This is Scientific American's 62nd Science. I'm Fiona Samuels. The life of a polar bear

is hard, it's made even harder as temperatures climb. The bears of the north largely depend

on sea ice to survive, hunting seals that take a breath through gaps in the ice. For

most bears, their feeding opportunities disappear as sheets of ice melt. Now, researchers

have identified a new subpopulation of polar bears that may be able to survive longer

thanks to their ability to use glacial ice as a sea ice alternative.

Well, I've been working on polar bears for about 15 years and this particular study was

just really a wholly unexpected finding that came out of a much larger survey of polar

bears along the east coast of Greenland.

That's Kristen Leydra, a marine biologist at the University of Washington in Seattle

who was part of the team of scientists who spent years tracking polar bears in Greenland.

They recently published their surprising findings in a paper in science.

We lay out the evidence for a previously undocumented and highly isolated subpopulation of polar bears

living on the southeast coast of Greenland. We knew you could find polar bears in that area,

but we just didn't think there were that many because it's not really a place you'd expect

a lot of bears or bears to be able to persist for very long.

Basically, the area wasn't expected to be particularly bear friendly because it goes

long periods of time without sea ice. Generally, polar bears will starve if there are more

than 100 sea ice-free days during the year because they primarily rely on sea ice to hunt

for seals and other prey. But these bears can supplement the sea ice-free days with glacial

ice.

We realized that this glacial ice was essentially supporting an isolated population, so it

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