From Polar Bear Science, March 16:
It seems that every fall and winter for the last decade at least, there has been hand-wringing about the lack of Svalbard sea ice and what a tragedy this is for polar bears. And like clockwork, before the end of winter (30 March) every year, the pack ice returns in time for spring: for ringed and bearded seals to give birth–and for the polar bears to gorge themselves on the fat newborns.
This year there is even ice as far south as Bear Island (Bjørnøya) and it’s only 15 March. This has happened several times now in the last 10 year. So much for the catastrophe! And soon Norwegian biologists will be out checking on the health of these bears, which they do every year and report their results online for everyone to see....
....MUCH MORE
Although she has ice maps in the article we prefer the maps from the Danish Meteorological Institute, in particular the "Sea ice thickness and volume" maps—for our more general purposes, because of the way ice melts volume matters more than extent.
Follow the 20°E longitude line until you hit the archipelago:
The ice will continue growing through April and into May.
And no, the polar bear isn't doing this because he doesn't want to get wet. Its Latin name is Ursus maritimus for Chrissakes. Bears have been known to swim 300 to 400 miles and regularly swim from Greenland to Iceland across the Denmark Strait (180 - 200 miles), although the lazier ones will raft across on an ice floe.*How to navigate through ice sheet without breaking it - ditto for life 😊 Life lesson from a Polar bear #FridayFeeling pic.twitter.com/kBmaD9GLr3
— Supriya Sahu IAS (@supriyasahuias) October 14, 2022
*Iceland on High Alert
From Planet Gore:
...MARAUDING polar bears could cause terror on Iceland after experts claimed global warming could bring the killer beasts across the sea....
...Climate expert Thor Jakobsson said: "Since two have reached the shore, more could be on the way."
Thor is calling for aerial surveillance of the ice, as well, to protect the Icelandic population:
“Since two bears have already reached the shore, more could be on the way, but there’s no telling whether this trend will continue in the coming years.
“Surveillance of the drifting ice must be improved. It has obviously not been taken good care of.
"Thin and filmy ice can easily reach over the canal between Greenland and Iceland, but cannot be spotted from satellite, so planes must fly over the area regularly to locate the ice and identify the polar bears.
"It is better to know if they are on the way,” Mr Jakobson concluded.
