A black bear cub in Southeast Alaska was sick last month with bird flu, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. The cub found in Bartlett Cove, Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, is only the second instance of highly pathogenic avian influenza being diagnosed in a bear amid an ongoing outbreak. Health officials say risk to mammals, including people, remains low.

Sixty-one thousand reindeer starved to death in the northwestern reaches of the Russian tundra in November 2013 in the largest recorded mortality event of its kind.

By mid century, past Olympic venues like Squaw Valley, California; Oslo, Norway; Chamonix, France; and—of course—Sochi, will be too warm to ever host the Winter Games again.

They are brightly coloured, beautiful and hungry — tropical fish and sea urchins are thriving in southern waters warmed by climate change. But now they are devastating kelp forests already knocked around by marine heatwaves.