Something very unexpected is happening to Norway's polar bears [View all]

Polar bears became the poster child for the peril of climate change for obvious reasons: They hunt seals from the ice, and as fossil fuels warm the planet, the ice where these bears live is melting.

For more than three decades, scientists have been warning that climate change could drive polar bear populations extinct. That message infiltrated the public psyche, perhaps more than any other about the scourge of global warming.

Key takeaways
Polar bears, a mascot for the impacts of climate change, are threatened by melting sea ice.

These iconic Arctic predators depend on seals, but they can’t easily hunt them without a platform of ice.

A new study complicates the story, finding that polar bears in Svalbard, Norway, are healthy, even though the region is losing sea ice faster than any other polar bear habitat.

Scientists involved in the study propose that Svalbard’s bears are adapting their diet — with encouraging results.

https://www.vox.com/climate/476873/polar-bears-ice-climate-change-svalbard-research-seals-biodiversity