2025 started with record-breaking high temperatures, and researchers are now actively discussing how to account for the rate of ongoing climate change. An editorial in Nature Geoscience highlighted the need to understand the complex interactions between greenhouse gas warming and short-term climate change, particularly the factors that caused changes in cloud cover.

Fermented foods are tightly interconnected with the climate and environmental conditions of their region. Fermentation is a technique for utilizing and processing agricultural, forestry, and fishery products, making them tasty and long-lasting while minimizing waste. The Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences (JIRCAS) has been conducting joint research with the Institute of Food Research and Product Development (IFRPD), Kasetsart University, on traditional fermented foods in Asia. The database of fermented foods of Thailand has been released as one of the research outputs. It categorizes Thailand’s diverse fermented foods by raw material, such as fishery products, livestock products, fruits, vegetables, rice, and soybeans, and provides photos, explanations, and descriptions of production methods. This information has been available on the JIRCAS website. Content on the website was partially revised based on the latest information, updating photos, and including information on microorganisms along with reference literature.

Deforestation affects the local climate by changing the water balance, wind patterns, and the flow of heat and radiation between the Earth's surface and the atmosphere. A paper published in Nature analyzed seasonal rainfall changes in the Amazon after deforestation and showed that deforestation increases rainfall during the wet season but decreases it during the dry season when ecosystems need water the most, emphasizing the need to prevent the deforestation of forests that have a climate-regulating function.

A paper recently published in Nature Communications reveals that agricultural nitrogen (N) fertilization is the largest contributor to the increase in the amplitude (45%) of land-atmosphere carbon flux in the Northern Hemisphere. The results of the study indicate the importance of agricultural management in the carbon cycle feedback in the Northern Hemisphere and suggest that agricultural N fertilization should be considered in future carbon cycle simulations.

Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) announced that in February 2025, global sea ice extent reached a record low and the third warmest February on record.

The Tropical Agriculture research Front of JIRCAS is one of the leading research institutes in Japan for sugarcane research, taking advantage of the geographical location of the subtropical islands. Overseas, breeding research is being conducted mainly in Northeast Thailand, which is severely affected by drought, and efforts are also being made to form networks with the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries. This time, through lectures to university students, I reconsidered why we study sugarcane, and realized that I keenly felt the necessity of collaboration between different fields for the future development of research, and the need to continue communicating sugarcane research externally for the development of human resources.

The humanity depends on wildlife and biodiversity-based resources for everything from food to fuel, medicines, shelter and clothing. Food innovation that improves yields while reducing environmental impacts is needed to achieve both food security and wildlife conservation.

2023 and 2024 were the warmest years on record, but since the beginning of the year, cold waves have hit parts of China, Europe, North America, and Japan. A paper published in npj Climate and Atmospheric Science analyzed the seemingly contradictory phenomenon of record-breaking extreme cold events even under global warming, using the cold wave that hit eastern China in mid-December 2023 as an example, and assessed future risks.

Three years ago, on February 24, 2022, Russia's invasion of Ukraine triggered a geopolitical risk involving major food exporting countries, threatening world food security. An article on the European Council's website looks back on the impact.