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Climate change advocates have said polar bear numbers would decline... they haven't, yet. Stories like this that say they can adapt to conditions, and possibly increase in numbers, are considered unhelpful to the cause.
Don't look now but Arctic ice conditions are stable for the last ten years. The 2018 graph of extent is about the same as the 2007 graph of extent.
This doesn't mean there is no AGW. AGW is a proven phenomenon. The ice extent, and volume, are still maybe a tenth off what they were 25 years ago. The quicker melting caused a lot of scientists about a decade ago to claim the Arctic might be ice-free during summer by 2014. Not even close. That prediction was unhelpful. Predicting the future is very, very hard.
Maybe this reflects "the pause", maybe always-changing ocean circulation, or maybe the question of what exactly melts the ice is more complex than just the global temperature anomaly. (Some people believe that Chinese soot is involved.) Also, more of the warming has been at the Arctic than anywhere else, but that may change as well.
There wil be winners and losers out of global warming; and the polar bears are not yet found on one side or the other of that equation. They adapted to the last 25,000 years of (slower) warming so they may wind up just fine. Revisit this thread in 2040 for the update.
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