In an April 9 letter to Senator Barbara Boxer, Professor Scott Armstrong announced that the Armstrong, Green and Soon paper “Polar Bear Population Forecasts” has been accepted for publication in Interfaces.
This is the only peer-reviewed paper on the topic that has been
accepted for journal publication. The paper shows that there is no
basis for a forecast that polar bear numbers will decline. If there is
any change, one might expect a modest short-term upward trend.
Professor
Armstrong hopes that this paper will lead Senator Boxer to reconsider
the confidence that she has placed in the USGS administrative reports
that predicted a sharp decline in the population of polar bears. There
are no scientific forecasts of long-term global temperature and we
therefore do not know whether temperatures will increase or decrease.
Even the IPCC and its cadre of presumptive Nobel Peace laureates
concede as much.
“Even
if there were such temperature ‘forecasts,’ the relationship between
Arctic ice conditions and global temperatures is not clear and neither
is the relationship between ice conditions and polar bear numbers”,
said Armstrong. “For example, we do know that polar bears survived
much warmer times in the past. In this uncertain situation, it is
unscientific to forecast dramatic changes in bear number.”
For
Senator Boxer's reaction to an earlier version of the Armstrong, Green,
and Soon paper, presented to her committee on January 30, 2008, see the
video of the Q&A of Professor Armstrong at http://theclimatebet.com. The letter to Senator Boxer is also provided on this site.
For a comprehensive look a polar bears by expert bear biologists see “Demographic and Ecological Perspectives on the Status of Polar Bears.”
Also see “Examining Threats and Protections for the Polar Bear” by Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and “Bearing Up” by Governor Sarah Palin (R-Alaska).
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