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Alaskan Polar Bears Threatened [By Too Much Ice]

Home - by - April 27, 2014 - 13:00 America/New_York - 16 Comments

CNS

Five meters of ice– about 16 feet thick - is threatening the survival of polar bears in the Southern Beaufort Sea region along Alaska’s Arctic coast, according to Dr. Susan J. Crockford, an evolutionary biologist in British Columbia who has studied polar bears for most of her 35-year career.

That’s because the thick ice ridges could prevent ringed seals, the bears’ major prey, from creating breathing holes they need to survive in the frigid waters, Crockford told CNSNews.com.

“Prompted by reports of the heaviest sea ice conditions on the East Coast ‘in decades’ and news that ice on the Great Lakes is, for mid-April, the worst it’s been since records began, I took a close look at the ice thickness charts for the Arctic,” Crockford noted in her Polar Bear Science blog on April 18th.

“Sea ice charts aren’t a guarantee that this heavy spring ice phenomenon is developing in the Beaufort, but they could be a warning,” she wrote, noting that they “don’t bode well” for the Beaufort bears.

“What happens is that really thick ice moves in because currents and winds from Greenland and the Canadian islands push it against the shore,” Crockford told CNSNews.com.

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» 16 Comments

  1. serfer62

    April 27th, 2014

    Where the fuck is Global Warming!?!

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  2. F.D.R. in Hell

    April 27th, 2014

    I gotchyer Global Warming, right heeah! :evil:

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  3. majorityofone

    April 27th, 2014

    Just exactly how did polar bears survive before they had Algore and evolutionary biologists to worry about whether they had too much or not enough ice?

    Noteworthy Comment Thumb up +10

     
  4. Moe Tom

    April 27th, 2014

    This has to be confirmed by Algore before being accepted as true. Al is in Arkansas running for President and playing with his hockey puck…er…stick. Lord help us.

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  5. Lowell

    April 27th, 2014

    “thick ice ridges could prevent ringed seals, the bears’ major prey, from creating breathing holes…”

    Fuck. Don’t elaborate when it ain’t needed you pump up the drama dweebs. Seals don’t make breathing holes in the ridges, they do it on the flats. They ain’t stupid.

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  6. Moe Tom

    April 27th, 2014

    serfer62. The Q. is WHAT the fuck is global warming?

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  7. mkultra

    April 27th, 2014

    Is anyone else completely fed up with crackpot academics trying to define what are ‘acceptable’ levels of ice, water, wind, rainfall, and temperature? Nature doesn’t give a shi7 what you think, you pointy-headed marxist a$$holes.

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  8. crazyeighter

    April 27th, 2014

    Thumb up +4

     
  9. Stranded in Sonoma

    April 27th, 2014

    Of course the ice is thicker. The polar vortex caused by anthropogenic global warming swirls around the north pole picking up all of the extra water created when anthropogenic global warming melted the ice and caused the sea levels to rise which is then frozen into ice crystals and thrown all over the Northern Hemisphere dropping the temperature which causes the water to freeze and the ice pack to get thicker and makes it impossible for the seals to create breathing holes and this threatens the polar bear population.

    Do I have to do ALL of the thinking around here?

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  10. scizzorbill

    April 27th, 2014

    Ring seals had openings to the surface well before the ice reached 16ft, and maintain them open using their muzzle to knock down accumulating snow. Ridges mean there are open spaces between the ridges. Not a problem.

    Like a good ‘greenie’ the author uses the word ‘could’ to promote her form of reverse (too much ice pushed in) alarmism. When there is no melting ice as predicted, she tries to create a problem using her twisted imagination.

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  11. Chuck Darwin

    April 27th, 2014

    What happened to the Aurochs? Dire Wolves? Sabertooth Cats? Mammoths? Mastodons? Cave Bears? The Sahara Forest?
    Global Warming killed them all!

    Bring back the Ice Age…before it’s too late!
    /s

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  12. Chuck Darwin

    April 27th, 2014

    P.S. What IS the normal climate for this planet?

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  13. Chuck Darwin

    April 27th, 2014

    P.P.S. It’s way past time to start worrying about Continental Drift.
    Write your congressman. Call the Sierra club! Alert the Media!! Get the U.N. on it!!!

    My God, people! Time is running out!

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  14. crazyeighter

    April 27th, 2014

    Like a good ‘greenie’ the author uses the word ‘could’ to promote her form of reverse (too much ice pushed in) alarmism.

    Oh. Like fer instance, “monkeys could fly out of my ass.”

    Great. Now I gotta worry about Global Warming, Continental Drift, Magnetic Pole Reversal and monkeys flyin’ out of my ass…

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  15. Left Coast Dan

    April 27th, 2014

    Nature – it’s always gunning for you.

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  16. TheBigOwe

    April 27th, 2014

    That’s not news. All the way from Malaysia, The Obama decided to chime in on how “stupidly” the purported bigotry the LA Clippers owner exhibited. -”Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these” race hustlers “from the swift completion of their” camera time. Add distance from the US as well.

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