The climate crisis seems to be altering gray whales’ access to food, leading them to change their migration paths and forage in San Francisco Bay — a busy shipping area with a narrow bottleneck both whales and boats must cross. Scientists surveying these whales suspect that many don’t survive to leave the bay: of the 114 individuals they identified, only four were seen in more than one year between 2018 and 2025, and 21 were found dead, giving a minimum mortality rate of 18%. Many deaths were caused by vessel strike injuries, while some others are due to starvation. 

A recent study published in National Science Review has revealed that atmospheric oxidation capacity at northern midlatitude regions is approaching a turning point, challenging prior assessments of hydroxyl radical (OH) increases or stability. Over the past 50–60 years, OH levels have remained near peak values. Future sustained reductions in nitrogen oxide (NO_x) emissions will lead to a decline in surface OH concentrations across the northern midlatitude regions, implying an increase in the atmospheric lifetime of pollutants and methane. This poses new challenges for regional air pollution control and climate change mitigation.

The real climate risks to Ireland from changes to the Atlantic currents that sustain our mild climate are obscured by exaggerated claims in media headlines and movies.

That’s according to Dr Gerard McCarthy, a Maynooth University (MU) oceanographer at the Irish Climate Analysis and Research UnitS (ICARUS) in the Department of Geography, who has led a new article for Nature Climate Change.

The latest paper is a retrospective on a landmark 2015 study led by Professor Stefan Rahmstorf, which identified long-term Atlantic cooling as a sign that the Atlantic Meridional Circulation (AMOC) was weakening.

Making wheat more resilient to climate change without compromising yields has become an urgent priority for the agricultural sector. Now, a study led by a research team from the University of Barcelona and the Agrotecnio research centre has identified an innovative way to address this challenge: combining advanced technology and artificial intelligence to select the best varieties of this crop.

When the option is to adapt or starve, animals are no stranger to getting scrappy in the face of climate change. Researchers conducted fieldwork in East Antarctica, where they revealed an underdocumented link in the food web of the Southern Ocean: Adélie penguins and their shelled pteropod consumption. Shelled pteropods, specifically Thecosomata, are a suborder of free-swimming sea snails. The study aimed to better understand Adélie penguin foraging behaviour and, in doing so, provided the first clear video evidence of Adélie penguins actively feeding upon shelled pteropods during their foraging sessions.

Microbial methane leaking from non-producing oil and gas wells is being emitted at rates about 1,000 times higher than previously estimated, according to a new study led by McGill University researchers.