Morocco’s Atlantic coast experienced severe flash flooding after intense rainfall, destroying homes, sweeping away vehicles, and killing dozens as rivers surged beyond capacity.

Bolivia’s Santa Cruz region saw life-threatening flooding from days of heavy rain and an overflowing river, leading to at least 20 confirmed deaths and hundreds of displaced families.

South and Southeast Asia continued to contend with severe flood impacts driven by persistent monsoon-like rains and related landslides, especially in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand, and neighboring countries.

Northern Hemisphere: Winter weather patterns strengthened, with Arctic air masses pushing southward and reinforcing cold conditions across parts of North America and Eurasia.

Southern Hemisphere: Summer heat continued to prevail, maintaining higher temperatures in Australia, southern Africa, and parts of South America.

Mediterranean & European ecosystems, such as Greece’s fir forests, showed increased drought stress and reduced winter snow, weakening trees and enabling increased pest pressures, illustrating compounded climatic stress beyond fire regimes.

Hayli Gubbi Volcano (Ethiopia) erupted in late November/early December, sending a tall ash plume into the atmosphere and affecting airspace as far as India — a rare eruption for this remote shield volcano with scant modern activity records.

Ecosystems leaning into winter: deciduous forests largely leafless and soils cooling.

Bird migrations accelerating: many species completing southward movements into winter ranges.

Dormancy spreading: insect activity near dormancy, hibernation increasing in vertebrates.

Cool-season activity rising in deserts: daytime warmth with cold nights shaping desert phenology.

Longer days & rising biological activity: plant growth and insect populations expanding.

Breeding underway for many species: reproductive cycles underway across tropical and temperate zones.

Coastal & marine productivity increasing: warmer seas enhancing primary productivity and seasonal marine life dynamics.

Vallabh Government College Campus Biodiversity Documentation Project - The project is an academic and citizen-science initiative undertaken by the Department of Environmental Science, Vallabh Government College, Mandi, with the objective of documenting, monitoring, and conserving the biological diversity present within the college campus and its immediate surroundings.

Citizen Science: Explore the Biodiversity of Penang Botanical Gardens - Providing early exposure to primary school students on the concept of Citizen Science as a technology-based interactive learning approach, thus fostering interest and curiosity in science from a young age.

Krill swarming in expanding polynyas - As summer sea-ice edge retreated, pockets of open water — polynyas — widened along the pack ice margins. These calm, sunlit waters are hotspots for Antarctic krill reproduction and aggregation, forming feeding grounds that influence the entire Southern Ocean food web.

Penguin colonies bustling with activity - Emperor and Adélie penguin colonies shifted into peak breeding rhythms: chicks hatched, their downy plumage emerging amidst adults tending nests, and on sea ice and at coastal colonies, constant activity marked the transition from incubation to chick-rearing.

Seals hauling out on melting ice - Weddell, crabeater, and leopard seals used the more stable ice edges to rest and nurse pups, and rapid but patchy sea-ice retreat means some traditional haul-out platforms were thinning, concentrating seal activity where ice remained.

Migratory seabirds filling the skies - Long-distance migrants including petrels and skuas streamed north and south across the Antarctic convergence. Increased daylight fuels foraging trips, supporting both returning adults and hungry juveniles.

Phytoplankton blooms lighting up coastal waters - With increased solar radiation and nutrient upwelling near the ice edge, surface phytoplankton productivity accelerated the base of a booming summer food web.

Unusual early ice melt patterns - Satellite monitoring noted accelerated sea-ice thinning in parts of the Ross and Amundsen sectors earlier this month compared with long-term averages, raising questions about regional heat anomalies or oceanic upwelling influence.

Rare albatross sightings near mid-winter ice - Researchers aboard an Antarctic expedition reported southern royal albatrosses foraging unusually close to pack ice edges earlier than typical, likely tracking productive krill swarms supported by early season sunlight and open water.

Oceanographic surveys highlight mixed waters - A series of research vessels measuring temperature and salinity in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current found patches of warmer subsurface water intrusions onto the continental shelf, a phenomenon with implications for ice-shelf melt and ecosystem distribution.

Ice-edge marine life pulsing at the margins - In coastal fjords where sea ice recedes and forms dynamic edges, seals and seabirds concentrated around open water to forage. Species like pink-footed geese were moving through Greenland’s southern habitats on migration corridors, linking Arctic nesting grounds to wintering sites in Europe.

Polar bears navigating a changing world - Recent research reveals rapid genetic shifts in Arctic polar bears in southeastern Greenland, with mobile DNA elements (so-called “jumping genes”) altering activity in genes tied to heat stress, metabolism, and resource use. This suggests an emergent, but highly challenged, adaptive response to warming, sea-ice loss, and shifting prey landscapes.

Ice sheet dynamics shaping ecosystems - Greenland’s ice sheet continued its long-term trajectory of net loss in 2025, shedding an estimated 129 billion tons of ice, even though this was somewhat less than average due to snow accumulation patterns earlier in the year. This meltwater fuels glacial rivers and nutrient flows into fjords, influencing plankton blooms and marine food webs that support fish, seabirds, and marine mammals.

Boreal and tundra rhythms slowing with winter - As daylight shrank after the solstice, terrestrial wildlife such as Arctic foxes, Greenland wolves, and migratory birds settled into deep winter behaviors, conserving energy, focusing on foraging where snow and ice permit, or migrating to milder latitudes.

Sea ice & atmospheric context - The broader Arctic, including Greenland’s coastal seas, experienced some of the highest temperatures and lowest sea ice extents on record in 2025, with warming persisting into winter and bringing unprecedented rain events into months once dominated by snow and ice formation. Below-average snow cover and diminished sea ice not only alter habitats for ice-dependent species, but also affect human access to traditional lands and cultural rhythms across Inuit communities.

Central America Region - where green sea turtles returned to protected beaches at Tortuguero

Madagascar Region - where a tiny island warbler rebounded from the brink in restored forests