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climate-debate

True, Mother Jones, Polar Bears Are More Adaptable Than Alarmists Have Claimed

by L. Lueken,  Feb 6, 2026 in WUWT

A recent article at Mother Jones, “Something Unexpected Is Happening With Norway’s Polar Bears,” expresses surprise that polar bear populations in Norway are actually getting healthier amid declining sea ice. This is true, though it is not truly “news,” in the sense of something newly discovered, and should not have been unexpected. Previous research, including annual polar bear counts, show that polar bear populations as a whole have increased amid modest global warming.

Mother Jones says the message that polar bears would soon die out due to climate change “infiltrated the public psyche, perhaps more than any other about the scourge of global warming.” This is certainly true, polar bears became the poster children in many advertisements about climate change, and were featured prominently in former Vice-President Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth.”

The polar bear extinction theory, however, is another one of the claims from that film that have long since been debunked, as Mother Jones admits, “the reality for these iconic bears is more complicated.”

Mother Jones references two studies showing that polar bears in multiple locations are doing very well. A 2022 study looking at southeastern Greenland and a recent study in Scientific Reports looking at Norway’s polar bear populations, show bears in those locations have actually become healthier, with their population “stable or growing.”

They do emphasize that Hudson Bay bears are struggling, claiming that “researchers have tied melting ice to lower bear survival and a shortage of food, finding that the population has roughly halved since the 1980s.” But overall, “there are 20 distinct polar bear populations around the world, and they all behave slightly differently. Warming is not uniformly killing them.”

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better to know...?

Climate Scientist Who Predicted End Of “Heavy Frost And Snow” Now Refuses Media Inquiries

by P. Gosselin, Feb 3, 2026 in NoTricksZone 

More than two decades ago, renowned climate scientist Mojib Latif of Germany’s Max Planck Instiute for Meterology, based in Hamburg, warned the climate-ambulance chasing Der Spiegel that, due to global warming, Germany would likely no longer experience harsh winters with heavy frost and snow as it had in previous decades.

Spiegel reported climate scientist’s prediction of harsh winters disappearing due to man’s activities. Image cropped here. 

In light of the current severe winter weather in Germany, Latif’s statements are facing renewed scrutiny. An article appearing in the Berliner Zeitung here notes that Latif’s prophecy has “aged poorly” and he appears to want to have nothing to do with them.

Hiding from the media

According to the Berliner Zeitung, the former Max Planck Institute scientist has recently stopped responding to media inquiries regarding his past claims. Critics argue that such drastic predictions damage the credibility of climate science, while others point out that extreme weather events—including intense cold snaps—can still occur within the broader context of climate change.

No Easter snow as well

Latif also claimed he recalled snow in the past occurring at Easter time, implying this no longer happens today. But that too was a false claim. perhaps prof. Latif will answer phone calls in April?

climate and geology

Holocene Warming

by  A. May, Feb 5, 2026 in WUWT

I find it amazing that some papers still state:

“air temperatures in the [Arctic or globally] are now at their warmest in the past 6,800–7,800 y, and that the recent rate of temperature change is unprecedented over the entire Holocene.” (Lecavalier et al., 2017)

While it is remotely possible that current Arctic or global average temperature is higher than any seen in the past 6,800 years, it is very unlikely and can’t be demonstrated with data we have today. It is almost certainly true that the rate of change in global or Arctic temperature observed recently is not unprecedented in the Holocene Epoch. This modern myth has been thoroughly debunked in the literature and seeing it pop up in PNAS and elsewhere is disconcerting. I thought peer-review was supposed to catch such errors.

Warmest in the past 6,800-7,800 years

The first assertion in Lecavalier et al.’s paper is that the Arctic is now warmer than at any time in the past 6,800-7,800 years. The warmest time in the Holocene (12,000 years ago to the present) is generally accepted to be the Holocene Climatic Optimum or the Holocene Thermal Maximum, both names are used. Two of my favorite Northern Hemisphere Holocene temperature proxies suggest that today is only warmer than the past 1,000-2,000 years as shown in figure 1.

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