How Does Climate Change Affect Polar Bear Populations

Polar Bears are a very specialized species that has adapted relatively recently (around 150,000 years) to live in the Arctic where the living conditions are extremely harsh and finding food is difficult. Any changes to an environment like this will be challenging. Polar bears have been through much warmer times in their past when the Arctic was ice free in the summer and the tree line was 100’s of kilometers north of the current tree line, so this is not the first-time polar bears are experiencing great change. Change does affect polar bear populations, more in some areas then others. Polar bears rely on different types of ice (multi-year ice and seasonal ice) for hunting and transportation to get to denning and hunting areas. The climate for the past almost 2 decades has not significantly been increasing, however the climate has increased since 1990 by about 0.34 degrees Celsius. This warming and the warming of the oceans is believed to be the cause for the decline in Arctic sea ice, however the sea ice in Antarctica has been increasing so it is uncertain why sea ice levels continue to decline at such a fast rate. Carbon dioxide has increased since 1960 and is projected to continue will the world going through development and yes temperature has risen with carbon dioxide levels but it is not accurate to say that the

This means we must try to gain as much knowledge as we can about polar bear populations and ecology, this requires international support from all countries that have polar bear living within their borders. If we can gain as much knowledge as we can then we can implement management strategies before the crisis happens to do everything we can to keep polar bear numbers stable. Eventually, the climate will get significantly warmer than current levels and we need to be ready for that so then we never have to go through a polar bear