Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Report on the Northern Sea Ice
The recovery from the second largest Summer ice melt (since 1979) has been dramatic. We are now, according to the University of Illinois's website, about a million and a half square kilometers above where we were at this time last year, actually at about 6.7 million square kilometers in ice area right now. The National Snow and Ice Data Center has the extent of the ice even higher, at about 8.7 million square kilometers.
Further, there was a report last year that the number of polar bears (whom you may recall have been declared endangered because of the global warming scare) in the western Hudson Bay area were down (by 22%), and the bears in horrible shape. What a difference a year makes. According to this site, the annual aerial count revealed the most bears ever so counted and the ones seen near Churchill are in great shape. The Inuit were skeptical at the time the official numbers were released last year, saying there were more bears around then than their people could remember; and it looks now like the natives were right and the scientists wrong. It happens.
Labels: Global Warming; Polar Bears
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 10:04 AM 
