Where polar bears might go if climate change doesn't slow ( More Research ....UGH!)

Christian Science Monitor ^ | December 16, 2010 | Pete Spotts, Staff writer

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

If climate change leads to ice collecting in one general area in the Arctic Ocean, it might be enough to provide a last 'refuge' for many Arctic inhabitants, including polar bears.

Polar bears are shown in this undated photograph from UCLA released to Reuters on Nov. 23.

By midcentury, the northern islands of Canada and the north coast of Greenland may represent the only remaining region in the Arctic where polar bears and the marine animals that sustain them can survive if greenhouse-gas emissions continue to climb at anywhere near their current levels.

Alan D. Wilson/Reuters

By midcentury, the northern islands of Canada and the north coast of Greenland may represent the only remaining region in the Arctic where polar bears and the marine animals that sustain them can survive if greenhouse-gas emissions continue to climb at anywhere near their current levels.

That's the scenario a team of US and Canadian scientists came up with in looking at the prospects for Arctic habitats if greenhouse-gas emissions follow a business-as-usual track through the end of the century.

The research, outlined at a briefing Thursday during the American Geophysical Union's fall meeting in San Francisco, stands as a bookend to a study published Thursday in the journal Nature, which suggests that sustainable populations of the bears could be preserved around the Arctic if greenhouse-gas emissions are aggressively curbed and if traditional wildlife-management approaches are rigorously applied.

IN PICTURES: Climate change and animals

The work in Nature "is talking about what happens if we act to reduce our greenhouse-gas emissions," said Stephanie Pfirman, a marine geologist at Barnard College in New York as well as a researcher with the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

The Polar Bears again.....

Frankly I would worry about them coming south for tasty morsels....

[mrmeyer]

LOL. Reminds me of the folks that save the beached whales. How can they evolve and grow legs to become land mammals when folks keep pushing them back into the ocean?/s

[Crooked Constituent]

If we don’t fix globull warming they will end up in your backyard waiting to eat you!

[a fool in paradise]

The zoo?

“Sumbahdy outta tell that to the polar bearz!” - Algore when confronted with the FACT that polar bear populations have RISEN.

[Flycatcher]

Why all the current fuss about the polar bear?

They went extinct during the Medieval Warming Period...

[GeronL]

Throwing a picture of polar bears on a questionable article does not give it more credence.

[MsLady]

Are these people still at it? Didn’t they get the message, it was all a BIG LIE.

[Repeal The 17th]

How would your life change if there were no more polar bears?

[steelyourfaith]

The polar bear population has increased 5 fold since the 1950s. Migration due to straining/exhausting the food chain is a more likely possibility. Thanx Ernest!

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !

[hattend]

Christian?

Science?

Monitoring what?

[savedbygrace]

A last refuge? Bwahahahahahaha!

[GladesGuru]

Shoot ‘em.

They make superlative rugs.

[Brett66]

Hopefully they’ll all die off and we’ll stop wasting money researching them.

[Gaffer]

Yeah! Them nasty white trash polar bears might migrate south and race-mix with the brown bears! Gotta stop that!

[elkfersupper]

They’re only at the top of the food chain until they encounter somebody with a working .45-70 and good ammo.

[pallis]

Does this nonsense ever end?

[FrankR]

WEASEL WORD ALERT...not a single "fact" in the whole article...

By midcentury, the northern islands of Canada and the north coast of Greenland may represent the only remaining region in the Arctic where polar bears and the marine animals that sustain them can survive if greenhouse-gas emissions continue to climb at anywhere near their current levels.

That's the scenario a team of US and Canadian scientists came up with in looking at the prospects for Arctic habitats if greenhouse-gas emissions follow a business-as-usual track through the end of the century.

The research, outlined at a briefing Thursday during the American Geophysical Union's fall meeting in San Francisco, stands as a bookend to a study published Thursday in the journal Nature, which suggests that sustainable populations of the bears could be preserved around the Arctic if greenhouse-gas emissions are aggressively curbed and if traditional wildlife-management approaches are rigorously applied.

[texmexis best]

I wonder if a polar bear rug might be a real chick magnet?

[Vaquero]