Four-year study warns destabilised marine food webs could jeopardise food security by 2050
Warming seas around the UK and the wider north-east Atlantic could destabilise marine food webs, weaken ocean health and jeopardise food security by 2050, according to a four-year study.
Scientists who projected the impact of climate breakdown on four key groups of marine life crucial to maintaining ocean ecosystems in the region said their results challenged assumptions that in middle latitudes, such as the UK, marine biodiversity was likely to increase across the board.
Continue reading...
Breaking Waves: Ocean News
11/05/2026 - 02:00
11/05/2026 - 01:00
Events that deliver about half of global rainfall are getting shorter but more intense, with wide-ranging implications
The world’s wettest rainstorms produce about half of the global annual rainfall. Now a study shows that these intense downpours have become shorter in duration and fewer in number, compressing the same amount of rain into quicker and more extreme events, with implications for flood and drought risk.
Chiyuan Miao and colleagues from Beijing Normal University in China analysed daily measurements between 1980 and 2022 from more than 19,000 rain gauges around the world. They found that an average of about half of the world’s rainfall fell during about nine multi-day storms, delivered over a cumulative time of about 28 days.
Continue reading...
11/04/2026 - 09:01
Tadpoles collected from puddles in East Gippsland were transported to Melbourne zoo, where they were raised to metamorphosis and successfully bred in captivity for the first time
After the 2019-20 black summer bushfires, scientists in eastern Victoria stumbled across something they had been after for years: puddles of tadpoles from the southern giant burrowing frog, one of the state’s most cryptic amphibians.
The fires had torn through extensive areas in East Gippsland, sparking concerns for the survival of the frog, which is considered critically endangered in Victoria.
Continue reading...
11/04/2026 - 06:47
Ministers urged to go further than proposed cut to 110 decibels to ease acute stress on birds and other animals
Campaigners are calling on the UK government to protect the welfare of wild animals by cutting the maximum noise level of fireworks sold to the public from 120 to 90 decibels.
The Center for Wild Animal Welfare (CWAW) has said lowering the limit to 90dB – which is about one-eighth of the loudness of 120dB – would help to protect millions of wild animals from acute stress by reducing the area over which a firework disturbs surrounding wildlife.
Continue reading...
11/04/2026 - 06:00
Report reveals financial support promised by rich nations for adaptation measures is well behind the pace that is needed
Flows of money to help poor countries cope with the climate crisis have been flat or falling since 2022, despite growing impacts from extreme weather and warnings from scientists that global heating may be accelerating.
A new UN report has revealed that financial support for adaptation – which includes measures such as stronger infrastructure, early warning systems, flood protection and drought-resilient irrigation – is woefully short of what is needed and far behind even the inadequate promises that rich countries signed up to in 2021 in recognition of their far greater responsibility for the crisis.
Continue reading...
11/04/2026 - 05:47
When the water in Flint, Michigan, became contaminated with dangerous levels of lead, Dr Siddhartha Roy, then a third year PhD student, was part of the team of scientists who publicly contradicted state and federal claims that it was safe. He became a local hero until a new piece of research challenged the idea that children in Flint had been left permanently brain damaged by the crisis. His adherence to the evidence, no matter who it offended, has earned him the 2026 Maddox prize, which recognises individuals who stand up for science and evidence, despite challenges or hostility. He tells Ian Sample how he reflects on his experience in Flint, and why he lost friends as a result of his work there
Continue reading...
11/04/2026 - 01:00
Researchers find the birds’ guano feeds algal blooms that absorb significantly more solar energy
Penguin poo is making the Antarctic snow melt faster, a study shows. As temperatures rise, penguins are waddling closer to the south pole, with potential for this previously unrecognised phenomenon to affect a wider area.
Snow algae are tiny single-celled plants that make a home in some of the coldest places on Earth. When nutrients are scarce, the algae produces red pigments to protect itself from the sun and slow growth.
Continue reading...
11/04/2026 - 01:00
Exclusive: Ofgem to be given powers to issue fines and rein in bonuses for executives who ‘reward themselves while customers suffer’
Energy bosses in the UK will have their bonuses curtailed when suppliers and brokers break the rules under a crackdown on mis-selling.
Through the energy independence bill, which will be introduced on Wednesday, Ofgem will be given new powers to order compensation, impose fines and ban rogue operators that have pushed businesses and households into overpriced contracts.
Continue reading...
11/04/2026 - 01:00
Mink farms are the perfect petri dishes for deadly flu strains to emerge. Yet officials appear to be protecting business interests over human lives
Could this be ground zero? Could it be the spot where the next pandemic begins? It’s certainly a candidate, not least because the chain of events that could trigger a plague far worse than Covid-19 looks like the opening sequence of a disaster movie. A really bad disaster movie, in which the levels of carelessness and turpitude defy belief.
A report by the investigative news service ProPublica reveals that bird flu has been raging in a mink farm in Utah since August, and it appears next to nothing has been done by public officials. In 2023, I warned in the Guardian that mink farms could scarcely be better designed to generate lethal plagues. This is for three reasons: mink are fed on the offcuts of chickens, cows and other farm animals, in which new viral variants often develop; mink readily host both avian and human flu viruses, which can then exchange genetic material, turning a bird disease into a human one; and mink possess extremely high “zoonotic potential” – the ability to infect animals of other species, including human beings.
George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
Continue reading...
11/03/2026 - 22:00
Farmers in Gurez store their harvests underground to last the Himalayan winter. As the practice fades, local varieties and handed-down skills are disappearing too
Hajra Begum rolls a potato in her hands, checking its skin for cuts, soft spots and signs of rot. After a day harvesting in her family’s field in Chorwan, a remote mountain village in Gurez, Indian-administered Kashmir, she is sorting the crop for winter storage. Some of the potatoes will feed her family through the cold months; others will be saved for planting in spring.
“It should be perfect for planting,” she says. “If you keep a bad potato, you will waste the whole next year.”
Continue reading...
