Hurricanes in the North Atlantic have largely disappeared this year, leaving bitterly disappointed scientists without fuel for their climate alarm and having to admit the role of natural variation, says Chris Morrison.
In hot weather, trees “sweat” to cool down by releasing water from their leaves or needles and then replacing it with water from the soil. But during long periods of high temperatures, trees may release more water than they can replace. To strengthen forests against heat stress and other environmental hazards, scientists have suggested adding fungi to the soil.
Soil fungi living on tree roots are called ectomycorrhizal fungi. They help trees absorb water by expanding their root networks, and trees help the fungi by providing them with sugars for energy. This beneficial partnership is known as symbiosis. Scientists at Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University in China tested whether symbiosis with ectomycorrhizal fungi could help the pine trees Pinus massoniana survive warmer temperatures.
For their experiment, the researchers grew pine seedlings with and without ectomycorrhizal fungi in a greenhouse under different temperature conditions. First, they grew fungi called Cenococcum geophilum for 45 days on a gel-like substance called agar. At the same time, they grew the pine seedlings for 30 days, then transferred them into pots with natural soil.
After 15 days in the pots, the researchers spread the gel-like agar containing the fungi over small 1 x 1 centimeter (cm) areas of the pine root tips to introduce the fungi to the seedlings, a process called inoculation. They assumed that the fungal network would expand from the starting area to colonize new root tips as the seedlings grew. The team’s inoculations included 6 different C. geophilum strains and 1 fungi-free control. To simulate heat stress, the researchers replicated each of the 7 inoculations at 25°C (77°F) and 35°C (95°F). They repeated each inoculation condition in 3 pots with 3 seedlings, for a total of 126 seedlings.
After 60 days, the researchers harvested the pine seedlings and used a microscope to count how many of their root tips had fungi. They divided the number of root tips with fungi by the total number of root tips to calculate a colonization rate. They considered seedlings with a colonization rate of 80% or higher to have successfully formed a symbiotic relationship with the fungi. Then, the researchers analyzed seedlings with an 80% colonization rate to investigate their symbiotic partnerships.
The team observed that pine seedlings grown under heat stress at 35°C were 24% to 59% smaller than those grown at 25°C, and their needles were yellow instead of a healthy green. However, the seedlings that formed a symbiotic relationship with the ectomycorrhizal fungi were greener and 80% heavier than the control seedlings.
Investigating the trees further, the team measured 3 chemical compounds related to plant stress, including malondialdehyde (MDA), proline, and nitric oxide. Plants release MDA when damaged, so high MDA levels mean a plant is struggling. In contrast, plants release proline and nitric oxide to repair cells or hold water, so high amounts of these compounds mean a plant is healing.
To measure MDA and proline levels in the pine needles, the researchers mixed them with different acids that change color depending on the sample’s MDA or proline content. To measure nitric oxide, the researchers mixed the needles with a protein that converts the compound into a chemical that changes color. They found that inoculated seedlings at 35°C had about 30% to 40% less MDA, 15% to 30% more proline, and 150% more nitric oxide in their roots than the control seedlings.
Finally, the researchers measured changes in gene activity in the inoculated pine seedlings. They identified active genes by analyzing RNA molecules from the pine seedling roots with a process called RNA sequencing or transcriptomics. They found that inoculating the seedlings with ectomycorrhizal fungi activated more genes related to root strength, water retention, cell defense, and general plant protection than were activated in the control seedlings.
By combining chemical analyses with growth measurements, the team concluded that a symbiotic partnership with the ectomycorrhizal fungi helped the pine seedlings survive heat stress. They demonstrated that through prolonged heat, inoculated seedlings maintained greener needles and lower levels of stress chemicals. They suggested that ectomycorrhizal fungi could be an ecological tool to help trees stay hydrated in a warming world. They recommended that future researchers conduct field trials with inoculated trees to translate these findings into forest management strategies.
In December 2015, 195 countries at the UN Climate Change Conference signed the Paris Agreement, a legally binding international treaty on climate change. The treaty’s overarching goal was to keep the “temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.”
While unquestionably meant well, the agreement has quickly turned into little more than a footnote as global warming has stormed ahead. Scientists have long warned that we’re on a path to blaze past that foreboding threshold in a matter of years, possibly by 2030.
And now, according to the latest projections, that day is poised to come even sooner. In a new article in the journal Climate and Atmospheric Science, two researchers from the University of Kansas claim that a recent doubling in the rate of global warming means that we could blow past the Paris Agreement threshold as soon as 2028.
The researchers analyzed temperature records through last year and observed a “statistically significant doubling of the global warming rate” between 2011 and 2025, compared to the period between 1971 and 2025.
“Extrapolating this accelerated rate projects a crossing of the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold by 2028, nearly a decade earlier than previous estimates,” they concluded. “These findings suggest a narrower window remains to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, underscoring the urgency for rapid and substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.”
Realistically, it’s hard to imagine that we won’t fail to stop the warming in time.
“However, the inertia of existing political, economic, and technological systems3 limits the pace at which such actions can be implemented, narrowing the remaining window for achieving the 1.5 degrees Celsius target,” the researchers concluded in their paper.
The United States, long among the biggest carbon polluters on the planet, has not only officially withdrawn from the Paris Agreement twice during Donald Trump’s terms as president, but his administration has actively reversed environmental laws while giving the fossil fuel industry free rein through deregulation.
It’s a sad state of affairs that the UN Environment Program appears to be painfully aware of. In a new Emissions Gap Report, published today, the body found that “new climate pledges under the Paris Agreement have only slightly lowered global temperature rise over the course of this century.”
“Given the size of the cuts needed, the short time available to deliver them and a challenging political climate, a higher exceedance of 1.5°C will happen, very likely within the next decade,” the report reads.
Worse yet, we have the tools to make substantial cuts to greenhouse emissions — but we’re not using them due to a lack of incentives.
“The required low-carbon technologies to deliver big emission cuts are available,” the report concludes. “Wind and solar energy development is booming, lowering deployment costs.”
“This means the international community can accelerate climate action, should they choose to do so,” it continues. “However, delivering faster cuts requires would require navigating a challenging geopolitical environment, delivering a massive increase in support to developing countries, and redesigning the international financial architecture.”
Environmental change is being measured in forests cleared, crops stressed and species pushed from their habitats. But the response is also being shaped by decisions about money, land and technology, and by people trying to protect both livelihoods and the places they depend on.
Brazil’s latest figures offer one of the clearest signs of progress: forest clearing in the Amazon fell to 3,335 square kilometers in the year ending July 31, 2026, 42% below the previous year and the lowest level since records began in 1988. The Cerrado also saw a decline. The drop comes ahead of a presidential run-off in which the rainforest’s future is a key issue. Whether the reduction lasts remains uncertain.
Elsewhere, the costs of adapting to environmental pressures are immediate. Drought has left England’s pumpkins smaller than usual, with growers warning the crop could be the worst on record. In Southern California, wildfires have damaged or destroyed six homes, while a firefighter suffered heat exhaustion. And in the UK, proposals to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the heat pump grant scheme could affect support for households switching from gas, oil or LPG boilers.
These stories sit alongside questions about what governments choose to prioritize. US voters in battleground states want candidates to discuss climate change, but candidates have largely stayed quiet. In Britain, Chancellor John Healey has made a growth case for Heathrow’s proposed third runway, while the prime minister has not backed the project. The government is studying consultation responses. The choices are practical as well as political: how to cut emissions, where to direct public funds and whose concerns shape decisions.
On the ground, communities are building their own responses. In Sergipe, women shellfish gatherers are resisting mangrove degradation and fighting for access to the areas where they work. In coastal Indonesia, Wisye Sahambangung leads a women’s group restoring mangroves and creating economic opportunities. Their work connects habitat protection with income and access to natural resources.
Other reports show how easily conservation efforts can create new pressures. Researchers found fewer wild pollinators in areas with higher concentrations of honeybees, which were observed bumping into or chasing other pollinators from flowers. The finding complicates the idea that more beekeeping automatically helps pollinators. In western states, efforts to reduce wolf numbers raise questions about the animals’ social lives and their role in nature. Meanwhile, countries are falling short of pledged funding and ocean-protection goals ahead of the UN biodiversity conference, COP17.
Technology and spectacle bring their own questions. Starlink’s reported restrictions in Ukraine have prompted US senators to seek an investigation into who imposed them, while the service remains important to Ukraine’s wartime operations. At a different scale, Belfast Harbour is to test zero-emission transport and energy systems with £15m in funding.
The Exmoor Dark Skies Festival, with about 80 events planned, offers another way people encounter the natural world: through walks, astronomy sessions and moonlit swims. The weeks ahead will show whether policy commitments match the scale of environmental pressures, and whether local efforts can endure with the resources and access they need.
Polls show that Democrats and Republicans in battleground states want candidates to talk more about the climate crisis. Most Americans feel uneasy or alarmed about climate change and, in red and blue states alike, want to know how political leaders plan to address it. Yet candidates in midterm campaigns across the country have responded with near silence.
This year, people in the US have endured a record-hot summer and roughly $2,000 per household in additional energy and mortgage costs. The higher costs are linked to the country’s dependence on fossil fuels, with the fuel supply disrupted by Donald Trump’s decision to attack Iran.
Coral-fringed tropical atolls are among the landforms most threatened by global warming, but many have a potential superpower: Healthy ecosystems may help them keep pace with rising seas.
Atoll islands with native vegetation and thriving seabird populations are “naturally active systems that can change and adapt to their environmental conditions if they are allowed to do so,” said Nick Graham, a marine ecologist at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom, who led an international team of scientists that studied island resilience across 28 atoll islands in the Pacific and Indian oceans.
Their paper, published Wednesday in Science Advances, shows that restoring atoll ecosystems reinforces their growth. Seabirds ferry nutrients from the open ocean and deposit them on the atolls as guano that nurtures land plants, marine life and coral growth. This provides more material for reef building, as parrotfish and other reef feeders turn dead coral into sand to maintain beaches, while native plants with extensive root networks stabilize sediments.
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