USGS Report - All Alaska's Polar Bears Dead By 2060, But State Government Wants More Studies - ADN

[hatrack]

Polar bears will be gone from Alaska within 50 years, government scientists predicted Friday. Shrinking sea ice will leave only a remnant surviving population of the world's polar bears in the islands of the Canadian Arctic by mid-century, according to a breathtaking new study by the U.S. Geological Survey. Two-thirds of the world's polar bears, including those along the coasts of Alaska and Russia, will have disappeared.

The loss of summer sea-ice habitat will be so profound for bear populations that regional efforts to protect them, such as restricting subsistence hunting or Arctic oil and gas development, will not be able to prevent their disappearance, the government scientists said. Moreover, the bears' doom is irreversible, the study said. Even a dramatic effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would not be enough to halt the near-term warming trend and save the coastal bears. The species might manage to survive in its remnant outposts if long-term warming trends are reversed, scientists said.

"Things could be turned around so that they don't disappear completely," said Steve Amstrup, the biological study team leader for the USGS. On the other hand, Amstrup said, climate-warming models chosen for the study tended to be conservative, so the bears might disappear faster than predicted. "As the sea ice goes, so goes the polar bear," Amstrup said.

The new set of USGS studies, provided to Congress Friday, were undertaken to aid Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne's decision whether to designate polar bears a "threatened" species under the Endangered Species Act. A decision is due by next January. The State of Alaska, fearing consequences for subsistence hunting and oil production, has strenuously opposed a federal threatened-species listing, arguing, among other things, that bear populations have been stable and that too much uncertainty surrounds projections of global warming trends. State Fish and Game commissioner Denby Lloyd said Friday it was too soon to analyze all the new data to see how they might affect the state's position.

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http://www.adn.com/front/story/9286059p-9200531c.html

[GliderGuider]

1. "the bears might disappear faster than predicted."

Hey, he's singing our tune. Do we get royalties for that?

[kestrel91316]

2. kestrel predicts Alaska's polar bears all gone by 2035.

It's the ACCELERATION, stupids!