Experts : “irreversible ice-free Arctic in the next few years”

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22 Responses to Experts : “irreversible ice-free Arctic in the next few years”

  1. MikeTheDenier says:

    This load of garbage was also put on our local WRAL website. http://www.wral.com/news/greenguide/story/8781431/

  2. peterhodges says:

    they just don’t give up publishing this crap, do they?

  3. Tony Duncan says:

    I am not convinced that even with an ice free arctic in the summer that polar bears are doomed. While I do not know much about polar bear related ecology or their ability to adapt over a relatively short time period, I think it quite possible that they would find ways to feed and reproduce in new conditions. At least some populations.
    That of course is not something to assume, but I would want to know more from polar bear experts about how they have reacted to habitat destruction in other situations.

  4. Latitude says:

    I like seals, and honestly don’t like polar bears at all…
    …so as far as I’m concerned, kill the friggin bears off
    🙂

  5. Mike Davis says:

    Seeing how Polar Bears were forced to adapt to the current conditions as their environment changed a few times over the 200 plus thousand years they have existed. Seeing that there is evidence of very dramatic temperature changes during that time in their region of habitat and there is even evidence of dramatic swings in the sea level during that period. I would venture to guess the polar bears are better at adapting to environmental changes than the current crop of humans in the region who have been there in the hundreds of years rather than the thousands of years the polar bears resided there.From chief polar bear researcher for USGS to chief polar bear researcher for Polar Bears International an NGO dedicated to promoting polar bear well being.
    Impressive to say the least. I guess he found the way to be effective in communicating the Chicken Little cry of alarm!

    • Tony Duncan says:

      Mike,

      While I do not dismiss the expertise of anyone without wanting to question them first, i in principle agree with you.

      Co-incidentally I just got this in my email right after writing my post
      http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/57863/

      • Mike Davis says:

        I actually thought I was reading something out of the Onion until I realized they are serious and believe what they are saying.
        I think what they are discussing has an already established name and it is called EVOLUTION!
        Every species of Flora and Fauna is a result of species hybridization to adapt to conditions. With the knowledge that more than 95% of all species that have existed on this earth have already gone extinct even before humans contributed to process. For that matter the species of HOMO or human like mammals have gone through species hybridization also and the current population is proof of that and it is expected to continue into the future as humans continue to adapt to their preferred environments.
        It sounds like Gee we got to do something about something that is part of natural processes.

      • Tony Duncan says:

        Mike,

        unfortunately the previous extinctions were also a natural events, or at least parts of them were.
        Your rather glib assertion that “every species of flora and fauna is a result of species hybridization to adapt to conditions” either makes no sense or is too odd for me to know how to reply to. Unless you are somehow referring to Margulis’ rather controversial notion of interspecific genetic transfer.

        yes 95% of species that have existed are extinct, because there has been complex life on the planet for over 600 million years.
        As you pointed out before there is no harmony of nature where every species lives in blissful harmony. Species evolve and develop and die for SPECIFIC reasons, unless you are an archaic follower of Hyatt formalist senescence theory or some other 19th century non darwinian evolutionist.
        The fact is that when there are abrupt changes in the environment some species are able to adopt and others can’t. Again for specific reasons.
        What species hybridization has Homo gone through? Neanderthal is considered a sub species and there is not much genetic material from that source. and there have been no other species of homo on the planet for over a hundred thousand years at least. Maybe you are talking about hybrid vigor, but that is not transpacific, as the article points out there are usually negative consequences to species interbreeding, which is why it does not happen very often, except under extreme stress.
        Whole ecosystems are currently under stress due to anthropocentric activity unrelated to ACC, from habitat loss by overfishing and deforestation to pollution from poisons, hormones, and fertilizers. As I have said I have seen both effects personally, scuba diving. And it is well documented throughout the world, especially in places of highest diversity such as the Amazon, Indonesia and central Africa.
        Certainly evolution does not care how many species live or die, but I think it is worth considering how our actions impact the biosphere, as a major degradation of the life on the planet could have significant impact on us. After all wouldn’t you be disappointed not to be able to eat seal or manatee? Just asserting that everything will be fine because these are natural processes; the polar bears have survived before so they will now, is just wishful thinking. there are too many unknown relationships to determine and unexpected consequence (i.e. polar bears eating gooses eggs and whatever cascades off of that.) to just assume all these biologists are idiots just like the climate scientists

        But please refrain from discussing specifics about evolution unless you are sure you know what you are saying.

    • Latitude says:

      Then there’s the whole “climate is the primary driver of evolution” thing, but they pay no attention to that………

  6. JohnM de Melle says:

    I read this the other day about ice-free artic………….

    http://autonomousmind.wordpress.com/2010/12/14/arctic-warming-crisis/

    ………….and the Polar Bears survived !

    • Dave N says:

      That’s an absolute keeper.

      The predictable alarmist reply will be something like: “science has come a long way since then”. My rebuttal is: “human stupidity has changed very little, though”.

  7. Jimbo says:

    “Other experts foresee an irreversible ice-free Arctic in the next few years as more likely.”
    ————————
    What I like about this prediction is that in a few years we will call them out on it. AP though gives no names to this statement or dates. Sad really.

    By the way Polar Bears survived ocassional ice-free Arctic over the past 10,000 years. [click]
    and

    “The predicted substantial decrease in Arctic summer sea ice concentrations during the twenty-first century may favor cloud formation, which should diminish or even cancel the ice-albedo feedback by shielding the surface.”
    Source:pdf

    and

    “Although sea ice and snow cover had noticeably declined in the Arctic from 2000 to 2004, there had been no detectable change in the albedo measured at the top of the atmosphere: the proportion of light the Arctic reflected hadn’t changed. In other words, the ice albedo feedback that most climate models predict will ultimately amplify global warming apparently hadn’t yet kicked in.”
    NASA

  8. Tony Duncan says:

    the other pertinent question is how do humans taste to seals! I saw leopard seals in Antarctica and they were some nasty looking creatures.

    • Mike Davis says:

      They probably taste like FISH! 🙂

    • Mike Davis says:

      According to WIKI there is only one known human to have died from a Leopard seal attack. I would not want to go swimming in their waters though and it seems they attack the pontoons of inflatable boats.

  9. bruce says:

    I would suggest that the evidence points to a coming cold era. The question will be, can Chicagoans evolve to an Eskimo life style? And what will the bears be eating on the lake?

  10. Paul Pierett says:

    A weak maybe and I doubt it.

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