Not a Polar Bear in Sight: Arctic Ocean Diaries No. 11

Polar bear diorama at Anchorage airport: Julia WhittyI'm home from my cruise aboard the US Coast Guard icebreaker Healy and its science mission to study the effects of a changing climate on the Arctic Ocean. When I set out a month ago I never imagined that we'd never encounter any sea ice (I wrote more on that here). And that the only polar bears I'd see were these stuffed specimens on display at the Anchorage airport. Naturally I'm disappointed. But for the bears who couldn't find any sea ice w...