‘Species are showing how flexible they are in adapting to climate change’

Iconic images of polar bears stranded on patches of floating sea ice is seared in our minds as a symbol of catastrophic global warming. A 2025 scientific report found that 84% of the world’s vibrant coral reefs have been bleaching white with temperature rise. And we know that the sixth mass extinction (this time, human-induced) is underway: for instance, the slender-billed curlew, a migratory waterbird that breeds in Siberia was recently declared extinct.

But reports have also pointed to thriving coral reefs in a two-kilometre-long stretch near the Kalpeni island in Lakshadweep. Scientists have also observed that wild animals and birds are adapting to climate change by moving to higher altitudes and latitudes. This gives hope to Raghu Murtugudde, an earth scientist emertius professor at the University of Maryland, US, and a visiting professor at the Kotak School of Sustainability, IIT Kanpur, who believes that by cutting out the “alarm” over climate change, we could learn more about biodiversity’s tenacity, to help protect them better.

Would those who see impending doom if the climate crisis isn’t addressed, disagree with the position you have taken on species’ adaptability rather than carbon mitigation?

My body of work, especially my writings and podcasts focus extensively on all aspects of mitigation. My scepticism about mitigation though has been about our inability to follow through even if we are big believers in climate change. Most climate scientists who holler about the climate crisis and the urgency of climate actions, live a normal life worrying about their incomes, families, house and cars.

I suggest a portfolio approach. We can all live within a specified carbon budget per year. Making people feel guilty or prohibiting certain activities is not going to work. My comments on species adaptability are only in the context of how we are going to tackle ecological impacts of global warming. Do we really need the ‘sixth extinction’ narrative with headlines screaming only about negative impacts? And that too without tracking how species are actually responding to climate change? Can we save species without knowing their adaptability limits? I think not. Making people anxious may not really help.

What do you mean when you say we should take ‘counter-intuitive responses’ seriously to save biodiversity from global warming?

The old adage is that nature makes the rules and biology finds the loopholes. For example, we found that penguins in some parts of the Galapagos were thriving because the global warming impact on the local ocean circulation and winds were actually increasing local upwelling because of the island configuration. This led to other changes that actually favoured the penguins. Other examples include polar bears surviving on the edges of frazzled glaciers and supplementing their diets with moss and seaweeds to adapt to the loss of sea ice. Some corals are doing well in warmer waters because they have the ability to switch their symbionts from temperature-sensitive species to temperature-tolerant species. Scientists are trying to see if gene transplants can be used to help the corals that are not doing well.

Telling the public about the challenges of climate change is critical. But just as critical is to tell them about the infinite opportunities to meet these challenges. We desperately need an optimistic vision of the future for the new generations. We need not be frightened into a fight-or-flight or a freeze mode.

You believe in highlighting the subtleties of complex ecosystem responses to climate change…

Corals, penguins, polar bears, birds and many other species are showing how flexible they are in terms of adapting in-place or shifting. Ecosystems are an assembly of species and we should remember that some species can adapt and some just cannot beyond a certain limit. So many species move to higher altitudes. But some species are sedentary specialists and get cooked if warming exceeds their tolerance limits. It’s obviously not all rosy and not all species are managing to survive.

We talk a lot about biodiversity loss but we need to pay just as much attention to species that are dodging the global warming bullet. Only then will we know why and how long the species will survive. We have many studies on species that will likely go extinct but then we suddenly have sightings of a species declared extinct. Life is tenacious and wants to survive and procreate. The rate of warming will obviously hammer many species into submission but extinction should not be used lightly without proper baselines. Climate mitigation and decarbonisation are really critical, but we also have to prioritise conservation efforts with great diligence: documenting ecosystem responses to global warming and other human activities such as deforestation and urbanisation.

There is a need, you have said, to monitor species’ adaptation to carry out conservation efforts in the age of climate change. Could you elaborate?

Conservation efforts need hyperlocal maps of ecosystem risks. Risk is a product of hazards (global warming, acidification, pollution, habitat destructions), vulnerabilities (species that cannot adapt, or can adapt but are up against depleted prey and habitats), and exposure (species in rapidly warming or acidifying or deoxygenating regions, or those whose habitats are rapidly changing such as urban wildlife). Such risk maps will allow us to identify hazards, reduce vulnerabilities and exposures to reduce their overall risk.

In a podcast you said ‘there is too much noise’ about climate change: for instance, trends in global tropical cyclonic activity could be influenced by several variabilities outside of climate change, you argued.

Despite the uncertainties in the understanding of cyclone responses to global warming, we feel obliged to link them to global warming. If the Arabian Sea sees no cyclones for a few years, people may think scientists are not credible or that they overhype their results. A trend in cyclones does not mean that we will see more cyclones every year. It just means that six out of 10 years will see more cyclones than before. No weather extreme repeats itself in exactly the same way so we must solve this problem by producing very local and reliable weather predictions. We can’t always predict what will happen tomorrow but we keep talking about how bad the situation will be in 2100.

Finally, if we are seen to have a tunnel vision on global warming, we can expect an opposite tunnel vision too. The current situation in the US seems exactly like an opposing tunnel vision. Whipping ourselves into a saviour complex may negate what we are trying to accomplish.

divya.gandhi@thehindu.co.in

Published – February 28, 2026 08:00 am IST