Early warning for warming helps conservation now rather than later

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2026-06-08 19:00

Australia; International

CC:0

International researchers have developed an early warning system to help protect biodiversity, which should be able to help conservation efforts in the near future, rather than the current systems that look decades ahead. The team combined nine-month seasonal weather forecasts with species-specific maximum temperature limits - how much heat a species can handle before running into trouble or dying off. They say they were able to predict that over 3,500 vertebrate (backboned) species, including over 1,250 classified as species of concern, would be exposed to extreme temperatures, on average, between one and two months in advance. This kind of advance notice could help us rapidly react to monitor and mitigate these extreme events for species and regions, including those in Australia, that are sensitive to heat.

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Journal/
conference: Nature Climate Change

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Botanical Institute of Barcelona, CSIC-CMCNB, Spain

Funder: We acknowledge the support of the NASA grant 80NSSC22K0883 (J.M.S.-D., M.C.U. and C.M.) and the programme RYC2022-035668-I, funded by MCIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and FSE+ (J.M.S.-D.). G.E.P.-B. thanks the ‘Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Académico’ of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (DGAPA-UNAM, Mexico) for his postdoctoral scholarship. A.S.M. and C.H.T. are supported by Schmidt Sciences and the AXA Research Fund (C.H.T.). L.C.A. was supported by NASA’s Modeling and Prediction Program through the NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office. A.M.W. and B.M. were funded by the NASA grants 80NSSC21K1183 and 80NSSC21K0086 (A.M.W.). A.L.P. is supported by a Royal Society University Research Fellowship and the Natural Environment Research Council (NE/W006618/1).

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