{"id":322296,"date":"2026-04-21T18:00:39","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T12:30:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/?p=322296"},"modified":"2026-04-21T18:00:39","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T12:30:39","slug":"great-white-sharks-could-also-be-cooked-alive-by-warming-oceans-news-tech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/2026\/04\/21\/great-white-sharks-could-also-be-cooked-alive-by-warming-oceans-news-tech\/","title":{"rendered":"Great white sharks could also be ‘cooked alive’ by warming oceans | News Tech"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A male great white shark surrounded by mackerel within the seas off Mexico (Picture: Terry Goss\/Cover Media)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Among the world\u2019s most formidable predators \u2013 including the nice white shark \u2013 face being cooked alive as seas heat up because of global warming.<\/p>\n

This permits for faster swimming, long-distance migration, and simpler hunting \u2013 nevertheless it does come at a price.<\/p>\n

Now scientists have found that these warm-blooded fish use nearly 4 times more energy than regular cold-blooded species.<\/p>\n

They are saying this places them in \u2018double jeopardy\u2019 as species with already high energy demands might want to cool their bodies down in warmer oceans, or risk catastrophically overheating. <\/p>\n

Nevertheless, cooling themselves down will make it harder for them to hunt.<\/p>\n

Certain species of enormous predatory fish retain heat from their muscles, keeping them warmer than the encompassing water.<\/p>\n

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The study was conducted by a team at Trinity College Dublin in collaboration with the University of Pretoria, <\/p>\n

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The big and warm-bodied Great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) has high fuel demands and risks overheating in warm oceans (Picture: Andrew Fox\/Cover Media)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dr Nicholas Payne, from Trinity\u2019s School of Natural Sciences and lead writer, said: \u2018The outcomes were really quite striking \u2013 after accounting for body size and temperature, we found that mesothermic fishes use about 3.8 times more energy than similarly sized \u201cectothermic\u201d, or \u201ccold-blooded\u201d fishes. <\/p>\n

\u2018As well as, a ten\u00b0C increase in body temperature greater than doubles a fish\u2019s routine metabolic rate which, in practical terms, means warm-bodied predators must devour much more food to fuel their lifestyle.<\/p>\n

\u2018But that heighted energy demand is barely a part of the story because as fish grow larger their bodies generate heat faster than they’ll lose it. <\/p>\n

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\u2018This creates a mismatch driven by basic geometry and physics because greater bodies retain heat more effectively, and in mesotherms, high metabolic rates amplify this effect.\u2019<\/p>\n

The researchers found that this imbalance leaves larger fish increasingly vulnerable to overheating, creating the physiological dilemma.<\/p>\n

Prof Andrew Jackson, senior writer of the study, said that sharks around the scale of the common great white will struggle to not badly overheat in temperatures above 17\u00b0C. That is now commonly exceeded near the surface, sometimes significantly.<\/p>\n

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Sharks could also be more in danger from global warming than previously realised due to their biology (Picture: Hermanus Backpackers\/Cover Media)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2018Based on the information we were capable of create theoretical \u201cheat-balance thresholds\u201d, that are the water temperatures above which large fish cannot shed heat quickly enough to take care of stable body temperatures without changing their behaviour or physiology,\u2019 he said. <\/p>\n

\u2018For instance, a 1-tonne warm-bodied shark may struggle to stay in heat balance in waters above about 17\u00b0C.<\/p>\n

\u2018Above such thresholds, fish must decelerate, alter blood flow, or dive into cooler depths to avoid dangerous warming but that comes at a price too; it is perhaps harder to search out food, or catch it, for instance \u2013 especially in case your fundamental weapon is speed and power.\u2019<\/p>\n

The findings also help explain long-observed patterns within the oceans, where larger fish are inclined to inhabit cooler waters, higher latitudes, or deeper environments, often migrating seasonally to trace favourable conditions.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, researchers warn that climate change is prone to shrink suitable habitats for these species, particularly during warmer months. Even highly adaptable fish reminiscent of Atlantic bluefin tuna could also be pushed towards their limits if surface temperatures proceed to rise.<\/p>\n

Dr Snelling, from the University of Pretoria, said: \u2018This research shows that being a high-performance predator within the ocean comes at a greater cost than we previously appreciated. <\/p>\n

\u2018Because the oceans warm, these species are being pushed closer to their physiological limits, which could have consequences for where they’ll live and the way they survive.<\/p>\n

\u2018What\u2019s particularly concerning is that these animals are already operating on a decent energy budget, and climate change is narrowing their options even further. <\/p>\n

\u2018Understanding these constraints is crucial if we would like to predict how marine ecosystems will shift in the approaching many years.\u2019<\/p>\n

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A male great white shark surrounded by mackerel within the seas off Mexico (Picture: Terry Goss\/Cover Media) Among the world\u2019s most formidable predators \u2013 including the nice white shark \u2013 face being cooked alive as seas heat up because of global warming. This permits for faster swimming, long-distance migration, and simpler hunting \u2013 nevertheless it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":322297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20691],"tags":[2889,20423,380,395,5406,12162,627,11004,479],"class_list":["post-322296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-alive","tag-cooked","tag-great","tag-news","tag-oceans","tag-sharks","tag-tech","tag-warming","tag-white"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322296"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":322299,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322296\/revisions\/322299"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}