Month: October 2025

Hundreds of dead seal pups have been found on Heard Island, a remote Australian territory in the southern Indian Ocean, with scientists fearing an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 avian flu a virus that has devastated wildlife populations worldwide since 2021. The discovery was made during a recent 10-day expedition by researchers from the Australian Antarctic Division. The team initially reported healthy wildlife in the area but later came across numerous seal carcasses scattered along the island’s shores, prompting urgent investigations. The Australian Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has confirmed that tests are underway to determine whether the highly contagious H5N1 strain is responsible. Officials suspect the virus may have reached the island after it was detected o...

Delhi witnessed a sharp dip in temperatures, recording its coldest October night in two years at 17°C, signalling an early onset of winter conditions. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) reported that the minimum temperature was slightly below normal, while the maximum reached 32.3°C. Mist and light fog are expected in the early mornings over the weekend, with temperatures likely to remain stable around current levels. The city’s air quality showed a marginal improvement after four consecutive days in the ‘very poor’ range. The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) placed Delhi’s 24-hour average Air Quality Index (AQI) at 275, categorised as ‘poor’. However, several pockets, including Anand Vihar, continued to experience hazardous conditions with an AQI of 414 — among the highest...

The Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest, stretches across 10,000 sq km of the India-Bangladesh border a labyrinth of tidal creeks, mudflats, and islands shaped by the Bay of Bengal. This UNESCO World Heritage site is known for its unique biodiversity home to Bengal tigers, crocodiles, fishing cats, deer, and hundreds of bird and fish species. But behind this ecological wonder lies a harsher reality the struggle of millions who live amid rising seas, vanishing land, and historical marginalisation. For the Dalit and Adivasi communities who make up much of the Sundarbans’ population, survival has always meant resilience. Their ancestors were brought here nearly two centuries ago to clear forests for agriculture under British rule. Today, their descendants are battling new forms...

A fresh low-pressure area over the southeast Bay of Bengal is expected to intensify into a cyclonic storm by October 27, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Friday. The developing system could bring heavy to extremely heavy rainfall across coastal Odisha and southern West Bengal from Monday. According to Manorama Mohanty, director of the Bhubaneswar Meteorological Centre, the system has been moving west-northwestward and is likely to strengthen over the next few days. “It will become a depression by October 25, deepen further on October 26, and intensify into a cyclonic storm by the morning of October 27,” Mohanty said. While it’s too early to determine the storm’s exact landfall location, the IMD warned that Odisha’s coastal districts will be most affected between Octo...

What will our planet look like in the year 2100? A new online game called FutureGuessr is helping people imagine just that. Launched in June 2025, the free interactive game combines climate communication with visual storytelling, showing players futuristic images of places transformed by climate change and asking them to guess where they are. Developed in partnership with Réseau Action Climat, the game takes inspiration from the popular geography challenge GeoGuessr. But instead of exploring the present world, FutureGuessr immerses players in visual projections of Earth’s future revealing how melting ice caps, rising seas, and extreme weather may reshape landscapes. Available in English and French, the game aims to make climate science personal and engaging. Once a player makes a gue...

About 50 kilometers southwest of Bangkok, the small fishing village of Khun Samut Chin stands as a stark symbol of how climate change is reshaping coastal life. Once a thriving settlement surrounded by mangroves and fertile land, the village is now being swallowed by the sea at an alarming rate. Thailand’s coast is eroding by nearly a meter each year across hundreds of kilometers, but in Khun Samut Chin, the problem is far worse. The shoreline retreats by up to five meters annually, and the land itself is sinking by one to two centimeters every year. Since the 1990s, more than six square kilometers have vanished beneath the waves. Only one part of the original village remains visible a Buddhist temple now surrounded by water, earning the name “the floating temple.” While climate chan...

A new global report has revealed that the world’s largest meat and dairy producers are now emitting more methane than major fossil fuel companies, making them key drivers of the climate crisis. The study, titled Roasting the Planet was released by Foodrise, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. It found that 45 of the biggest meat and dairy corporations together emitted about 1.02 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2023 more than the annual emissions of Saudi Arabia, the world’s second-largest oil producer. If these companies were a country, they would rank as the planet’s ninth-largest emitter. Methane, a greenhouse gas more than 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period, accounted for 51 percent of these emissi...

A cloud seeding experiment conducted in Delhi’s Burari area has triggered political controversy after AAP leader and local MLA Sanjeev Jha alleged that the trial was carried out without notifying residents or public representatives. Jha claimed that the move violated standard operating procedures and raised transparency and safety concerns. The experiment, conducted by IIT Kanpur as part of Delhi’s broader pollution-control initiative, aimed to induce artificial rainfall using silver iodide and sodium chloride particles. However, due to insufficient atmospheric moisture, no rainfall occurred. Jha criticised the government’s handling of the exercise, saying that even as the area’s MLA, he was kept uninformed about the trial. “The government made a spectacle of events like the Rafale j...

In a major climate resilience initiative, the Andhra Pradesh government has announced plans to develop a 5-km-wide ‘Great Green Wall of Andhra Pradesh’ along its 1,053-km-long coastline by 2030. The project launched under the supervision of Deputy Chief Minister K. Pawan Kalyan and the Department of Environment, Forests, Science & Technology, aims to protect over three million people from cyclones, sea-level rise, and environmental degradation. Envisioned as a “living ecological shield,” the Great Green Wall (GGW) will serve as a multi-layered green buffer zone featuring mangroves, shelterbelt plantations, inland vegetation, and natural sand dunes. This vast ecological barrier is expected to absorb tidal energy, reduce storm surges, stabilise eroding shorelines, and promote sustaina...