Climate Change, Sea Ice Loss, and Polar Bears in Greenland

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Climate Change, Sea Ice Loss, and Polar Bears in
Greenland Kristin Laidre, University of Washington

• Research question How has Arctic sea ice loss
  impacted the movement behavior and habitat
  selection of polar bears in East and West
  Greenland?
• Importance Loss of sea ice has had extensive
  population-level impacts on polar bears (require
  sea ice as a platform on which to hunt ice
  seals). Little is known about the effect of
  climate change on the bears in East and West
  Greenland, regions that have exhibited some of
  the highest rates of annual sea ice loss (9-10
  per decade) in the Arctic.

• Approach Longitudinal comparisons of movement
  behavior from of a multi-decadal satellite
  telemetry dataset (n107 bears) beginning when
  sea ice concentration and break up date started
  to decline (1991-1997) and encompassing present
  day conditions (2007-2013). Compute long term sea
  ice changes (AMSR-E and SSM/I), identify bear
  focal areas and build resource selection models

Polar bear satellite tracking data
Polar bear positions and sea ice concentration
from AMSR