When the arctic regions were tropical forests? long before Ford, GM, or other nasty American companies came along, who keep the polar bears nice and comfy and full of ice at that time? I mean if the shift in temperature spells doom for our furry friends, how in the world did they make it back then? Or are we about to hear how at that time the equator was the cooler regions?

Best Answer

We have had hotter times and much colder times and the polar bare adapted or died...

Asker's Rating:

What a shame some don%26#039;t realize that.

Other Answers (8)

• Polar bears evolved from a common ancestor with the grizzly bear about 200,000 years ago (Note: the common ancestor was probably nearly identical to the present grizzly bear). That means Polar Bears survived through the previous two periods of glaciation 130 and 10 thousand years ago as well as the warm interglacial periods. The poles (some of the land now occuring in the Arctic) were tropical probably over a hundred million years ago in the Mesozoic Age. (Note mammals have been around for around 200 million years)
  
  Environmentalists, and that includes many that are convinced AGW is a serious problem, tend to feel bad when Polar Bears suffer. As an animal lover, I certain don%26#039;t condone any mistreatment but the fact remains most polar bears die of starvation. If they survive is it generally by the skin of their teeth and they have a hard life. This is typical of all wild animals. The fact remains that polar bears are doing fine and they are only endangered in the minds of alarmists.
• Climate is a product of the environment. Tens of millions of years ago, the continents were in different positions. There were different mountain ranges, different ocean currents, more volcanic activity, a slightly different set orbital variations. I’m not sure how useful it is to compare today’s climate with one millions years ago.
  
  When %26quot;[the land land that is now part of the] arctic regions were tropical” there were no polar bears, no human civilizations (were there even mammals?).
  
  Also, it%26#039;s not clear that the equator was ever %26quot;the cooler region.%26quot; There has been evidence of glacier activity on land that is currently near the equator hundreds of millions of years ago, causing some to hypothesize a %26quot;snowball earth.%26quot; But because of plate tectonics and continental drift, these glacial fields were probably located at a different latitude way back when.
  
  It%26#039;s clear that you have no understanding of the time frames involved that we are discussing here. So much has changed over the past few millions years, that it%26#039;s difficult to draw any conclusions/correlations. However, one doesn%26#039;t have to be a paleoclimatologist to understand that the environment/climate was different when the continents were in different positions.
• The current ice age started ~2.6 million years ago with interglacial periods each ~100,000 years we are currently in the middle of one of those.
  Bears as a species evolved ~4 million years ago, the Polar Bear as a sub species only appeared ~200,000 years ago, they are descended from Brown Bears.
  As such they evolved to live and survive in the Arctic pack ice and since they appeared there has been pack ice in the Arctic.
  
  Technically arctic regions didn%26#039;t have tropical forest they had temperate forest, small parts of this type of forest still exist in central Tasmania, Australia.
• Back then - (in technical terms at the peak of an interglacial period) - when things were warm, there were no polar bears. As things got cold, a population of bears (it is thought probably cosuins/ancestors of brown bears) ended up evolving white fur, big feet, seal eating habits, etc.
  
  Now, I%26#039;m not sure how many times I will end up having to repeat this but GW is not trying to say that the Earth has never been hotter or colder than it is today or will be tomorrow.
  No, it is about the SPEED of the change.
  
  How long do you think it took the poles to go from tropical rainforest to ice cap? - tens of thousands to millions of years
  Brown bears can evolve to polar bears in tens of thousands of years.
  
  How long has it taken 45% of the arctic to go from ice to water? - 30 years
  Polar bears cannot adapt or evolve in 30 years; they have moved (but how much further can they move) and they have reduced in numbers.
  
  It%26#039;s the speed of change that is the issue, not the change itself.
  
  This planet has seen rapid climate change just five times before (and rapid is defined as thousands of years). On each of those five occasions, the majority of species on this planet went extinct. In one case, approximately 90% of species were wiped out.
  
  This is the beginning of the sixth and fastest rapid climate change and consequent mass extinction.
• Isn´t the point that you are trying to make:
  
  %26quot;temperatures have changed without human influence in the past, therefore the climate change we are encountering now is not man-made%26quot;
  
  (I take quoting Ford and GM as a hint for it).
  
  ===%26gt; This is however based on a biased logic. I could also say that radioactivity is found in the nature, therefore we do not know for sure that the one around nuclear reactors is man-made.
  
  The problem with that is that you make a disguised supposition and you do not bring any proof to back it up.
  
  NO evidence point out at a natural climate shift similar to those in the past.
• The polar regions were never tropical. Continental drift moved the continents around the globe numerous times. North America is still moving at 1/4 inch per year westward. At that rate, polar bears would be able to adapt to changes in their climate. Moving warm weather north at a rate of a mile or so a year isn%26#039;t so easy to compensate for. Its like a lobster trying to acclimate to boiling water in a pot after being dropped in.