There is a kind of simplistic approach that some journalists use when it comes to climate change. Some treat climate change as a religion claiming that a single very hot summer is evidence of climate change. Some are climate change deniers who can be even more fervently religious in their approach.
In a leading national newspaper in the United Kingdom recently a whole list of “evidence” to support the claim that climate change is bunkum, was published. Among the points made (such as Alaska experienced its coldest winter for ten years recently) was a claim about polar bear numbers actually increasing over the past few years as though this was evidence that the climate is not changing at all.
Of course it is not surprising that newspapers write this kind of nonsense – they have to sell papers to get advertisers – and that is how they make profits for their owners and stay in business. They generally cannot make money with complicated articles that this most complex of sciences – climatology and thermo dynamics – entails.
I thought that I would look at the polar bear statement in detail. You can read it at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1194589/Turkey-Twizzlers-GOOD-polar-bears-ARENT-dying-out.html . The statement was “Polar bear numbers are now doing very nicely thank you. Despite the (limited) melting seen in the Arctic ice cap over the past fifty years polar bear numbers have more than doubled since 1950”.
It is very difficult to know the connection of that statement to climate change – do they mean that because polar bear numbers are increasing (so they claim) there cannot be global warming?
There has never been an adequate census of polar bears. They are listed as potentially endangered because the “limited” loss of Arctic ice referred to in the Daily Mail constitutes as area (since 1950) the size of Alaska, Texas and Washington State combined.
As for the claim that polar bears numbers are increasing, this is not what the science shows us.
There are a number of pockets of polar bear populations – thought to be 19 all told. Of these five populations are declining, five are stable, two are increasing and there is insufficient data for the rest. If polar bear populations are not declining as rapidly as they had been, it is due to the efforts of conservation and international treaties. The polar bear argument is not conclusive proof of climate change one way or another but the naturalists assure us that loss of ice habitat will make the polar bears an endangered species and this loss of habitat will occur if there is rapid climate change.
You can get the view of the organisation that seeks to protect polar bears at http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/bear-facts/ . What reason they have to blame climate change if the pressure on polar bear populations is nonexistent is beyond my imagination. Of course they could be plain wrong, and so could the newspaper.
There are around 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears in the world, but because they live remote from humans and because they are rather dangerous animals we do not know exactly how many there are or what precisely is happening to all their populations.
We do know, however, that reindeer and caribou populations are greatly reducing around the world. We also know that warmer weather, even marginally warmer weather makes it hard for reindeer and caribou to survive.
Across Finland, Russia, Canada, Greenland and Scandinavia the herds are declining, which is what a study by Liv Vors and Mark Boyce at the University of Alberta has found. They compiled data on 58 reindeer and caribou herds. 38 were declining rapidly, no data existed on 16 herds and only 8 herds were increasing in size.
The scientists were shocked to discover that 34 of the herds were declining, while no data existed for 16 more. Only eight herds were increasing in number. Many herds had been declining for a decade or more.
It seems that the climate, for the caribou at least, is getting warmer. There are more insects which trouble them and cause them not to put on as much weight as they need. The spring plants are coming out too early to enable their calves to feed on them, due to their migratory patterns. Warmer winters provide freezing ice, rather than snow on the land. They cannot dig through ice to feed, and sometimes starve.
Now this is not evidence of climate change. It is simply one part of the evidence in the climate change debate, and like the vast majority of such evidence points to the probability (perhaps now to 85%) that man made climate change is real and is happening and is causing the climate to change rapidly.
It would be nice to read a newspaper article that did not either treat climate change as a politically correct kind of religion or seek to mock the science with sophistry. If I do run across one, I’ll let you know.