We have heard for the last four decades that anthropogenic — man-caused — global warming is amplified by large factors in the Arctic relative to the global average. Hence, images of starving polar bears seemingly stranded on floating icebergs and swinging in open water miles from shore, and alarmist advertisements aimed at children instilling fear that Santa Claus won’t be able to deliver presents at Christmas... The are just a few of the images conjured up when we think of climate change in the Arctic..None of this stands up to close scrutiny..Sadly however, academic scientists who challenge these alarmist claims are treated like heretics. Take what happened to Dr. Susan Crockford, adjunct professor of Zoology at the University of Victoria. She challenged the narrative on climate change and polar bear populations, pointing out that polar bear populations had in fact risen from somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 during the 1960s, to roughly 26,000 currently. Nevertheless, there was an activist backlash and the university let her go..Yet the question remains: How could polar bear populations have more than doubled, since 1960?.The short answer is that for bears, more open water is a good thing. Bears are highly dependent on large open bodies of water surrounded by sea ice. Known as polynyas they can be either on the coast or in the open ocean, and for many species — bears included —they're like a polar oasis. Polynyas in both the Arctic and Antarctic form every year in response to the regional seasonal cycle, as well as to more gradual climate-driven changes in atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns..This relationship between the seasonal cycle, climate change and the extent of Arctic sea ice is well established. For example, Ronan Connolly’s 2017 publication in the Journal of Hydrological Sciences supports the case for polar bear populations rising between 1960 and the early 2000s. Connolly quantified the annual maximum extent of Arctic sea ice in millions of square kilometers and then using known air temperature changes in the Arctic, together with satellite records of sea ice covering 1979 to 2000, created a calibration curve extending back 80 years. Not unexpectedly, he found an inverse relationship between air temperature and the extent of sea ice.. Spatial .While Ronan Connolly’s study ends in 2000, it is important to note that there has been no net change in the extent of Arctic sea ice over the past 15 years. Whatever process was behind the reduction from 1979 to 2000, it has not intensified..As can clearly be seen, 1960 marks the highest extent of sea ice in the Arctic over the past century. Thus, it is fair to suggest that as the Arctic has warmed, more open water or polynyas are present and polar bear population expanded..The main take away message here is that climate change in the Arctic is not unique to the satellite era. Connolly shows that there have been two periods of warming and one period of cooling in the Arctic during the 20th century. In my December 4th Western Standard article titled 'Northern Hemisphere warmed twice as fast as the global average since the Little Ice Age,' I highlighted a similar pattern of changing climate that also occurred at a hemispheric scale, comparable to that shown by Connolly’s Arctic sea ice studies..The extreme heat waves of the Dust Bowl or Dirty Thirties are well documented across the Northern Hemisphere during the 1930s. Likewise, the steep cooling trend across the Northern Hemisphere from the late 1940s to the late 1970s is also well documented..Now of course, one can easily find publications that argue the mainstream view of the Arctic’s climate condition as exceptional or unprecedented. So I will move on to look at other examples demonstrating a lack of consensus..Next is the large 2017 study lead by Johannes Werner in conjunction with six major western scientific institutions, which compares their paleo-analysis to five other previous studies of changes in summer air temperature over the past 2000 years in the Arctic. It is important to note that these changes in summer temperatures are derived from numerous proxies for temperatures, including lake and sea sediments, ice core samples, and tree rings to calibrate their findings..Two important observations can be made of Johannes Werner’s study. The first observation is that all six independent studies show summer temperatures in the Arctic a thousand years ago were comparable to, if not warmer than, those of the year 2000. The peak at 1000 AD coincides with the well known Medieval Warm Period..The second important observation is that all six independent studies also confirm the Little Ice Age between the Medieval Warm Period and the Current Warm Period and that after 1800, there began a rapid rise in summer temperatures..'I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned.
