According to this report, all of this may be a moot point soon:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science...eut/index.html
Study: Arctic warming at twice the global rate

Species, including polar bears, may go extinct as ice melts.

OSLO, Norway (Reuters) -- Global warming is heating the Arctic almost
twice as fast as the rest of the planet in a thaw that threatens
millions of livelihoods and could wipe out polar bears by 2100, an
eight-nation report said on Monday.

The biggest survey to date of the Arctic climate, by 250 scientists,
said the accelerating melt could be a foretaste of wider disruptions
from a build-up of human emissions of heat-trapping gases in Earth's
atmosphere.