Experts tell us that Polar Bears can’t survive summer without ice. They fall over dead, like Colorado Pikas in 60 degree weather.
Sadly, the Arctic was indeed ice-free around 5,000 years ago, which means that the last Polar Bear went the way of the Dodo Bird long before we were all born.
Examination of several proxy records (e.g., sediment cores) of sea ice indicate ice-free or near ice-free summer conditions for at least some time during the period of 15,000 to 5,000 years ago (Polyak et al., 2010)
I retroactively miss them already!
Good riddance! That’s what I’d say.
period of 15,000 to 5,000 years ago
Wouldn’t that put the first part of the ice free conditions into the Younger Dryas period?
I just knew those bears were all computer-generated images. 3D graphic modelers have really improved replicating fur. Computer modeling can make ANYTHING seem real these days….
Actually, they don’t fall over dead, they fall from the sky…(Brought to you by the idiots at WWF)
Here are tree stumps in Allaska that are now revealed by the receding glaciers.
http://www.cseg.ca/publications/recorder/2008/09sep/sep2008-gussow-nuna.pdf
page 3 pic.
The caption says there were little or no glaciers there in Alaska, 6,000 yrs ago. So likely little or no Arctic ice either.
That seems to make the Younger Dryas (13,000 BP/11,000BCE) a warm period.
You wait till February 17th then we’ll really see if these bears are dead –
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2011/07/polar-bears-have-irish-roots/1#.T_TgY-evbUI
Tracking down that reference to 15,000 years ago I find that some (1990s) professional studies have found the last ice-free Arctic 700,000 or 1mya. However, if the Eemian sea levels were 6 meters higher this obviously requires an ice-free Arctic 125,000 years ago.