Why did the last time polar bears come ashore even later than 2009 when Hudson Bay finally became ice-free – Watts Up With That?
Dr. Susan Crockford
Based on Andrew Derocher this morning, the last tagged polar bears on his team came ashore in West Hudson Bay, the last week of August. It makes two of the last three years when the WH bears were tagged ashore later or later, they were made in 2009 (a very cold year when they came ashore around August 21st), something Derocher does not mention in a CBC Radio interview also published today.
Don’t forget: this is the subpopulation that polar bear experts use to modeling the future of all bears, everywhere in the arctic but only use old data from the 2000s because including more recent information gives a much more optimistic picture.
Meanwhile, no more reports from Churchill on problem bears: the last one released for first week of August. Time will tell whether this will be another very good year for the Hudson Bay West bear.
The last bears leave the ice
2020, on August 22 with a map of August 21 (left) versus August 14 of the same year (note the emphasis on ‘anomalies’ and the repetition of trend statistics up to 2014 – pretty pointless six years later that – as well as a reminder of a prediction that didn’t come true, above all noting that this was only “A Good Year”):
2022, on August 27 with a map of August 26 (no mention of “a good year doesn’t help much” or “coming ashore too late is unusual”, or the date is even later than 2020):
Sea ice conditions in the Arctic the week before August
2020, August 25 [4.7mkm2]:
2022, August 26 [5.4mkm2]
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