Excerpts: from the Sunday Times: Polar bear is a ‘new’ species
by Jonathan Leake
Polar bears may have come into existence only 150,000 years ago, when trapped brown bears had to adapt to an ice age
Polar bears may have come into existence only 150,000 years ago, when brown bears were trapped by an ice age and had to adapt quickly to survive, scientists have found.
The suggestion follows the discovery of the jawbone of an animal that died up to 130,000 years ago, making it the oldest polar bear fossil found. The bone has yielded new insights into the origins of Earth’s largest land predator.
One is the possibility that polar bears owe their existence not only to past climate change, including ice ages, but have also survived at least one long period of global warming.
The bone was discovered at Poolepynten on the Arctic island of Svalbard by Professors Olafur Ingolfsson, of the University of Iceland, and Oystein Wiig, of the University of Oslo.
…
In a paper they said: “Brown bears of the ABC islands may be descendants of ancient ursids [bears] that diverged from other lineages of brown bears and subsequently founded the polar bear lineage.” This view is expected to get support from new research, out this week, based on DNA extracted from the Poolepynten jawbone.
It means polar bears have already survived a global warming that affected the northern hemisphere from 130,000 to 115,000 years ago, when the Greenland ice sheet and the Arctic ice cap were smaller than now. Professor Chris Stringer, of the Natural History Museum in London, an expert in ice ages, said: “Early polar bears would not have had all the specialisations of modern animals and we know nothing about their behaviour.
“Living through a warm period back then does not mean they are resilient to climate change now.”
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“150,000 years ago, when brown bears were trapped by an ice age ”
What???
You mean there was climate change back then too?
Go figure, maybe all the Cromagnons drove Hummers & generated cave man CO2
“Living through a warm period back then does not mean they are resilient to climate change now.”
The Prof obviously didn’t get the memo, but as he himself shows great adaptability I’m sure he will survive the upcoming climate-science warming period.
“Living through a warm period back then does not mean they are resilient to climate change now.”
Sigh, they did it once but “we don’t know” if they could do it again.
Hogswallow. Still beatin that might/may/maybe dead horse.
Temperatures are -30C in the Arctic, and bears are either freezing or hibernating.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
Mammals have shown themselves to be incredibly resiliant and adaptive. Oh – and we know that the bears survived just fine through the Roman and Medieval warm periods… Over the past few days we’ve seen quite a few posts showing global temperature variability over 150K years…
“Living through a warm period back then does not mean they are resilient to climate change now.”
Yeah, right. Keep on telling yourself that. Who is in denial now?
“Living through a warm period back then does not mean they are resilient to climate change now.”
But it sure a heck doesn’t mean they are particularly susceptible either. And what about the ability of the bears to survive the Holocene Optimum 8K years ago – a time when forests grew on the shores of the arctic ocean?
“It means polar bears have already survived a global warming that affected the northern hemisphere from 130,000 to 115,000 years ago”
Quick, somebody call Dr. Mann to disappear that.
“Living through a warm period back then does not mean they are resilient to climate change now.” That’s poor stuff; “might not mean” would be OK; so would “need not mean” or ” does not necessarily mean”. How odd it is that all errors, ambiguities and infelicities of phrasing in “climate science” always favour the climate hysterics. It really makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
“Living through a warm period back then does not mean they are resilient to climate change now.”
BS
The point, though, is that bears have shown enormous evolutionary plasticity in the past so that their resilience cannot be questioned.
“Threatened” only because they make great posters. See Coca Cola.
“Living through a warm period back then does not mean they are resilient to climate change now.”
And, of course, it doesn’t mean they’re not. The fact that they have survived this long does, however, support the idea that they are not delicate wallflowers liable to wilt at the merest whiff of a change in temperature.
Climate change has been, and will always be a primary driver of evolutionary change. Witness the development of hominids for example.
Evolutionary success depends on resilience to changes in the environment. To think that the current number of species on planet earth are always “hanging by a thread” , and can be driven to extinction by the slightest change in environment seems absurd.
The fact that polar bears exist right now is testament to their resiliency and evolutionary success.
“Living through a warm period back then does not mean they are resilient to climate change now.”
Obligatory hat/tip to AGW?
DaveE.
“Living through a warm period back then does not mean they are resilient to climate change now.”
Still in “denial”, I see. Ya gotta love these “flat-earthers”. 🙂
lol at the pun.
It reminds me of the newspapers getting all mock-worried about how animals would cope with the total eclipse in 2003. In the event the animals basically ignored it but they did manage to find at least one “scientist” who said that they might go insane or start to hibernate.
I always wondered how the “endangered” polar bears survived the Roman and the Minoan warming period, if they are so sensible to warm climate.
Seems to me I watched a special where Polar Bears that bore their young in an ice-free environment had cubs that were brown. As if they are programmed to adapt to whatever the cycle is doing.
So, do humans revert back to neanderthals in an ice-age?
All the while completely ignoring the fact that climate change is the primary driver of evolution.
“Living through a warm period back then does not mean they are resilient to climate change now.”
Let’s try releasing 100 polar bears into the next AGW conference in Bali and see who adapts best.
“Living through a warm period back then does not mean they are resilient to climate change now.”
Living through a cold or a warm period back then does not mean they are resilient to climate change now.
There, fixed.
————————
As bears are very adaptable [Doesn’t the article imply so?] they will likely do fine regardless of whether the temperature in the Arctic zone goes up or down a degree or two.
Steve Goddard (09:59:05) :
Polar bears do not hibernate in the usual sense, though the females retire to a snow (or earth) den to bear their young.
As for how the polar bears survived the last (warmer) interglacial, the fact that they occurred on Svalbard which was as isolated then as now does strongly suggest that they were already adapted to live on the Arctic Sea-Ice. No other way to get to Svalbard really.
6,000 years back during the early Holocene, Siberian summers were 2-7 deg C warmer than today and the forest line went up to the Arctic ocean. And polar bears did just fine, most probably, since they are till here.
Living through a warm period back then does not mean they are resilient to climate change now’
This knee jerk statement begins to sound a bit old fashioned.
Don’t forget that a hunter a couple of years ago shot a hybrid polar/grizzly bear. This combination, though rare, is not just a one off.
From our favourite info site – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grizzly%E2%80%93polar_bear_hybrid
Nature just keeps evolving.
“Professor Chris Stringer, of the Natural History Museum in London, an expert in ice ages, said: “Early polar bears would not have had all the specialisations of modern animals and we know nothing about their behaviour.
Living through a warm period back then does not mean they are resilient to climate change now.”
Yep, today’s polar bears are somehow weakened and dissolute compared to the true wild ones living during the last ice age!
I’d say Prof Stringer (who is more an expert in early hominids than ‘ice ages’) projects the perceived malaise of Western Culture (degenerate, weakened, soft, not resilient) onto polar bears here.
It amazes me that natural scientists seem to think that Nature as she is right now, at this particular point of time, is the pinnacle of evolution and must be preserved at all costs – be it in regard to climate or in regard to flora and fauna.
That is not how evolution works!
Paraphrasing the EPA –
“The fact that populations have quadrupled in the last 50 years does not mean that they are not going extinct.”