s rapid alright. However, we haven’t had much of any trend since the early 2000s in the Arctic as a whole, and the Greenland ice sheet has been cooling in the last decade or so (Westergaard-Nielsen et al., 2018) and is no warmer today than 80 years ago (Mikkelson et al., 2018). Antarctica hasn’t had any continent-wide warming in the last 100 years (Stenni et al., 2017). The Canadian Arctic (where most polar bears live) hasn’t warmed in the last 150 years (Fortin and Gajewski, 2016), and it’s 3 degrees C colder today than it was during the mid-Holocene. The North Atlantic is rapidly cooling (Smeed et al., 2018, ) and is cooler today than during the 1800s (Kim et al., 2017; Birkel et al., 2018). East Antarctica has been cooling for decades (Clem et al., 2018) and the Western Antarctic Peninsula has been cooling at a rate of -0.47 C per decade since 1999 (Oliva et al., 2017). Rapid changes in what direction?
Correct. We’ll wait for the 30,000-species-per-year ongoing extinction event you believe in to take place. We might be here awhile considering there’s been only 1 confirmed species extinction since 2000.
https://notrickszone.com/2017/10/16/recent-co2-climate-sensitivity-estimates-continue-trending-towards-zero/#comment-1232607
SebastianH: “Regarding extinction of species, why do you think 30,000 species lost per year is a big number? We are already at or over that rate.”
And? How else would you determine that a species is endangered? You try to predict their future and count their numbers.
How about taking a more scientific approach than asking a bunch of people whether they have seen a polar bear recently and how their sightings compare to their remembered past sightings.
Is it even science? It’s a poll! I can tell you are story about insects on windshields in the past and how this isn’t the case anymore on long trips on the road. Would you believe me or would you demand an actual count of the insect population? You know, real data!
I’d love to reply to this paragraph in detail, but time is limited and it will only end in countless back and forth comments going nowhere. Let’s let Kurt believe you “destroyed” me here. No warming happening, right? And surely Antarctica isn’t losing ice mass and has record low sea ice extent lately? 😉
You still haven’t read up on what background extinction rate is. Also this is one estimate of one scientist. It’s funny that you repeat it over and over and even have a quote from me ready for the occasion. Thanks for reminding me that Pierre predicted a -2.8C anomaly for the year 2020 about 10 years ago.
Those are model-based projections of what might possibly maybe perhaps happen in the future due to the assumption surmise belief that less sea ice means declining numbers and starvation.
Observations of their population numbers. Are they stable? Increasing? Declining? Observations indicate that polar bear populations have not declined in recent decades. Instead, populations are stable to increasing.
But the observations don’t support this.
Wow. The “bunch of people” you are referring to are the dozens and hundreds of Inuit who have been living along side of polar bears for generations and respond to interviews about their livelihood. They know more than part-time Western visitors about how well polar bears can hunt seals in open water — because they’ve observed the bears do this. In what way are models based on assumptions more scientific than accumulating the observational evidence from the hunters themselves, the experts? How arrogant to dismiss TEK from indigenous peoples as worthless.
Is Traditional Ecological Knowledge like this “junk science”?
Is concocting a “consensus” science?
https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/68/4/281/4644513
“The scientific consensus is that polar bears will ultimately disappear if Arctic sea-ice declines continue unabated (Amstrup et al. 2010).”
Correct. We’ll wait for the 30,000-species-per-year ongoing extinction event you believe in to take place.
What do the observations say about how many confirmed species extinctions we had in 2015? 2016? According to alarmist projections, we’ll get over a million species extinctions by 2050 due to global warming. When do you think we might actually see some trends heading in this direction (considering we’ve only had one confirmed species extinction since 2000)?
I didn’t write “worthless”, but it anecdotal evidence. Ask some people how they perceive their reality and you have yourself a poll.
Yes, it is what most scientists agree upon. The act of agreeing on something is of course not science, the science that is being agreed on is science.
Again, google “background extinction rate”.
Science is empirical observation. The Inuit have actually observed polar bears catching seals in open water because they’ve been observed to be highly skilled swimmers. Reduced sea ice does not significantly impact polar bear hunting practices. In recent decades, the Inuit have observed stability or increases in bear population throughout nearly all the regions where they have hunted polar bears for generations.
Climate scientists like Michael Mann, or those committed to promulgating the claim that polar bears will starve and “disappear” without extensive sea ice, have not observed what the Inuit have observed for generations. They assume they are right that polar bears cannot survive without extensive sea ice. And then they agree with one another that they’re right, utilizing IPCC models to craft projections of imminent extinction due to rising CO2 emissions. And then they call this a “consensus” when enough of their peers agree with them. And then this “consensus” about polar bears as susceptible to “disappearing” due to rising CO2 emissions is characterized as science, and those who disagree are called “deniers” and “disinformers” and worse. And then people like you fall for it.
People agreeing with each other about what they think might happen in the future is not science. You claim it is science, but the Inuit observations of polar bears in their natural habitat are just “some people” adding some “anecdotal evidence” to produce a “poll”.
Between the two, Inuit observations of polar bears in their natural habitat, and especially their observation that polar bears are largely unaffected by diminished sea ice, are much closer to what real science is than haughty Westerners sending e-mails to each other, agreeing that they’re right about what the future holds for polar bears.
No, science is so much more than observing things. Science is about finding out how stuff works and once you do you can predict the outcomes.
I suggest you re-read that article you linked to that was about proxy-denialism by using polar bears.
Yeah, you are right. But they are agreeing about the soundness of scientific results.
Is it more than a poll? People regularly misjudge their realities.
Let’s talk about observations. Above you creatively quoted from this link:
https://polarbearsinternational.org/research/research-qa/are-polar-bear-populations-increasing-in-fact-booming/
What do they write? “The fact is that in the 1960s we had no idea how many polar bears there were. Even now, about half of our population estimates are only educated guesses. Back then, the best we had over most of the polar bear’s range were uneducated guesses. Polar bear science has come a long way since then.
We do know (and I have published papers on this) that some polar bear populations grew after quotas were imposed in Canada, aerial hunting ceased in Alaska, and trapping and hunting were banned in Svalbard.“
And some other observations for you:
https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1890/08-1036.1 “Body size of young, growing bears declined over time and was smaller after years when sea ice availability was reduced.”
In what way does this lend support to your claim that there are hundreds of papers (by the way, this isn’t a paper, but an interview with an activist) that indicate polar bear populations are declining? Answer: it doesn’t. And considering this same person wrote “about half of our population estimates are only educated guesses”, in what way does admitting that we have little more than educated guesses on population count as science?
Do we have confirmation that the sea ice availability was the determining factor in body size changes? I ask because other observations indicate that polar bears’ body conditions are stable or growing in size today in the same areas that sea ice availability has declined.
Durner et al., 2018: “Rode et al. 2013 documented stable or improving body condition and reproduction for polar bears captured in the U.S. between 1986–1994 and 2008–2011, a period during which substantial sea ice loss occurred, suggesting the capacity for positive population growth. … Body condition of KB [Kane Basin] polar bears appeared to have slightly improved between sampling periods [since the 1990s] (see SWG 2016).”
–
LaForest et al., 2018: “[Participants] indicated that polar bear body condition is stable; 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.”
–
York et al., 2016: “Reduction in the heavy multiyear ice and increased productivity from a longer open water season may even enhance polar bear habitat in some areas.”
Irrelevant analogy that slipped past moderation (due to the habit of ignoring gratuitously tangential comments):
How is this irrelevant or even an analogy?
We’re not talking about insects on windshields.
We were talking about the value of asking people about their experience with something and deriving population counts from those statements.
More self-parody by Seb. Psychological projection par excellence.
With your childish antics and you failure to consider data which refutes your beliefs, you are not doing any favors for those promoting a climate catastrophe due to mankind.
But do continue. You provide entertainment for the rest of us. It’s embarrassing to watch Kenneth destroy every one of your petty assertions with data, only to have you bounce back with the same assertion only minutes later (as though you hadn’t even noticed that your argument failed miserably).
But surely , Kurt , you must be impressed by Seb’s absolute mastery of every aspect of climate change. No matter what the topic, polar bears, ocean acidification, drought series, satellite temperature measurements, tree ring paleo- thermometry ,etc , any statements here backed by, sometimes, scores of papers are instantly rebutted.
Most professional scientists I have known and worked with have only managed eminence in one field, but Seb encompasses them all.
Truly we are in the presence of genius, but it is a pity that with so much knowledge in his brain and at his fingertips, it rarely seems to emerge on screen in the conventional form of links to reputable journals- a great disappointment to those of us thirsting for real knowledge, but hopefully that will change.
Yes Mike –
I am in awe…
…
…
…
of his uncanny penchant for self-parody.
His true calling is comedy. Someday he’ll have an epiphany on that.
I am glad you feel entertained.
I’ll say Kenneth usually doesn’t notice when his argument failed and lately he gets to have the last word by means of someone deleting / snipping my replies. So you might get the impression of me being “destroyed” … good for you. How about doing a little research yourself and not believing anything just like that, that gets presented here?
You guys are stubborn, I give you that. At least you are loyal to your cause.
Now that was funny.
In climate “science” the models always trump reality.
In turn reality has to be “adjusted” and “homogenised” to reflect model outputs.
Post- modernism at its best (sarc).
[…] […]
After radical limiting hunting, which was the major issue for the bears, the numbers logically increased. – Really, it is a no-brainier. However, it is heard for the fanatic CAGW’ers to loose their poster icon.
It is difficult for me to understand what vested interest Sebastian has in rejecting the article so reference-less.
It’s similar to ocean acidification, says Sebastian. Here’s what NOAA’s top scientist says:.
The trove of FOI emails include some beauties. Here’s what NOAA’s Dr Shallin Busch had to say, privately, to her NOAA colleague Madelyn Applebaum on September 30 about the draft. They had been asked by the New York Times to sex it up with some specific hurts allegedly being caused by all this acidification.
The editor asked,
“It’s very interesting, but in order to work for us it needs to be geared more toward the general reader. Can the authors give us more specific, descriptive images about how acidification has already affected the oceans? Is the situation akin to the acid rain phenomenon that hit North America? What can be done to counteract the problem?”
Dr Busch, who works for NOAA’s Ocean Acidification Program and Northwest Fisheries Science Center at Seattle, responded to Ms Applebaum:
“Unfortunately, I can’t provide this information to you because it doesn’t exist. As I said in my last email, currently there are NO areas of the world that are severely degraded because of OA or even areas that we know are definitely affected by OA right now. If you want to use this type of language, you could write about the CO2 vent sites in Italy or Polynesia as examples of things to come. Sorry that I can’t be more helpful on this!
”
Dr Busch had the integrity to admit that science can cite “NO” significant ocean “acidification” impacts.
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2016/01/fishy-science-ocean-acidification/
McElhany, 2017
https://academic.oup.com/icesjms/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/icesjms/fsw085
“…there are no studies that directly demonstrate modern day effects of OA [ocean acidification] on marine species.”
http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/12/24/biosci.biu198.full.pdf+html
“The proliferation of a number of pressures affecting the ocean is leading to a growing concern that the state of the ocean is compromised, which is driving society into pessimism. Ocean calamities are disruptive changes to ocean ecosystems that have profound impacts and that are widespread or global in scope. However, scrutiny of ocean calamities to ensure that they can be confidently attributed to human drivers, operate at widespread or global scales, and cause severe disruptions of marine social-ecosystems shows that some of the problems fail to meet these requirements or that the evidence is equivocal. A number of biases internal and external to the scientific community contribute to perpetuating the perception of ocean calamities in the absence of robust evidence.”
Duarte et al., 2014
http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/12/24/biosci.biu198.full.pdf+html
“[T]here have been a few claims for already realized impacts of ocean acidification on calcifiers, such as a decline in the number of oysters on the West Coast of North America (Barton et al. 2012) and in Chesapeake Bay (Waldbusser et al. 2011). However, the link between these declines and ocean acidification through anthropogenic CO2 is unclear. Corrosive waters affecting oysters in hatcheries along the Oregon coast were associated with upwelling (Barton et al. 2012), not anthropogenic CO2. The decline in pH affecting oysters in Chesapeake Bay (Waldbusser et al. 2011) was not attributable to anthropogenic CO2 but was likely attributable to excess respiration associated with eutrophication. Therefore, there is, as yet, no robust evidence for realized severe disruptions of marine socioecological links from ocean acidification to anthropogenic CO2, and there are significant uncertainties regarding the level of pH change that would prompt such impacts.”
“[O]n the basis of a survey of the scientific literature, Oliver and colleagues (2009) identified four global coral bleaching events (1983, 1987, 1998, and 2005) when the bleaching frequency and intensity dramatically affected a substantial number of countries. However, the number of bleaching records has apparently increased during the past three decades, which has confounded efforts to separate changes in bleaching frequency from changes in reporting (Oliver et al 2009). Therefore, despite the strong mechanistic or physiological basis for a role of warming in coral bleaching and coral growth, a robust demonstration of a direct causal link between global warming and global coral bleaching over decadal time scales has not yet been produced.”
“Todd and colleagues (2010) reported high rates of miscitation in the marine biology literature, with only 75.8% of citations clearly supporting the assertions made. This assessment refers to miscitations of past research, but citation biases can also derive from selective citations. Selective citations are described by authors’ tendencies to report the evidence that corresponds with their preconceived ideas while discarding contradictory results.”
Cue mad shrieking from troll.
You can’t reason with a nutter.
Nice summary of:
“The old aerial polar bear hunt in Alaska”
From the late 1940s until the early 1970s
[…] Richard on löytänyt kolme tuoretta tieteellistä artikkelia, joista hän kertoo NTZ-blogin artikkelissa (Linkki). Tieteelliset julkaisut eivät näe jääkarhujen asemaa kovin uhattuina perustuen mm. […]
[…] K. Richard, October 25, 2018 in […]
[…] the 3 new papers referenced here extensive observational evidence suggests that polar bear populations are currently healthier than […]
“Is it time that people – and not polar bears – were the face of the Arctic”
https://www.thegwpf.com/lesley-riddoch-why-fake-news-is-harming-the-arctic/
It would appear that animal porn is hurting the cause.
You want to find out how many polar bears there are?
Tell the Democratic National Committee that they are American polar bears.
They will be registered to vote in no time at all. Plus the dead ones.
Nothing to it.
[…] https://notrickszone.com/2018/10/25/new-papers-polar-bears-continue-to-thrive-grow-in-number-shreddin… […]