At
the end of May, eight
endangered Asiatic lions
died at a national park in
India. Officials feared the
animals had succumbed to a
tick-borne parasitic disease
that previously killed lions
in the area.
But
over the weekend, the
Gujarat government announced
that the lions’ real killer
was extreme heat, The
Hindu reports. These
casualties add to a mounting
heat-related death toll for
animal species around the
world as climate change
accelerates. Even the
animals that survive rising
temperatures often face
other threats connected to
heat, from reproductive
issues to cognitive
disruption.
A
new
early warning system
aims to forecast when and
where terrestrial vertebrate
species will be exposed to
extreme heat up to nine
months in advance, which
could give governments a
chance to help the animals
most at risk. But experts
say even with this
information, the heat issue
may prove too difficult to
combat if temperatures
continue to rise at their
current pace.
Forecasting
Heat Risk
In
recent years, extreme heat
has devastated species
across the animal kingdom.
Howler monkeys suffering
from heat stroke fell from
trees in Mexico, thousands
of flying foxes perished
during a heat wave in
Australia and millions of
marine creatures boiled and
starved off the United
States West Coast and Alaska
when ocean temperatures
skyrocketed between 2014 and
2016.
A
growing body of research
finds the problem will only
get worse in the coming
decades, with thousands of
species facing
extinction by 2100 due
to extreme heat and land-use
change. While this research
is crucial for guiding
long-term conservation,
fewer options are available
to forecast potential heat
catastrophes for wildlife in
the near-term, said Josep M.
Serra-Diaz, an ecologist at
the Botanical Institute of
Barcelona.
Serra-Diaz
told me that analyses often
focus on the past or the
more distant future, and
that “there was a gap here
between these two worlds.”
The
new early warning system,
published Monday in the
journal Nature Climate
Change and co-authored by
Serra-Diaz, is trying to
help fill that gap. To
identify where animals may
experience
higher-than-normal heat, the
researchers combined
forecasts from NASA’s
Goddard Earth Observing
System with species-specific
historical temperature
limits for more than 30,000
mammals, birds, reptiles and
amphibians. They tested
their system by applying it
to a past timeframe we
already have data for—2024,
the hottest
year on record
globally.
The
system predicted that
between May 2024 and
February 2025, more than
3,500 species would be
exposed to temperatures
higher than previously
experienced across their
known ranges. Geographic
ranges for amphibians and
reptiles were expected to
have the highest percentage
of heat exposure, while
birds had lower proportions
of their ranges in that
higher temperature
threshold. The forecast
showed Mexico would be among
the most affected regions,
particularly in the state of
Tabasco, where the howler
monkeys died in droves that
year.
The
study found that many
regions could have been
warned of potential exposure
three to five months in
advance if the forecast had
been available. It also
suggests that preventive
efforts, such as creating
refuges for animals to
survive extreme heat, may
have aided nearly 500
species of conservation
concern across their ranges
throughout this time
period.
But
Serra-Diaz noted a few
limitations with the current
model. The system currently
identifies global trends,
but the model will need to
be refined to enable more
localized predictions to
inform management in
specific places. He also
stressed that just because
temperatures are higher than
historical levels, it
doesn’t mean a species won’t
be able to survive or adapt
to them, so more data is
needed.
“We
don’t predict the impact
itself, we predict that
species will be under a very
extreme heat that maybe the
species have never seen
before,” Serra-Diaz said.
“Maybe they can cope, maybe
not, but it’s a very red
flag.”
Biologist
Eric Riddell, who was not
involved in the study, also
pointed out that questions
remain over “whether or not
these abnormal temperatures
that occur in spring and
fall are truly associated
with changes in survival and
reproduction.” But he added
that this system addresses
“a really big issue in our
field, which is that we’re
trying to predict things
that we’re often not going
to be alive for.” Riddell is
a professor at the
University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill, and
studies how animals respond
to environmental change.
“Trying
to make predictions that are
much closer to our current
time so that they could be
more helpful to us on the
ground and making
conservation and management
decisions is an urgent issue
that we need to address,”
Riddell said.
Helping
Animals Handle Heat
Some
animals, such as birds and
bats, are adapting to rising
temperatures by moving to
cooler habitats. Others may
even thrive in a hotter
climate, including certain
insects like aphids and corn
borers (which may be bad
news for us; a
2018 study found that
increased pest populations
due to global warming could
decimate grain crops).
But
a large body of research
finds that many animals will
suffer as extreme heat
worsens with climate change.
Mass deaths are the main
conservation concern, but
studies show that rising
temperatures are
fundamentally altering
behaviors in some species,
from birds singing less to
goats fighting more, as
Knowable Magazine recently
reported.
What’s
often less clear is what to
do with this information,
Riddell told me.
Sometimes,
hands-on interventions such
as building watering holes
or providing food can help
support animals during heat
waves and droughts. In 2022,
the San Diego Zoo Alliance
even moved desert tortoise
hatchlings and eggs from a
monitored outdoor habitat
into an indoor
enclosure earlier than
scheduled due to a heat wave
that could have killed them.
Serra-Diaz
and his colleagues are
working to refine their
models to help warn park
managers and governments in
advance of heat events and
other extreme weather in key
areas for species so they
can better plan to help
prevent mass mortalities.
The
bad news: While this
information can help guide
policy and protect small
populations like the
tortoises, there aren’t any
techniques that can prevent
heat deaths for animals in
the wild en masse if
temperatures do surge,
Riddell said.
Riddell
stressed one major action
that can help:
slowing global warming.
“We
need to do something
different to stop our
climate from changing,” he
said. “And I think that’s
the real message here.”
More
Top Climate News
The
United Nations published an
assessment Monday—World
Oceans Day—outlining the “deepening
crisis” playing out across
the world’s seas in the
face of myriad threats
from climate change and
human activities,
Todd
Woody reports for
Bloomberg. The report
acts as a health checkup for
the planet’s oceans—and the
current prognosis is not
good. Researchers found that
more than a third of global
fish stocks are being
harvested faster than their
populations can rebound,
acidification is worsening
in many areas and marine
heat is killing a growing
number of coral reefs. These
issues could have major
financial consequences given
that up to 45 percent of
global economic activity
happens on the world’s
coasts, according to the
report.
Ahead
of World Cup soccer matches
starting this week, scientists
warn that possible
wildfires in some
locations could threaten
air quality for players
and fans, Tik
Root reports for Grist.
Last month, wildfires in
California triggered air
quality advisories in Los
Angeles, extending to SoFi
Stadium, a venue for several
upcoming matches. Conditions
remain dry and hot in the
area, which could increase
the risk of more fires.
Other cities hosting events
face similar threats, though
FIFA, the governing body of
the event, did not share
with Grist whether it has a
specific plan for air
quality issues. Heat is
another major
climate-related risk for
World Cup players and fans,
as
our fellow Gabriel Matias
Castilho recently reported.
An
investigation
by The Guardian found
that around two-thirds
of planned data centers
are set to be constructed
in areas that have
suffered from drought
conditions in the past
year. Data
centers require large
amounts of energy and water
to operate, and demand for
these facilities has surged
in recent years to support
the expansion of artificial
intelligence. But data from
market intelligence company
Cleanview and the federal
government show that many
locations for planned data
center development are
already struggling with
water supply for basic needs
such as farming.
