Another study on climate change and polar bears. Will people care this time?
The dire predictions of polar bears in a climate-changed world first came nearly twenty years ago.
The dire predictions of polar bears in a climate-changed world first came nearly twenty years ago.
In 2002, the World Wildlife Fund predicted the iconic species would face at least endangerment, if not extinction, as the planet warmed and sea ice disappeared. More studies followed in 2016, 2017, and 2018.
Why, after all these years of damning reports and heart-wrenching videos, are the latest findings on polar bears causing such a stir?
The new report, published Monday in Nature Climate Change, shares a similar dire message to those previous: Human-caused climate change increasingly threatens polar bears, which rely on sea ice to hunt. But this time, we have a timeline for their extinction.
Researchers now know more about when and where the large carnivores will disappear and what will happen to them if the Earth heats up to even moderate predictions.
“It’s been clear for some time that polar bears are going to suffer under climate change,” the study’s lead author, Peter Molnar, told The Guardian. “But what was not fully clear was when we would expect major declines in the survival and reproduction of polar bears that could ultimately lead to their extirpation. We didn’t know whether that would happen early or later in this century.”
The study looked at 13 of the world’s 19 polar bear subpopulations — which account for 80% of all the bears — under two scenarios. And this is where voting for leaders with strong climate plans and reducing individual carbon footprints becomes important.
In a business-as-usual emissions scenario, researchers concluded that a lack of food will drive reproductive failure for certain populations in Canada as early as 2040, and a majority across the Arctic by 2080. In this scenario, by 2100, polar bears will likely only remain in the Queen Elizabeth Islands, the northernmost cluster in Canada’s Arctic archipelago.
In the second scenario, with “moderate emissions mitigation,” we could prolong polar bears’ survival for a short time, but even that won’t save them all.
“Even if we mitigate emissions, we are still going to see some subpopulations go extinct before the end of the century,” Molnar told The Guardian. “But we would have substantially more populations persisting by the end of the century, even with reduced reproduction, compared with a business-as-usual emissions scenario.”
Scientists currently estimate that 26,000 polar bears live in the Arctic, spreading from Siberia to Norway to Canada. The sea ice these bears so heavily rely on has been melting by approximately 13% each decade since the 1970s — meaning they’re moving inland to look for food and coming into increased contact with humans.
And that’s not even the scariest side effect: If the polar bears go, they’ll likely take other Arctic species with them, according to the researchers. As one of the largest land predators, they act as a keystone species and keep the entire ecosystem in balance.
So, where do we go from here? In 2017, millions watched an alarming National Geographic video of an emaciated polar bear searching for food, and little has changed with our emissions. Atmospheric CO2 and methane continue to rise. The Earth will likely heat between 2.6 and 3.9 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels if CO2 emissions keep pace — well over the “well below” 2C mark set by the Paris Agreement.
Polar bears have floated by as a symbol of climate devastation and dwindling survival for decades. The latest research puts a deadline on that survival. If we lose polar bears, we not only lose an invaluable part of Arctic ecosystems; we gain yet another reminder of how we’ve failed the planet, despite all the warnings we’ve had.