Climate change on track to wipe out polar bears by 2100

Dwindling body weight undermines their chances of surviving Arctic winters without food

Last updated: July 20, 2020 | 22:22

AFP and Compiled by Nathaniel Lacsina, Senior Web Editor

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Paris: Climate change is starving polar bears into extinction, according to research published Monday that predicts the apex carnivores could all but disappear within the span of a human lifetime.

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In some regions they are already caught in a vicious downward spiral, with shrinking sea ice cutting short the time bears have for hunting seals, scientists reported in Nature Climate Change.

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Their dwindling body weight undermines their chances of surviving Arctic winters without food, the scientists added.

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On current trends, the study concluded, polar bears in 12 of 13 subpopulations analysed will have been decimated within 80 years by the galloping pace of change in the Arctic, which is warming twice as fast as the planet as a whole.

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One degree of warming so far has triggered a crescendo of heatwaves, droughts and superstorms made more destructive by rising seas.

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But even if humanity were able to cap global warming at 2.4C - about half-a-degree above Paris Agreement targets, but hugely ambitious all the same - it would probably only delay the polar bears' collapse.

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Half of Earth's land-based megafauna are classified as threatened with extinction, but only polar bears are endangered primarily by climate change.

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The challenge to their survival has long been understood, but the new study is the first to put a timeline on their likely demise. The new approach overlays two sets of data.

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One is the expanding fasting period, which varies across regions and can last for half-a-year or more.

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The other is a pair of climate change projections tracking the decline of sea ice until the end of the century, based on scenarios from the UN's IPCC climate science advisory panel.

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New-born cubs are even more exposed, according to the study, especially when mothers have not fattened up enough to provide nourishing milk.

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Females without offspring, however, have the greatest capacity to withstand long periods without food.

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