Then, when snow or rain wash them onto an ice floe, they darken its surface and thus cause it to melt faster.

FORBES: Soot and CO2 In The Arctic

Several hours later, in the honey-dipped low light of the midnight sun, a polar bear was spotted on an ice floe, finishing his dinner.

BBC: Life in the fragile, frozen Arctic

Among the state-of-the-art special effects included a giant, sparkling polar bear rising from the stadium floor and hovering over performers on a simulated ice floe.

BBC: Winter Olympics start despite luge tragedy

Last year, the American Association for the Advancement of Science got into a bit of a pinch when its flagship magazine, Science, was caught in the photoshop with a faked image of a lone polar bear on a tiny ice floe.

FORBES: Drowning Polar Bears And the Return Of Ursus Bogus

What is more, it strikes me as perfectly possible that the overall welfare of a wild seal, suddenly killed on an ice floe, is better than the life endured by an intensively reared farm animal killed on a production line after being driven to an abattoir on a lorry.

ECONOMIST: European politics

The oil disappears into the interior of each floe, because new ice grows underneath it, so you have an 'oil sandwich' which lasts all through the winter.

BBC: MPs' call to halt Arctic drilling amid safety concerns

He was once lost for 11 days after the ice where he was resting broke off from the floe and drifted away.

WSJ: In the Arctic, Sleeping Soundly