EurekAlert! Climate Change - Latest News Releases

Latest News Releases

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 17-May-2025 14:09 ET (17-May-2025 18:09 GMT/UTC)

Study of ‘spatial synchrony’ using long-term data exposes ecological trends and could boost conservation, farming

University of Kansas
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new study from the University of Kansas in Ecology Letters reveals the study of spatial synchrony over a long enough timescale leads to better testing of ideas, improved statistical results and new conceptual realms for understanding ecology, conserving species and farming more profitably.

Journal: Ecology Letters

Climate change is now the leading threat to imperiled species, new study finds

American Institute of Biological Sciences
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Authors of a recent article in BioScience reveal that climate change has become the most pervasive threat to imperiled species, marking the first time that this driver has been identified to surpass other causes of biodiversity loss.

Journal: BioScience

Trawling-induced sediment resuspension reduces CO2 uptake

Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR)
Peer-Reviewed Publication

24 April 2025/Kiel. When bottom trawls are dragged across the seafloor, they stir up sediments. This not only releases previously stored organic carbon, but also intensifies the oxidation of pyrite, a mineral present in marine sediments, leading to additional emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂). These are the findings of a new study conducted by the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel. Based on sediment samples from Kiel Bight, the researchers investigated the geochemical consequences of sediment resuspension. Their conclusion: areas with fine-grained sediments, which play a crucial role in CO₂ storage in the Baltic Sea, should urgently be placed under protection. The study has now been published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

Journal: Communications Earth & Environment

Canadian experts urge protection for children from escalating heat in schools and child care settings

Canadian Partnership for Children’s Health and Environment / Canadian Child Care Federation
Reports and Proceedings

Amid warnings of near record heat ahead in 2025, the Canadian Partnership for Children’s Health and Environment (CPCHE) and the Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA) say Canada’s schools and child care facilities are ill-prepared and children are paying the price. CPCHE’s summary of evidence and Collective Call for Action, signed by 40+ partners and collaborators, is complemented by twin CELA reports elaborating on the need for climate-resilient infrastructure.

Controlling starch levels in algae could have biotechnology and sustainability benefits

Uppsala University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

High-starch algae are important in biofuel production, as a feed supplement in agriculture and as an efficient way to bind carbon dioxide. Researchers have now found a new method to control starch storage in algae - a finding with potential applications in areas such reducing greenhouse gases. “Modifying a blue light-activated signalling pathway makes it possible to regulate storage. This offers a significantly higher yield than traditional methods that rely on nutrient deprivation,” says Dimitris Petroutsos, Associate Professor at Uppsala University, who led the study recently published in Nature Communications.

Journal: Nature Communications

Multistakeholder solutions for urban resilience for coastal cities

KeAi Communications Co., Ltd.
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A groundbreaking study of Chittagong City exposes how governance gaps and infrastructure failures exacerbate urban flooding, proposing 10 key strategies combining engineering solutions with community engagement to build climate-resilient cities.

Journal: Risk Sciences
Funder: National Institute of Urban Affairs

Hotter temps trigger wetlands to emit more methane as microbes struggle to keep up

Smithsonian
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In the soils of Earth’s wetlands, microbes are in a tug-of-war to produce and consume the powerful greenhouse gas methane. But if the Earth gets too hot, it could tip the scale in favor of the methane producers, according to a new study. Smithsonian scientists made the discovery as part of a futuristic climate experiment that raised carbon dioxide and temperature in a Maryland marsh.

Journal: Science Advances

Giant extinct kangaroos preferred home to roam

PLOS
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Giant kangaroos stuck close to home and went extinct when climate change caused that home to disappear, according to a study published April 23, 2025 in the open-access journal PLOS One by Christopher Laurikainen Gaete of the University of Wollongong, Australia and colleagues.

Journal: PLOS One

Study lays out scientific path to recouping the costs of climate change

Dartmouth College
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A study by Dartmouth researchers lays out a scientific framework for holding individual fossil fuel companies liable for the costs of climate change by tracing specific damages back to their emissions. The researchers use the tool to provide the first causal estimate of economic losses due to extreme heat driven by emissions. They report that carbon dioxide and methane output from just 111 companies cost the world economy $28 trillion from 1991 to 2020, with the five top-emitting firms linked to $9 trillion of those losses.

Journal: Nature

Climate change is lifting South Africa out of the ocean

University of Bonn
Peer-Reviewed Publication

South Africa is slowly lifting out of the water – by up to two millimeters per year depending on the region. It had been assumed up to now that this phenomenon was due to mantle flow in the Earth’s crust. However, a study carried out by the University of Bonn now provides another explanation: Droughts and the associated water loss are the main reason for this land uplift. The results have now been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth.

Journal: Journal of Geophysical Research Solid Earth

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