As the world's average temperatures creep higher, marine animals are far more vulnerable to extinction than their earthbound counterparts, according to a new analysis of more than 400 cold-blooded species. With fewer ways to seek refuge from warming, ocean-dwelling species are disappearing from their habitats at twice the rate of those on land, notes the research published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The study, led by researchers from New Jersey's Rutgers University, is the first to compare the impacts of higher temperatures in the ocean and on land for a range of cold-blooded wildlife, from fish and mollusks to lizards and dragonflies.
While previous research has suggested warm-blooded animals are better at adapting to climate change than cold-blooded ones, this study punctuates the special risk for sea creatures. As the oceans continue to absorb heat trapped in the atmosphere from carbon dioxide pollution, bringing waters to their warmest point in decades, undersea denizens don't have the luxury of ducking into a shady spot or a burrow.
"Marine animals live in an environment that, historically, hasn't changed temperature all that much," says Malin Pinsky, an ecologist and evolutionary biologist at Rutgers who led the research. "It's a bit like ocean animals are driving a narrow mountain road with temperature cliffs on either side." The scientists calculated "thermal safety margins" for 88 marine and 318 terrestrial species, determining how much warming they can tolerate and how much exposure they have to those heat thresholds. For many, the heat is already too much.
At the warm edges of the marine species' ranges, the study found, more than half had disappeared from historical territory as a result of warming. The rate for these local extinctions is twice that seen on land. "These impacts are already happening. It's not some abstract future problem," Pinsky says. The narrow safety margins for tropical marine animals, such as colorful damselfish and cardinalfish, average about 10 degrees Celsius. "That sounds like a lot," Pinsky says, "but the key is that populations actually go extinct long before they experience 10 degrees of warming."’ Even just a degree or half-degree boost, he adds, can lead to trouble finding food, reproducing, and other devastating effects. While some species will be able to migrate to new territory, others—coral and sea anemones, for example—can't move and will simply go extinct.

The world’s forests are under threat. As well as being logged for timber and cleared to make way for agriculture, rising global temperatures are causing more intense wildfires. This year is set to be the hottest on record and has been the worst on record in terms of fires in boreal forests worldwide.
Reforestation is essential in the fight against climate change and to protect biodiversity, but planting saplings by hand can be slow and labor-intensive. In recent years, drones have begun to be used to drop seeds onto land deforested by wildfires; a company called Mast Reforestation, formerly DroneSeed, has applied this method in the western United States and beyond, and World Wildlife Fund has used specialized drones to restore rural bushland in Australia. But for a reforest to regrow, dropped seeds have to get into the soil and germinate, and that can be a challenge.
Researchers from Morphing Matter Lab at Carnegie Mellon University, in Pennsylvania, might have an answer. Inspired by nature’s own design, the lab has created an “E-seed” carrier that is intended to be dropped by drones and drilled into the soil. But remarkably, the carrier doesn’t need an energy source to drill into the ground – it’s made from a material that “self-drills” in response to rain.
Lab director Lining Yao and her colleagues looked at erodium seeds for inspiration.
The seeds of this genus of plants have a coil-like “drill” that changes shape when wet, using a “tail” to prop itself up and push more effectively into the ground.
The team created a seed carrier based on the same principle, made from white oak wood that naturally responds to changes in humidity. They chemically treated the wood to make it more flexible when wet, as well as softer and denser so it expands more effectively. Erodium has a single tail, but the seed carrier has three, making it easier to drill into soil.
According to research Yao published in the journal Nature, the carrier has an “80% drilling success rate on flat land,” making it more effective than erodium seeds in the same conditions. After the carrier burrows, the seed is protected from animals and the natural elements, improving its chances of germination.

Back in 2010, before anybody expected the skies of California to glow an apocalyptic orange, or a pandemic to grind world economies to a near halt, representatives from 196 countries gathered in Nagoya, Japan, to tackle a different planetary crisis that is inextricably linked both to climate change and human health.
Human population growth, consumption, and transformation of natural habitats are rapidly unraveling the vibrant living fabric of the Earth in an extinction crisis that threatens to become humanity’s most enduring legacy.
The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)—ratified by all UN members except the United States—set 20 targets to stem the tide of biodiversity loss. The bad news is, we’ve failed. With none of the 20 targets fully met, and only six partially, the report is yet another reminder of the urgent need to redesign the way we produce, consume, and trade goods. But scattered throughout the 220-page document—a synthesis of scientific evidence, other UN assessments, and countries’ national reports—are glimmers of progress demonstrating that nature fares well when actions are taken. If we can scale them up immensely, there’s still hope for a future where humanity lives in harmony with nature.
The world’s failure to meet the Aichi targets—named after the Japanese prefecture where they were written—is hardly a surprise. A mid-term assessment in 2014 already suggested we weren’t on track. And a landmark report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services last year warned that one million of the nearly 9 million estimated plants and animals could be pushed over the brink in the next few years by habitat destruction, pollution, overexploitation, the spread of invasive species across the globe, and increasingly, climate change.
While conservation actions have rescued between 11 and 25 bird and mammal species from extinction over the past decade, the CBD report notes, far more have been declared extinct, though the report did not include an exact number. And extinction is just the tip of the iceberg. Many once common species are becoming rarer and sliding into more vulnerable risk categories on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List.

Tropical cyclones are one of the biggest threats to life and property, even in the earliest stages of their development. Their life cycles can run their course in as little as 24 hours, others can last as long as a month. Tropical cyclones can often include multiple hazards, such as extreme winds, heavy rainfall, storm surge and flooding, lightning and tornadoes. When these hazards interact, they can significantly increase the danger and threat that a tropical cyclone can pose.
Each year, tropical cyclones cause multiple casualties, deaths, and significant damage to property and infrastructure in the immediate term. Over the past 50 years, 1,945 disasters have been attributed to tropical cyclones, which killed 779,324 people and caused US$ 1.4 trillion in economic losses – an average of 43 deaths and US$ 78 million in damages daily. Tropical cyclones represented 17% of weather-, climate- and water related disasters and were responsible for one third of both deaths (38%) and economic losses (38%) over the 50-year period. In the longer term, such as with 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, Typhoon Haiyan in 2013, Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, and Tropical Cyclone Harold in 2020, the impact can persist for many years, with communities still trying to recover from the destruction and displacement that occurred. Climate change is linked not only to an increased likelihood of major hurricanes, but also to direct increases in their destructive power. Socioeconomic impacts related to tropical cyclones are increasing worldwide due to a rise in coastal physical infrastructure and people living in coastal regions. The increase in the destructive power of a tropical cyclone emphasises the importance of ensuring all people and property are protected by early warning systems.