From Polar Bear Science
Susan Crockford
The 1980s and early 1990s are said to be “good times” for sea ice conditions and polar bears in Western Hudson Bay, with all tagged polar bears usually coming ashore in mid-to-late August. Subsequently, sudden changes in the date of sea ice melt brought polar bears ashore two weeks earlier on average in the late 1990s. From then until 2019, the only significant exception in all tagged bears coming ashore around the end of July was in 2009, an unusually cold year when the last bears came ashore around August 20.
This pattern changed in 2020, with the last bears leaving the ice as late as in 2009, on August 21. Much later, around August 26th. , meaning the bears have been ashore since the 1980s in three of the last five years.
On August 8, approximately 40% of the tagged polar bears were still at sea.
Two years ago, on August 7, 2022 (below), there appeared to be barely any ice near WH, but we know that satellites are known to underreport ice by 20% during the melt season because they remove melt from the ice Pool incorrectly classified as open water. Still, the last tagged bears remained at sea for two weeks in 2022, relying on remaining ice, just as they did in the 1980s when there was more ice:
This year's situation is even more unusual. Contrary to all predictions of deteriorating summer sea ice conditions, there is a large patch of thick to very thick sea ice near western Hudson Bay. Here is a daily sea ice development stage map (i.e. thickness) on August 10: Western Hudson Bay has much more ice this year than in 2022, and more ice may be incorrectly classified as open Waters:
Polar bear expert Andrew Derocher dutifully reported on the White House's accidental tagged polar bear/sea ice situation last week, but failed to mention that this was the third time in five years that a polar bear had appeared in the first week of August. Offshore, just like in the 1980s.
It seems to me that 40% of all tagged bears are offshore, and I don't mean just “some”. There are so many bears offshore, and current ice conditions suggest there may be more than one or two bears remaining on that big patch of thick ice until late August or even early September, possibly for the first time since the 1980s This happens (if it even happened then).
In comparison, 33% of tagged bears (8/24) were still on a small patch of ice on 5 August 2022, which was clearly underreported by satellites (considering that some bears did not appear to be on the ice at all superior):
Even though there are some bears on the shore, the Town of Churchill has not issued a 2024 problem bear report. Find out what's going on there.
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