Let me summarize your claims, copied from your posts above. My text is in bold:
* The article is "just a repeat of inaccurate information."
Any specifics?* Polar bear hibernation period decreases by 30% or more thanks to warmer winter temperatures.
Polar bears do not hibernate. And where does this 30% number come from? Source?* No decrease of polar bear numbers helps diffuse this kind of misinformation.
Polar bear numbers have rebounded following bans and regulation of hunting. Regardless of that, the article makes calculations of future declines of bear populations, not of present declines, so this is irrelevant.* Polar bears do much worse when there is more sea ice, as there is no place to hunt for seals.
This is just flagrant misinformation. Polar bears do most of their hunting in winter. The seals have to breath and thus are to be found somewhere. According to Wikipedia, their preferred habitat is the annual sea ice covering the waters over the continental shelf and the Arctic inter-island archipelagos. These areas, known as the "Arctic ring of life", have high biological productivity in comparison to the deep waters of the high Arctic. The polar bear tends to frequent areas where sea ice meets water, such as polynyas and leads, to hunt the seals that make up most of its diet. Polar bears are able to produce water through the metabolism of fats found in seal blubber, and are therefore found primarily along the perimeter of the polar ice pack, rather than in the Polar Basin close to the North Pole where the density of seals is low. So as can be seen the bears follow the seal population. They hunt seals in breathing holes, seals resting on the ice, and raid the birth lairs that female seals create in the snow.* When asked "Which assumptions do they make that are not supported by the data?" You respond by twisting some sentence from the article that says there cannot be any data linking low ice extremes with population declines because such extremes have not happened yet, therefore they made estimates of calories. But you do not list any wrong assumptions.
* When confronted with "bears do not hibernate" you admit it, but then explain about "waking hibernation", a state which does not exist, and which you confuse with denning which only applies to females with newborn cubs.
* As the winter temperature warms, less nutrition is required to maintain body temperature.
This effect, if it exists, applies only to denning females. And does the effect exist? How strong is it? I guess we just have to take your word for it.* Polar bears do not fatten up in winter, as the solid sea ice prevents hunting. Rather, they catch seals in spring and early summer. when the ice begins to break up and seals emerge from their dens.
This is unbelievable flagrant misinformation. Polar bears have their main hunting season in winter, again except for denning females. Seals have breathing holes or they die.* I am not sure than anyone truly knows how much ice is optimal. We do know that no ice or all ice makes seal hunting nearly impossible.
This is in your imagination. There is no such thing as all ice, but if there were there would be no seals in that location. The bears follow seal populations and can hunt them in >90% ice concentrations.* Since the bears are known to travel large distances for food and are not territorial, the theory is that they will simply move to optimal hunting grounds.
Specific bears are not territorial but the subpopulations display seasonal fidelity to particular areas, though DNA studies show that they are not reproductively isolated. In addition, the individuals in a subpopulation tend to reuse the same denning areas each year.* Speculation is that Greenland and the Canadian archipelago would be the top choice, as ice remains there year-round, and melting could open up more water holes. The issue would then become how many bears the area could support.
If the area can support more polar bears, why aren't there more polar bears there now? As Wikipedia says, the relationship between ringed seals and polar bears is so close that the abundance of ringed seals in some areas appears to regulate the density of polar bears, while polar bear predation in turn regulates density and reproductive success of ringed seals. But in any case the study estimates most regional subpopulations will disappear, you suddenly seem to agree with it.To summarize, you are sowing misinformation while accusing scientific studies of misinformation. It has taken me over an hour to go over your claims and read up on the subject. The innocent reader may take you word for it, not knowing your history on the forum and especially considering that you filled up the thread with your posts on the subject, thus achieving local numerical superiority. I think this has gone far enough.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_bearhttps://arctickingdom.com/its-polar-bear-week-profiling-their-seasonal-habits-challenges/
