Another research group projects that even if global warming doesn’t slow — a more likely near-future scenario — a thin, icy refuge for the bears would still remain between Greenland and Canada…

The new study, which challenges the idea of a tipping point, says rapid ice loss could still happen, but there’s a chance that the threatened bears aren’t quite doomed.

“There is something that can be done to save polar bears,” said lead author Steven Amstrup, the former senior polar bear scientist for the U.S. Geological Survey in Alaska. “The problem is not irreversible.”