Vanishing from the headlines, that is. Probably because in the real world they are doing just fine. Which came as a shock to a BBC journalist who, when writing a story about a polar bear attack in Nunavut, added in the obligatory fluff about the species being in decline due to global warming. This un-fact-checked propaganda prompted UK writer Paul Homewood to file a complaint which was recently upheld, with the BBC acknowledging “numbers are stable overall at present and not in decline as stated.” (Although speaking of faking contrition, the original article is still online and hasn’t been corrected.) Meanwhile a new study (h/t NoTricksZone) proposes a statistical model for predicting the populations of polar bears in the many regions where the populations aren’t observed and numbers are unavailable. When they ran their models the result was... stable overall and not in decline. Bears don’t end; alarmists hardest hit.

The study proposing that statistical model, and yes, we are very aware of the limitations of computer models whether we like what they say or not, was published in the journal Ecological Indicators by a team of US government scientists. They start by noting that for most polar bear populations, despite the impression the media may have given you, scientists have actually had and still have nothing but guesses to go on: “Of the recognized 19 polar bear subpopulations, trends are unknown for 10 and more than 10 years old for one.”

As Elon Musk might say, let that sink in. Despite all the huffing and puffing about the disappearing polar bears, scientists do not have data for more than half the known populations and never did. Later in the article the authors point out that collecting data on polar bear populations is difficult and costly (and potentially dangerous given both the habitat and the subject): the eight years’ worth of data they did have cost about $5 million to collect. Let that sink in for a moment too. Because while it sounds like a lot of money, it’s a very small slice of what governments have been spending directly and via subsidies on climate alarmism. And yet for years climate alarmists said the disappearance of polar bears was among their biggest worries yet out of all those billions of dollars, literally, they couldn’t find another $5 million to sample the rest of the polar bear population. Maybe they didn’t want to know.

In any case, in the absence of complete observations the scientists decided to construct a statistical mode for predicting their numbers. They noted that Ursi maritimi are actually rather straightforward beasts: “Polar bears have a relatively simple life history and ecology”, and seem to depend on only a few local factors for survival, including ice conditions, weather conditions and seal populations (supplemented by the occasional tourist or researcher if available). Since it appears to be too much to expect the world’s cosseted environmentalists to put down their Starbucks lattes and leave the big cities long enough to help with counting the actual bears rather than slaughtering fake ones on computers, it made sense to check if the populations of bears in the places where they did have data could be predicted with a model, and if so, whether the model appeared to be useful in predicting the numbers elsewhere.

They proceeded to estimate the parameters of models to describe polar bear body mass, births and other population indicators. Where they could compare the predictions to the observations, most notably the Chukchi Sea where most of their data came from, the model performed quite well. And revealingly, despite a reduction in sea ice long hailed as the harbinger of polar-bear doom over the protests of scholars like Susan Crockford, they noted that:

“Chukchi Sea polar bears appear to be one population in which changes in sea ice alone have not accurately predicted population dynamics. Despite substantial declines in summer sea ice in the Chukchi Sea between the 1980s and 2000s there was no observed change in polar bear body condition or recruitment... The status of the population is currently identified as ‘likely stable’ based on data collected through 2016.”

Indeed they found that far from playing the expected trump-of-doom role either in their Chukchi Sea sample or in the adjacent Beaufort Sea, sea ice reduction may even be a benefit to the bears:

“Studies in both the Chukchi Sea and adjacent southern Beaufort Sea have shown improved ringed seal body condition and pup production following and during years with lower spring or summer sea ice cover, earlier sea ice breakup, or thinner ice (Harwood et al., 2012, Harwood et al., 2020, Crawford et al., 2015, Nguyen et al., 2017, Rode et al., 2021). Thus, an increase in the duration of open water during the summer and the associated increase in ocean productivity with warming may benefit polar bear prey species.”

And just like that, you won’t be hearing about polar bears from now on.