Bishop Hill says-
Louise Gray has adopted the role of recruiting sergeant for the Balcombe protest camp, offering up helpful advice on what aspirant participants should bring along: http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/8/7/environmentalist-journalist.html
[That pretty much shreds Gray’s credibility – Anthony]
=============================================================
Lots of chatter about sea ice being higher than in many recent years:
Danish Meteorological Institute: Arctic Sea Ice Now 1.7 Million Square Kilometers Over Last Year!
That’s 19,000 Manhattans. Arctic open sea water is in a death spiral!
Source: http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/old_icecover.uk.php
But I’m not convinced it will last, as trouble in the form of a polar storm is brewing on the horizon, which could break up sea ice as a storm did last year (despite the wailing from alarmists, it was weather, not climate):
================================================================
Powerline Blog: Green Weenie of the Week: The Weather
Okay, by now we’ve done to death all of the things caused by climate change (the Warmlist is up to 883 items now), but the newest claim is that global warming will increase the violent crime rate. From the Beeb:
Shifts in climate are strongly linked to increases in violence around the world, a study suggests. US scientists found that even small changes in temperature or rainfall correlated with a rise in assaults, rapes and murders, as well as group conflicts and war. The team says with the current projected levels of climate change, the world is likely to become a more violent place.
The crime rate in the United States has been falling steadily for the last 20 years, during which time, we are told daily, we’re notching the hottest years since Satan lit up his sulfur pits. Hmmm.
The best takedown of this so far comes from William M. Briggs
================================================================
Meteorologist Art Horn Letter to Connecticut State Dept. of Agriculture
Meteorologist, Art Horn, lays bare the nonsense about “extreme weather”, in a letter to the Connecticut Dept of Agriculture.
One of the reasons we teach people about history is to give them ability to place current events into their proper context. The same can be said about weather history. Those who do not know the history of weather do not know how to place current events such as hurricanes, tornadoes, snowstorms, floods, droughts, heat waves, cold waves and all other types of weather phenomena into their proper context. If one does not know weather history than that person might think that all “unusual” weather is new and unprecedented.
Meteorologist Art Horn Letter to Connecticut State Dept. of Agriculture
=================================================================
NOAA Confirms Model-Defying Global Temperature Stagnation…2012 Was Among Coolest In 21st Century
The political beauty about climate data is that it can be easily manipulated in order to fool the public.
The National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recently released its State of the Climate in 2012: Highlights. To no one’s surprise, the report gives the reader the impression that warming is galloping ahead out of control. But their data show just the opposite. http://notrickszone.com/2013/08/07/noaa-confirms-model-defying-global-temperature-stagnation-2012-was-among-coolest-in-21st-century/
=================================================================
The waste is scandalous, even from the Coalition. We’re in deep deficit, which makes it even more insane to spend billions a year on making a difference to the temperature so immeasurably small that no party dares tell voters what it is.
=================================================================
More polar bear boo hoos from the Grauniad:
Lots of questions about that “starved” 16-year-old polar bear
If it was healthy in April, can we just assume “from its lying position” that CO2 reduced it to skin and bones by July? What about the admission that “there may have been some underlying disease”–did anyone actually check? What did its teeth look like? How big a factor was old age? If pregnant female polar bears in Hudson Bay can fast for up to 8 months, how did CO2 cause this particular bear to starve so quickly?
After Ian Stirling found the animal dead in July, how did global warming activist photographer Ashley Cooper end up at the scene? What was the process of hyping this dead bear to the media? Didn’t thousands of polar bears end up looking like this well before the invention of the internal combustion engine?
Starved polar bear perished due to record sea-ice melt, says expert | Environment | The Guardian
Ice loss due to climate change is “absolutely, categorically and without question” the cause of falling polar bear populations, said Richardson, who cares for the UK’s only publicly kept polar bears. He said 16 years was not particularly old for a wild male polar bear, which usually live into their early 20s [or 15-18, who’s counting?]. “There may have been some underlying disease, but I would be surprised if this was anything other than starvation,” he said. “Once polar bears reach adulthood they are normally nigh on indestructible, they are hard as nails.”
A victim of climate change? Polar bear found starved to death looked ‘like a rug’ – World News
Ian Stirling, who has studied polar bears for nearly 40 years, told The Guardian newspaper that he found the animal on Svalbard in July.
“From his lying position in death the bear appears to simply have starved and died where he dropped,” Stirling said. “He had no external suggestion of any remaining fat, having been reduced to little more than skin and bone.”
The bear was examined by Norwegian scientists in April about 150 miles south and seemed to be healthy at that time…
Ashley Cooper, the photographer who took the picture, said the sight of the dead polar bear was “desperately sad.”
…
Cooper said the fate of the bear was “what [all] polar bears have got to look forward to over the next 10 to 20 years.”
“There isn’t a future for them unless we can very rapidly get on top of climate change,” he said.
…Ashley Cooper / Global Warming Images
The bear is thought to have been heading north in a desperate search for sea ice that would allow it to hunt for seals. Scientists believe the Arctic could be essentially free of sea ice in September by 2054. [So why will all polar bears starve within 20 years from now?]
Actionbioscience | Polar Bears and Climate Change
Pregnant female polar bears in Hudson Bay can fast for up to 8 months
Global Warming Images | Ashley Cooper’s website
Ashley Cooper has always been passionate about the environment and in recent years Global Warming, the affects of which he has been documenting for the last 8 years. His trips have taken him to many parts of the world with his particular interest being in capturing images that graphically demonstrate the impact of global warming, on people, places and wildlife.
Storms take heat OUT of the system….. After the major one last summer sea ice is much higher this year, the temperatures are at or near freezing. going to be intresting the effect this one has on artic temperatures. Could be a indication of a Artic cooling cycle starting…….
First time I have seen the Polar bears knock over the N pole web cam from what it looks like. They are so hungry they have time to play with weird object on the ice..
Webcam#1 shows the tracks then today the cam is knocked over..
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/NPEO2013/webcams1and2.html
Ashley Cooper. Sorry, but you are a moron. Simple. An emotionally-blinded, hand-wringing, alarmist nitwit.
“Scientists believe the Arctic could be essentially free of sea ice in September by 2054.”
WUWT? I thought scientists believed the Arctic was going to be “essentially” ice free right now in 2013? Nice 40 year goal post move….
@Eric
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/12/the-arctic-ocean-could-be-nearly-ice-free-at-the-end-of-summer-by-2012/
Hummm, an arctic storm could possibly stack and pack the ice as opposed to exporting it out. Subsequently increasing the multi year ice and making things less susceptable to future storms moving forward, No?
REPLY: In that case, extent is reduced for this year, then the wailing begins anew. Alarmists have no season to season memory, it’s all about what they can wail about now. – Anthony
Heat gain and heat loss rates from any given km x km area in the Arctic Ocean depend on a lot of items: some related to each other and some independent of other variables, some that do not change with time and some that vary slowly as the day-of-year changes (cloud cover, wind speed, open ocean wave height, albedo of ocean and sea ice, average air temperature, etc) and some that are fixed explicitly by the latitude and day-of-year (amount of available solar radiation at top-of-atmosphere, length of day, solar elevation angle each hour-of-the-day, etc) but which are explicitly predictable.
So, while the actual amount of solar radiation that “might be available” to be absorbed into the ocean water or by sea ice varies day-by-day and can be calculated accurately, what is actually absorbed changes as the daily weather changes up there.
However, at this time of year, we are at the point of year (and sea ice edge latitude) where “more open water => more evaporation losses” IS a true statement; but “more open water => more absorption of solar energy” is NOT a true statement.
That pretty much shreds Gray’s credibility
What credibility?
By the way, when will the CAGW community advertise the “Inconvenient fact” that Antarctic Sea Ice Area is now (six weeks early!) over 15,000 Kkm2. Thus, six weeks early, the Antarctic already has enough sea ice area to not only “make its yearly sales goal” of 15,000 Kkm2, but has already exceeded it’s year-to-date goal by more than 2x standard deviations.
(Yes, yes, Arctic Sea Ice area is also low by about the same amount (1,000 Kkm2) – but the Arctic Ocean is losing sea ice at 80 north latitude, and the Antarctic is gaining sea ice at 62 south latitude. The Antarctic Sea Ice is reflecting many times the solar energy of what the Arctic is not absorbing today.)
And, it is also absolutely true that much of the Antarctic Sea ice as it grows towards its future maximum extents is in darkness today, but – then again – all of the the Arctic sea ice was in darkness much of the year, and in much longer dark nights than the Antarctic sea ice.
And, by the way, back near March 21 when Antarctic Sea was at its exposed to a maximum solar rate, it was also over its average sea ice area by 1,000 Kkm2.
[That pretty much shreds Gray’s credibility – Anthony]
==========================================
No, that happened many years ago.
So, I’ve now seen the location Svalbard twice in a week on WUWT. Perhaps, this a case of “Bear & The Volcano”. Sounds like a movie opportunity to me.
“Scientists believe the Arctic could be essentially free of sea ice in September by 2054.”
“Essentially’? What exactly does that mean? Certainly would be nice if they would quantify that modifer. Depending on what you actually mean by ‘is’, er, ‘essentially’, you could state that “Scientists believe that the Arctic is ‘essentially’ free of ice right now.”
A question for the blog.
I have been searching for some time (with little luck) for recent papers relating to polar ice formation and deep water brine current formation and its impact on global climate. Does anyone have any knowledge of any new papers relating to this or the deep ocean conveyor belt, not just Polynyas etc?
TIA for the help
The best reason I can think of for the rapid decline of this bear is an infection, Possibly they did a poor job when they darted him for testing in April.
Hear Bishop Hill’s blog entry http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/8/7/polar-bears.html on his speaking about the polar bear on BBC Radio 5 today with Greenpeace’s John Sauven.
I am not sure it has been mentioned, but there is another group of rowers in the Arctic this summer. Their website is nowhere near as good as the Row to the Pole folks’ was. But somewhat more interesting than watching the sea ice extant. http://mainstreamlastfirst.com/
This site has been tracking the progress but he has not updated in a few days: http://www.dehavelle.com/2013/07/arctic-joule-calcs/
@LexingtonGreen
They recently reported having to hump that craft 100k along the shoreline because of ICE! lol….
These people are so delusional I think the next DSM might have a new psychological category just for them…
that’s 1.7 Egypts………….more
David Albert says:
Righteously succinct. I concur. The recent handling poses a confounding factor that can’t be ignored. Sepsis from a deep puncture is a far more likely killer under the circumstances. It certainly can’t be ruled out without examining the puncture site or further forensics. But then again, I wouldn’t expect close observations from the breathless warm-it-all-we-are-going-to-die types.
REPLY: In that case, extent is reduced for this year, then the wailing begins anew. Alarmists have no season to season memory, it’s all about what they can wail about now. – Anthony
====
but then you can get them on MYI………….that’s what makes it
I took a look at the latest global heat content data today after reading the 2012 NOAA alarmist report. Has there been some serious adjustments to ocean heat content data? All graphs I’ve looked at have been nearly flat since 2003 and now their latest graph shows heat sharply rising for the past few years.
I doubt this storm will break up ice. We have already had a pretty good storm in late July and it did nothing to the ice. Also historically, stormy summer weather does not generally lead to less ice. So my money is on the ice, not the storms. To be sure, the speculation is that thinner ice will break up and leave under normally stormy summer conditions but will thicken more if already thick under normally stormy summer conditions. However the thickness of the ice is not well known, if at all, historically, and is mostly modeled instead of directly observed even today. The speculation is only that so I still say the ice will survive the storms.
Isn’t this a little bit of a red herring since to fast for 8 months the bears need to feast first?
If the dead bear was OK in April and dead 3 months later, there could be many reasons. Has an autopsy been carried out?
oops,
should have been
“Isn’t this a little bit of a red herring since to fast for 8 months the bears need to feast first and mostly hibernates?
So alone among living animals, Polar bears are immune from “underlying” diseases?
Who would have thunk it!
If there is more ice polar bear populations decline like penguin populations at Antarctica.
Assuming he means all polar beears currently alive, given the 15-18 years expected life span, then I guess he is almost definately right.
Ashley is a dude? Man, cruel parents…
As anyone who follows arctic ice knows, 2012 was doomed way before the storm. The culprit was a persistant + dipole anomaly of the kind that has appeared almost every year since 2007. It’s absence this year is a major reason for the massive recovery. the ice over the laptev and central basin is not the wispy, thin ice that last years storm finished off. This year we see large floes that indicate healthy, structurally sound ice that will weather the next few days just fine. What we actually have to worry about is the reappearance of said +DA for the next few days which will increase export out the fram, and blow ice out of the Beaufort Gyre. I predict a moderate drop in extent this week before the cyclone blows back towards the Canadian Archipelago, reversing the dipole and bringing the arctic into a deep-freeze. It’ll be kinda hard to melt ice with much of the basin below 0C as per model guidance.
“””””……MangoChutney says:
August 7, 2013 at 9:51 am
Pregnant female polar bears in Hudson Bay can fast for up to 8 months
Isn’t this a little bit of a red herring since to fast for 8 months the bears need to feast first?
If the dead bear was OK in April and dead 3 months later, there could be many reasons. Has an autopsy been carried out?……””””””
Nah, they did a necropsy instead. I think an autopsy is when you do it on yourself.
Could that bear have died from the tagging? There is a certain percentage of animals that die from the experience of being tagged. Wolf tagging in NE Oregon leads to a low percentage, but a percentage nonetheless, of healthy wolves simply dying from the experience of being tagged. It could be a case of three fingers pointing back at “him” regarding the death of this animal.
I made a forecast some months ago for the WUWT’s survey , no idea what it was; is it anywhere we can see how we are doing?
“what [all] polar bears have got to look forward to over the next 10 to 20 years.”
this top predator is for now surviving as a stable population on Spitsbergen, with anecdotal evidence hinting at a population increase, even.
http://www.aqua-firma.co.uk/polar-bear-spitsbergen-svalbard-arctic-wildlife/
“Scientists believe the Arctic could be essentially free of sea ice in September by 2054.”
I think they mean it as in… the earth’s atmosphere is essentially free of CO2 today!
It seems that the Guardian has a short collective memory, back in May they ran an article based on the booming polar bear population of Svalbard.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/16/svalbard-job-vacancy-polar-bear-spotter
When predator populations boom unchecked rapid die-offs are not untypical.
Re: Arctic Ice up:
This is indeed a serious problem. We have enough new ice for 19,000 Manhattans, but who’s going to supply the bourbon? We urgently need to redirect some of that biomass production back where it belongs: into Jack Daniels, or there could be serious consequences.
‘That pretty much shreds Gray’s credibillity – Anthony’…Hmmm. She hasn’t had much here in the UK for quite a long time. I’m sure she’s a very nice person but I have been thinking of her, in a kind sort of way of course, as ‘Loupy Lou’ for quite a long time now. We are still fools enough to subscribe to the Daily Telegraph, though probably not for much longer.
If I were to hazard a guess on this year’s Arctic sea ice minimum it would be at or near the 2000s mean value. Based on the most recent trend it may actually take a storm for that to happen. It would really have to fall a long way to catch up with last year.
***
OssQss says:
August 7, 2013 at 8:26 am
Hummm, an arctic storm could possibly stack and pack the ice as opposed to exporting it out. Subsequently increasing the multi year ice and making things less susceptable to future storms moving forward, No?
***
Yes. The rotten ice will become unrotten. Dead fish will spring back to life. Polar bears will guzzle Coke. 🙂
Methinks Arctic Ice minimum is going to be higher this year. I am going by the temperatures North of the 80 th Parallel. If they continue to be low that is.
Compare this years graph with that of last year and 2007.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
“Scientists believe the Arctic could be essentially free of sea ice in September by 2054.”
___
Must be a typo, obviously is should read 1934. As for ‘scientists believe’, is that all scientists? nice blanket representation of opinion there. A common irritation right up there with ‘unprecedented’.
@Vukcevic, here it is: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/06/sea-ice-news-volume-4-2-the-2013-sea-ice-forecast-contest/
I guessed 4.2 to 4.3.
Interesting news DMI has a new sea ice extent map. In there words: “The plot above replaces an earlier sea ice extent plot, that was based on data with the coastal zones masked out. This coastal mask implied that the previous sea ice extent estimates were underestimated. The new plot displays absolute sea ice extent estimates.” The new graph shows sea ice extent at roughly 8mill+ sqkm.
here’s the link:
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
Denier says at August 7, 2013 at 10:32 am
I don’t approve of mocking a man for his name.
Certainly not when he has made a fool of himself anyway.
Besides my cousin is called Ashley and he’s alright… maybe this is a Transatlantic thing like the American inability to spell “colour”.
Bombing the rubble.
Who cares about a dead polar bear? Skin it and make a coat from it.
Someone cherry picked the ice page for the most favorable curve.
I don’t think it will last either once the Danes fix their measuring equipment.
“Scientists believe the Arctic could be essentially free of sea ice in September by 2054.”
———————————–
That date tells you a lot.
That means they think AMO is much more powerful than GHGs over the next 40 years and only at the very end of the next AMO halfcycle, additional GHGs or black soot will make the small difference of melting the little amount of ice left in September.
Of course they never frame their prediction that way.
Unfortunately, the warmists will just pull a 180, and say: “There may be more ice, but it isn’t as thick as it should be and that’s what’s really frightening. The extent of the ice doesn’t matter at all,” and they can continue with their propaganda unstopped. After all, they get away with it in Antarctica.
Perhaps the Polar Bear population increased so much that crowding is causing too much stress for the poor Dears.
If the increase in Arctic sea ice was cooling in response to the solar cycle 24 change rather than just weather one would expect their would be cooling in the Southern Hemisphere.
There is cooling in the Southern Hemisphere.
http://joannenova.com.au/
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/antarctic/antarctic-cea-ice-aug-4-2013.gif
In the past when there was a Maunder minimum the planet cooled.
How much cooling would one expect? Over what period would the cooling occur? Interesting questions. We should have observational data to answer them.
One problem with this new bunching of articles is that some get neglected, as people comment exclusively on others. “In the old days,” even if an article only got 20 comments, they tended to be on topic, (unless a thread-jacker appeared.) Now I feel like I’m jacking the thread, simply by staying on topic with one issue, as I know I am neglecting another. Still, “some is better than none,” and I am grateful WUWT gets so much news made public, that the mainstream ignores.
Regarding the starved polar bear: Two good points have been made. First, populations of predators rise and fall. When there are few foxes there are many rabbits, so the fox populations soars until they eat too many rabbits. Then the fox population falls. Why does it fall? They starve, basically. Starvation is never a pretty site. (Especially when it is humans in your neighborhood, but don’t get me started on that subject…) Second, I nearly killed one of my goats by giving it an injection to make it healthy. A gross abscess bulged, leading to a stinking discharge, even though I took all the steps to keep the injection clean. In the same manner, when you shoot a dart into a bear in April and it is dead by July, people ought at least consider infection could be the culprit.
Regarding the sea ice and the arctic storm: This storm is a really neat experiment devised by Mother Nature herself. We need to watch and learn. Personally, it will test my theory that the so-called “baby ice” has more pressure ridges, more “body,” and is stronger. I’m sure Steven Mosher is also interested, as his ideas are more along the line of thinning ice. However the important thing is to confess our less-than-perfect knowledge, and to be students. Nobody likes a know-it-all, (naming no names.)
a) Bear dies from lack of tourists. Guilt trip!
b) If it looked like a rug maybe that’s because it was a rug. After all you don’t want to return from that Guardian financed trip empty handed.
David Albert says:
August 7, 2013 at 9:02 am
The best reason I can think of for the rapid decline of this bear is an infection, Possibly they did a poor job when they darted him for testing in April.
David,
I had similar thoughts! I have some small experience ‘darting’ domestically raised deer and similar critters on licensed game ranches, when less intrusive measures of capture (corraling, netting, etc) had failed. Using anesthesia delivered from a special ‘hypodermic rifle’ was our last resort capture method.
The anesthesia dose was estimated based on prior experience with that particular species/subspecies, the animals size, overall health, and (gu)estimated age. Some care had to be exercised while loading the anesthesia into the dart and loading the dart into the gun, to keep the ‘needle’ end clean and uncontaminated during handling. The ‘needle’ of the darts were considerably larger diameter than those used on humans, to allow a rapid delivery of the anesthetic into the hip muscle (usually) upon impact. The dart tip often dragged some of the animals hair into the wound. After the animal succumbed to the drugs and laid down, we would take care to remove such contaminants from the wound and swab the area with alcohol, before moving the prostrate animal as needed and observing its eventual recovery. An additional hazard was the relatively long/slow time of flight for these darts. A small movement by the animal just as the dart was fired could place the dart in a ‘less than optimal’ location. There was also a lot of variability in how individual animals responded to the anesthesia as well. One animal would quickly succumb to the dose, yet a nearly identical animal (size, weight, age) given an identical dose would remain on their feet and capable of significant ‘resistance’ to capture. Do you ‘dart’ them again,…. or are they slowed enough that you can get a net over them, wrap them up and carry them out? A struggling animal makes cleaning a ‘dart’ wound much more challenging. As I said, this was our ‘last choice’ method for animal capture.
These are a few of the ways ‘darting’ animals for examination or capture can go wrong. That old boar bear could easily have picked up an infection from less than stellar preparation of the dart and/or inadequate cleaning of the wound by the capture crew….
MtK
André Rieu wants to make music with the locals of the Arctic, the Eskimo’s and the Laplanders. The world famous violinist and orchestra leader wants to give a concert with the Eskimo’s and Laplanders who will be playing their own traditional instruments, he said Thursday. Next summer Rieu aims to give a concert in the Arctic. He wants it to draw attention to the melting of the ice caps and the climate change. The musician is already preparing for what will be an expensive and complicated operation.
“We will go there with two icebreakers, and a public of one hundred”, says Rieu. “For the public, we will look for a couple from every nation in the world.”
http://harmonyparlor.blogspot.com.es/2009/08/andre-rieu-wants-to-make-music-at-north.html
The concert is scheduled for August 18, 2014. Tickets will cost 35,000 euros each.
http://www.telegraaf.nl/prive/21794469/__Reis_Rieu_Noordpool_nabij__.html
ponysboy says:
August 7, 2013 at 1:44 pm
CT’s area metric for Aug 6 (the most recent value while I’m writing this) has 2013’s area higher than any year since 2006. It’s value is a little closer to 2009 than 2006, but halfway between is a fair estimate. And the area for 08/06 is about 1.15 million km^2 for this year than for last. The difference in extent is expected to be larger than the difference in area BTW. Given that, maybe you should contact UIUC and ask them to fix their measuring equipment. Actually, IIRC, they use the same equipment as NSIDC, so please contact them too.
For the record, I’m guessing we’ll end up somewhere between the minima of 2009 and 2010. It’ll be interesting to see what this storm does to the ice.
-Scott
That very symmetrical cyclone over the North Pole looks very much like the beautiful spiral galaxies Messier 99 http://gallery.rcopticalsystems.com/gallery/m99.html and its twin NGC 1566, The Spanish Dancer galaxy http://www.capella-observatory.com/ImageHTMLs/Galaxies/NGC1566.htm . Nature at work on different scales!
That polar vortex has been forming for about three or four weeks. It has simply become strong enough to now coalesce into an organized storm. The biggest give away was the rapid temp drop at the surface about that time and the lowering of barometric pressures. Been watching this for weeks. The cold oscillations should keep ice break up to a minimum and that which does will become stacked. The natural process of ice build up has begun. IMHO
Bruce Cobb says:
August 7, 2013 at 1:07 pm
…….
Thanks, I am well of the mark with 3,75., doesn’t appear to be likely, but as a conciliation prize here in England we have one of the best summers in years.
“Ashley is a dude? Man, cruel parents…”
Ashley is a boy’s and a girl’s name. Became popular as a boy’s name from the second main male character in Gone With The Wind.
Having raised livestock and knowing the number of bears has dramatically increased, My first guess would be PARASITES. Parasites can easily kill especially the very young or the accumulative damage can kill an older animal if stressed. I have seen a well cared for 3 year old Morgan mare drop dead when she started training. The Necropsy reported massive damage due to internal parasites even though she and all the animals on the farm were routinely wormed and very well cared for. (Stalls and buckets cleaned every day, hay racks and feed buckets to minimize fecal contamination of food.)
Coccidia are particularly bad news in livestock and can kill up to 50% of the young stock and can cause long lasting damage and unthriftiness no matter how much the animal is fed.
There is some cross over in Coccidia and other parasites between sheep and goats because they are closely related species.
Without a necropsy cause of death can not be determined although warm wet weather will make some parasites more active.
@ M Courtney says: August 7, 2013 at 1:21 pm
I personally know of no male Ashleys, but there is a very famous one for those who love great literature. Ashley Wilkes, and he was from this side of the pond!
And yes, us Colonialists have an aversion to the French Spelling of words. 😉
Robertv says:
August 7, 2013 at 5:53 pm
“André Rieu wants to make music with the locals of the Arctic, the Eskimo’s and the Laplanders.”
Hope his dozens of young female violinists that he carries around with him on his own buses will not be underdressed.
If one clicks through the monthly maps of Arctic sea ice extents, Svalbard was essentially ice free from July 2012 through January 2013 and the majority of the summer ice extent anomaly has been on the North Atlantic side of the Arctic above Scandinavia during the 2013 melt season. Whether one accepts AGW as the cause or not, it’s absurd to think this wouldn’t distress the polar bear population in that region.
philjourdan says at August 8, 2013 at 4:46 am
Ah, we imperialists have no problem with exploiting the convenient bons mots from wherever we have bought, conquered or subtly subverted.
It makes the subjects feel quite “cool”.
M Courtney says: August 8, 2013 at 2:06 pm
And as my granddaddy says – never try to out snooty an Englishman! 😆
Mark B says: @ August 8, 2013 at 7:10 am
If one clicks through the monthly maps of Arctic sea ice extents, Svalbard was essentially ice free from July 2012 through January 2013 and the majority of the summer ice extent anomaly has been on the North Atlantic side of the Arctic above Scandinavia during the 2013 melt season. Whether one accepts AGW as the cause or not, it’s absurd to think this wouldn’t distress the polar bear population in that region.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Then how come the polar bear populations are INCREASING? Newsbytes: Polar Bear Population Growing Despite Declining Sea Ice
Besides this was a 16 year old bear and that is OLD for a wild polar bear.
“Today bears are now far more common in Spitsbergen and the other islands of Svalbard. They are more common all over the Arctic than 33 years ago. The US Fish and Wildlife Service estimated in 2008 that the polar bear population was at a historic high of 20,000-25,000 bears, up from as low as 5,000-10,000 bears in the 1960s. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature estimated in 1966 that there were 10,000 polar bears in the world; in 2006, the same source estimated 20,000-25,000 bears. Just last May the IUCN Polar BearSpecialist Group concluded there has probably been no drop in the numbers since then.”
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/the-polar-bear-problem.aspx
See also :
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/14/a-must-watch-greening-the-planet-dr-matt-ridley/
Then how come the polar bear populations are INCREASING? Newsbytes: Polar Bear Population Growing Despite Declining Sea Ice
Besides this was a 16 year old bear and that is OLD for a wild polar bear.
I’m confused by your question. In the thread you linked did you yourself not identify hunting restrictions imposed circa 1970 (1973 in Svalbard) to be obvious factor dominating increasing bear populations?
Regardless, that reduced sea ice extent in the area will reduce the capacity of the region to support the current bear population seems a pretty reasonable supposition. It also makes sense in a distressed population the most frail individuals (old and/or diseased) would be the first to go. I’m not dismissing the notion that other factors may have contributed to this particular animal’s death, but let’s not pretend that the obvious difference in habitat over the past year doesn’t matter.