My friend, Cecil Hathaway, a regular contributor to my column, recently sent me an interesting article that Matt Ridley wrote on September 22 of this year for the Wall Street Journal entitled; "What Arctic Foxes Know About Global Warming."
Mr. Ridley mentioned what climate scientists have pointed out since mid September that 2012's sea ice melt in the Arctic regions was the greatest since such records began in 1979, the opposite ‘extreme’ to the most ice ever measured during the same time span, also this September, in the Antarctic regions near the South Pole. (Are you confused yet?)
Svend Funder of the Danish Museum of Natural History in Copenhagen said recently that "Arctic melts like those in recent years have happened before, especially during the 2,500 years in the ‘Holocene Optimum’ period, when Arctic summer temperatures were at least two or four degrees Celsius (four to eight degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than today."
I should likewise mention that even 1,000 years ago during the days of Leif Ericsson, the mighty Viking Chieftain, the annual summer ice melt in the Arctic regions was at least a third more than this era’s melt.
Despite the record warm temperatures that occurred during the Holocene Optimum period and a nearly ice-free Arctic Ocean during the summer and early fall seasons, there is no evidence of a collapse of the polar bear population or other Arctic animals for that matter like Arctic foxes.
According to Durham University in Great Britain, Greger Larson and his colleagues found that the remains of 17 Arctic foxes discovered in Iceland that died during the warm period of 800 to 1200 A.D. shared just a single genetic code, while the modern Icelandic fox population now have five different genetic signatures.
This means that sometime during the so-called ‘LITTLE ICE AGE’ between 1350 and 1850 A.D., genetically diverse Eurasian foxes interbred with Arctic foxes that reached Iceland via a greatly expanded area of sea ice.
As far as polar bears are concerned, they have thus far survived the recent period of rapid ice melt in the Arctic regions. But, many climate studies suggest that, if this rapid summer ice melt continues into the mid-century decades, at least half of the polar bear population could disappear.
Polar bears need ice as a platform in order to hunt for their main food source, seals. As the Arctic ice vanishes, the bears must travel much greater distances in order to find food.
Recently, polar bear researchers in the Arctic have reported seeing things that they have never before witnessed. They’ve seen very emaciated bears, practically starving, bears that have drowned in the open seas and even bear ‘cannibalism.’ Ice is certainly a critical component of the polar bear environment.
Scientists have been able to directly link the availability of ice to polar bear population rates of growth.
Like other predators near the top of the global food chain, polar bears have a low reproductive rate. One or two cubs are born during the midwinter period and usually stay with their mother for at least two years. Consequently, females breed only once every three years. The cubs won’t be able to reproduce until they’re at least five or six years old.
From late fall to mid spring, polar bear mothers live with their cubs in snowdrifts on ice or even land. Eskimos call polar bears, "ice bears," because they usually hunt them on floating packs of sea ice.
But, if there is no sea ice, polar bears can’t drag seals that they’ve caught onto a solid surface, their icy platforms. Simply put, less ice, less hunting, more death from starvation. Longer-term, it’s not a pretty picture.
But, as Matt Ridley says; "If this current warming is supposed to a ‘global’ event, shouldn’t we be seeing the sea ice retreat at BOTH ends of the world?"
