Polar bears have a much higher metabolism than previously thought and so are at greater risk of starvation as melting Arctic ice makes it harder for them to hunt, a new study published in the journal Science has found. The study found bears’ metabolic rate was more the 50% higher than previous studies had suggested. It means polar bears “could be sliding towards extinction faster than previously feared”, the Guardian reports, with the animals facing an increasing struggle to find enough food to survive. The study of nine polar bears over a three-year period by the US Geological Survey and UC Santa Cruz found that the animals require at least one adult, or three juvenile, ringed seals every 10 days to sustain them, the Guardian adds. The New York Times focusses on the camera footage collected by the video cameras which were fixed to GPS-equipped collars as part of the study. The study was widely covered elsewhere, including in iNews, Axios, the BBC, ABC News, Reuters, Inside Climate News, New Scientist and the Mail Online. Carbon Brief also covered the study.

Royal Dutch Shell saw profits more than doubled in the fourth quarter of last year, the Financial Times reports. The recovery in oil prices and cost cuts after a three-year downturn are fuelling a resurgence in profitability, with reported earnings from US exploration company ConocoPhillips also reflecting the rising trend of improving performance among oil groups. Shell’s profits come despite a $2bn US charge related to the cut in US corporate tax signed into law by President Donald Trump at the end of last year. The Times reports that Shell is planning a “spending spree” in the UK power and renewables sector as it builds on December’s purchase of First Utility, the British household energy supplier. The oil group has committed to spend $1bn to $2bn a year in its new energies division, and said yesterday that more acquisitions would be central to its strategy. However, Shell has also admitted it faces a multibillion-dollar bill for several years to compensate householders affected by earthquakes linked to its gasfield in the Netherlands, the Guardian reports.

A new Pentagon study has found almost half of all US military sites are threatened by climate change, Think Progress reports. Around 1,700 sites from outposts to large bases are imperiled by drought, wind, and flooding, the study shows. The study was submitted to the US Congress last Friday. It said: “Changes in climate can potentially shape the environment in which we operate and the missions we are required to do. If extreme weather makes our critical facilities unusable or necessitate costly or manpower-intensive workarounds, that is an unacceptable impact.” The findings run contrary to White House views on global warming, the Guardian reports. Donald Trump, has repeatedly cast doubt on mainstream scientific findings about climate change, including this week during an interview on British television. Time also covered the Pentagon study.

Poland’s special climate envoy has said the world should put “common sense” above climate ambition at this year’s COP24 summit. Speaking to Climate Home News, Tomasz Chruszczow, Poland’s top climate negotiator and 2018 UN climate champion, said a push to increase national pledges to stop the world warming more than 1.5C should not be the focus for the conference, which will take place in Katowice, Poland, in December. Instead, states should concentrate on agreeing the rulebook for the Paris Agreement, Chruszczow said. “Instead of being driven by enthusiasm, let’s be driven by responsible common sense which is about poverty eradication, combatting hunger and security of energy supplies,” he said.

We need to hold Trump to account for his ignorance on the critically important issue of climate change and demand better, writes Dana Nuccitelli in the Guardian. Nuccitelli goes on to factcheck Trump’s climate-related comments in an interview with Piers Morgan last week, adding: “They’re claims you might expect from a YouTube troll, not the leader of the country that produces some of the best climate science research and data in the world. … While this is all behaviour that we’ve come to expect from Donald Trump, that doesn’t make it okay.” Separately, an article in Grist looks at the influence of the Heartland Institute, a libertarian, climate-sceptic think tank, on Trump’s energy policies. The White House reached out to the group a few weeks ahead of Trump’s State of the Union address to ask if they “had other suggestions” for the speech, according to Heartland President Tim Huelskamp. “One of the most thrilling aspects of the speech was the total absence of climate change hysteria,” Heartland’s Science Director Jay Lehr said in a statement issued in response to the speech. The Trump administration has already fully or partially accomplished eight of the 13 climate and energy goals laid out by the Heartland Institute soon after Trump was elected, Grist adds.

Scientific understanding is required to help society address the numerous threats facing the ocean, an editorial in Nature Climate Change says. “A visible threat to the ocean is plastic pollution and the accumulation of rubbish. … Although climate change often presents less visible effects, coral reefs are one very visible reminder of the effects climate change is having on the oceans.” Meanwhile, another climate change impact that threatens marine biota is ocean acidification, caused by higher levels of CO2 in the water changing the carbonate system. A topic that has received less coverage but has wide-reaching effects is deoxygenation, which impacts on biology as well as biogeochemical cycling. “Each of these stressors alone can have significant impacts, but the ocean is experiencing these concurrently and the response to the effects of multiple stressors still needs further investigation.”

“The most telling item in Donald Trump’s State of the Union address may have been what wasn’t there: any mention of climate change, the greatest problem the world faces,” writes veteran environmentalist Bill McKibben in the Guardian. We dare not wait for Washington to “return to sanity” on global warming, he continues, but “happily, we don’t have to”. That’s because the strategy that’s been evolving for US climate action as well as many other parts of the planet bypasses the central governments as much as possible, he argues. “This fight is going aggressively local, and fast.”

Regional declines in polar bear populations have been attributed to changing sea ice conditions, but with limited information on the causative mechanisms. By simultaneously measuring field metabolic rates, daily activity patterns, body condition, and foraging success of polar bears moving on the spring sea ice, new research finds that high metabolic rates (1.6 times greater than previously assumed) coupled with low intake of fat-rich marine mammal prey resulted in an energy deficit for more than half of the bears examined. Activity and movement on the sea ice strongly influenced metabolic demands. Consequently, increases in mobility resulting from ongoing and forecasted declines in and fragmentation of sea ice are likely to increase energy demands and may be an important factor explaining observed declines in body condition and survival.