SIO15-2014: Natural Disasters
Source: Steve Newman at the San Diego Union Tribune
This page lists some of the news published nearly every week in the Earth Watch box of
the San Diego Union Tribune.
These are good topics for starting a discussion on recent natural disasters in our
problem sessions and may be topic of a homework problem.
Starting in 2013, the titles on many entries are
clickable. The clicks will lead you to the corresponding, longer article on earthweek.com.
Older earthwatches page can be
found here for
- Earthwatches
- December 29, 2014
- December 22, 2014
- December 15, 2014
- December 11, 2014
- December 01, 2014
- November 24, 2014
- November 17, 2014
- November 10, 2014
- November 03, 2014
- October 27, 2014
- October 20, 2014
- October 13, 2014
- October 6, 2014
- September 29, 2014
- September 22, 2014
- September 15, 2014
- September 8, 2014
- September 1, 2014
- August 25, 2014
- August 18, 2014
- August 11, 2014
- August 4, 2014
- July 28, 2014
- July 21, 2014
- July 14, 2014
- July 7, 2014
- June 30, 2014
- June 23, 2014
- June 16, 2014
- June 9, 2014
- June 2, 2014
- May 26, 2014
- May 19, 2014
- May 12, 2014
- May 5, 2014
- April 28, 2014
- April 21, 2014
- April 14, 2014
- April 7, 2014
- March 31, 2014
- March 24, 2014
- March 17, 2014
- March 10, 2014
- March 3, 2014
- February 24, 2014
- February 17, 2014
- February 10, 2014
- February 3, 2014
- January 27, 2014
- January 20, 2014
- January 13, 2014
- January 6, 2014
December 29, 2014 (for the week ending December 26)
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Earthquakes |
- A sharp [magnitude 5.0] temblor centered high in the Himalaya Mountains of Nepal shook a wide area of that country and neighboring parts of India. Residents across the Indian state of Bihar fled buildings in panic as the region shook for approximately five seconds.
- Earth movements were also felt in the India-Myanmar border region [magnitude 5.1], islands of Indonesia’s Molucca Sea [6.6], northeastern New Zealand [5.0], Japan’s eastern Hokkaido Island [5.5] and the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe [5.6].
An eastern Indonesian volcano erupted without warning on Dec. 19, spewing columns of ash and flows of lava down its flanks. The initial blast from Mount Gamalama, on Ternate Island in North Maluku province, caused nine hikers on the mountain to be injured as they scrambled to safety. Thick ash from the eruption blanketed the main airport of the nearby provincial capital of Ternate, forcing all arrivals and departures to be canceled for days.
More water than is contained in all of the world’s rivers, wetlands and lakes combined has been found hiding many miles beneath the surface, and scientists say it’s the oldest water on the planet. A study presented at the American Geophysical Union fall meeting in San Francisco also revealed that the water is reacting with the Earth’s crust to release hydrogen, a potential food source that could be supporting subsurface life-forms never before seen by humans. The planet’s oldest water, collected 1.5 miles down a deep mine in Canada, has been estimated to be between 1 billion and 2.5 billion years old. The researchers used data from 19 different mine sites to measure how much hydrogen was being produced and thereby estimate the volume of the deep water. University of Toronto geobiologist Barbara Sherwood Lollar says the hunt for life in the deep crust is now a priority.
Scientists may have discovered a new and revolutionary method to provide Earth with advance warning of potentially dangerous space rocks that could take aim at our planet. By carefully observing changes in streams of plasma from the sun or particles in the solar wind, new research suggests, it could be possible to identify small but threatening near-Earth objects like the Chelyabinsk meteor that exploded over Russia in 2013. The technique would rely on the magnetic field disturbances that occur in the solar wind when it interacts with positively charged particles left over from collisions of larger objects orbiting the sun. UCLA researchers say existing spacecraft instruments could map these disturbances over long periods of time, revealing which objects pose the greatest threats to Earth.
One of world’s most beloved animals is rapidly disappearing from the plains and forests of Africa, according to a new warning by the Giraffe Conservation Foundation. The charity says the population of wild giraffes has plummeted by more than 40 percent over the past 15 years, down from about 140,000 animals across Africa in 1999 to 80,000 today. “It’s a silent extinction,” the group’s director told ABC News. Even though it is illegal to hunt giraffes, the animal’s meat is highly prized for its sweet taste. Animal rights groups say that on average, more than 100 wild giraffes are slaughtered each day.
A group of at least five golden-winged warblers “evacuated” nesting areas in eastern Tennessee about one or two days before last April’s devastating tornado swarm swept across the region. The weather was calm when the birds rushed southward toward the Gulf Coast, hundreds of miles away. Writing in the journal Current Biology, researchers from several institutions say they made the discovery because a group of warblers had been tagged with “geolocators” long before the outbreak. It’s believed the birds were able to sense infrasound from the deep rumble that tornadoes were generating hundreds of miles away. Such sounds are well below human hearing and were probably being produced by twisters tearing across states to the west a day or two before the avian evacuation. The tags indicated that the warblers returned to their Cumberland Mountains breeding area soon after the tornadoes passed.
For the second holiday season in a row, swimmers trying to escape the midsummer heat in northeastern Argentina have been bloodied in a string of attacks by a type of piranha. The most savage of the 10 palometa attacks so far this month injured 23 people on a beach in Garupa, located on a tributary of the Parana River, about 450 miles north of Buenos Aires. The ADN Sureste news agency reports the carnivorous fish apparently gnawed through a net erected to keep the beach safe from such attacks. Last Christmas, about 60 people downstream in Rosario were bitten by palometas.
- Extreme Temperatures: -67° F at Toko, Siberia; 110° F at Nullagine, W. Australia
December 22, 2014 (for the week ending December 19)
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Earthquakes |
- Dallas tremors: The nine tremors to strike western parts of Dallas within the past month have area residents and some geologists pointing the finger at a nearby gas well and an accompanying wastewater injection well. All of the tremors, including the latest 2.7 magnitude jolt, have occurred within a small area of adjacent Irving, just to the west of Dallas Love Field.
- In an unusually quiet week for worldwide seismic activity in populated areas, earth movements were also felt in central New Jersey [magnitude 1.9] and western North Carolina [3.0].
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Tropical cyclones |
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Bakung: Tropical Storm Bakung formed from an area of disturbed weather over the Indian Ocean, about 750 miles southwest of Java. The storm was a threat only to shipping lanes in the region and never strengthened into a significant weather feature.
- Bengal bonanza: The increasing number of powerful tropical cyclones to strike India in recent years inflicted catastrophic destruction, but they have also brought a bonanza to some fishermen along the Bay of Bengal coast. The day after Cyclone Hudhud slammed into the states of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha in October, fishermen hundreds of miles away in Assam took advantage of the massive schools of fish driven into the Brahmaputra River by the storm. A year earlier, Cyclone Phailin sent a huge number of hilsa to the Dhubri area, where catches were 10 times larger than normal. Fisherman told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that the hilsa, related to herring, is typically hard to catch. But in the weeks following both cyclones, it was as though the fish were attracted to the nets.
The strongest eruption of the Cape Verde volcano Pico do Fogo in decades has obliterated two villages and poses a threat to an old-growth forest preserve. A vast blanket of hardened lava now engulfs the villages of Portela and Bangeira on Fogo Island, off the coast of West Africa. The lava front, more than 1,640 feet north of outlying houses in Bangeira a week ago, has swept over much of the village and continues to move forward, said Arlindo Lima, who heads the civil protection services. He added that the lava gained quite a lot of ground on Dec. 14, and was heading toward the lush Monte Velho forest reserve and an area that produces the island’s famed Fogo coffee. It’s more than a century and a half of history that has literally been wiped out, said local journalist Arlinda Neves. She added that some of the destroyed buildings dated to the 1860s.
A massive oil spill near an Israeli nature preserve has become the worst environmental disaster in that country’s history. More than 1.3 million gallons of crude oil polluted an area near the Gulf of Aqaba port of Eilat after a break occurred this month in the 153-mile pipeline across Israel. More than 80 people in the area were hospitalized from inhaling benzene fumes generated by evaporation of the oil. The Israel Nature and Parks Authority says it has attempted to keep birds from the spill area, but warns it could take years for all of the pollution to be removed. “We don’t have experience with something of this scale,” said INPA spokesperson Tali Tenenbaum. Her agency warned that any rainfall could quickly spread the disaster.
Wildlife rescue volunteers in Cape Cod have become overwhelmed during the past month by the nearly 1,200 stranded sea turtles that lingered too long this fall in the cooling waters of the North Atlantic. Nearly all were young Kemp’s ridley turtles, the most endangered turtle species, and were in a state of shock from exposure to the cold. Once rescued, the turtles are taken to the Wellfleet Audubon Society and the New England Aquarium for further treatment. Many have since been driven or airlifted to other aquariums as far away as Texas for safekeeping until they are healthy enough to be released.
Reindeer populations around the world are declining at an alarming rate, which new research says is due to a number of factors. The study by China’s Renmin University School of Environment and Natural Resources says it found the 28 percent decline in the country’s tundra and woodland reindeer since the 1970s is mainly because of inbreeding, poaching, climate change and natural predators. Bears, wolves and lynx are the three main predators of reindeer, and may kill as many as a third of reindeer calves each year, said the report, published in the Journal for Nature Conservation. But poachers who hunt for antlers are causing more than half of abnormal deaths, the study said. Earlier research found declines in various other reindeer herds around the Arctic varied from 31 percent to 97 percent. Scientists say that natural 40- to 60-year population cycles could be behind the wide range of decline.
- Extreme Temperatures: -62° F at Toko, Siberia; 113° F at Oodnadatta, S. Australia
December 15, 2014 (for the week ending December 12)
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Earthquakes (not in U-T) |
- Panama quake: A few items were knocked off shelves Saturday afternoon when a 6.6 magnitude quake struck parts of Panama and neighboring Costa Rica. The epicenter was beneath the Pacific Ocean about 24 miles southeast of the Panamanian city of Puerto Armuelles, according to that country's Geosciences Institute. It was the strongest of three tremors to originate near the same epicenter in a three-day period, and occurred at 12:21 p.m. local time.
- Earth movements were also felt in Papua New Guinea [magnitude 6.8], Indonesia [6.0], Guatemala [5.9], China [5.6], Eastern Caribbean [5.0], Greece [5.1] and Romania [4.6].
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Tropical cyclones (not in U-T) |
Deadly typhoon: One of the year’s strongest tropical cyclones cut a path of destruction across central and northern parts of the Philippines, leaving at least 27 people dead in its wake. Typhoon Hagupit wrecked thousands of homes in Eastern Samar province, where maximum sustained winds of 130 mph were recorded. The storm weakened considerably after it left Eastern Samar on a slow path toward Manila. The typhoon also spared parts of the Philippines devastated by Typhoon Haiyan last year. Haiyan was one of the strongest typhoons on record, killing more than 6,000 people.
Lava from erupting Pico do Fogo has destroyed buildings in two villages in Cape Verde, off the coast of West Africa. This is the volcano’s first eruption in 19 years. Lava pouring into Portela destroyed two churches and inflicted heavy damage to dozens of homes, a hotel and a school. The nearby town of Bangaeira later suffered lava damage to multiple apartment buildings as well as a guesthouse. More than 3,000 people have fled their homes since the volcano first began rumbling on Nov. 22.
The number of outbreaks of extreme heat and cold around the world during the past three decades increased more rapidly than the rate of global warming, which scientists say is fueling the trend. Researchers at the U.K.’s University of East Anglia looked at temperature records from 1881 to 2013 before coming to the conclusion. They found that the occurrence of unusually cold periods had been increasing at a faster rate than heat waves until 30 years ago. But the trend reversed beginning in 1983, with extreme heat events becoming more frequent. The study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, also looked at trends during the pause in global warming since 1998. The researchers say that while a 16-year period is too brief to draw conclusions about trends, they found that warming continued at most locations on the planet during those years. But they concluded that the overall global warming was offset by strong cooling during the winter months in the Northern Hemisphere. New findings indicate that the record melt of the Arctic ice cap has been responsible for the recent colder winters in parts of North America, Asia and Europe.
Some of the most widely used anti-inflammatory drugs, which are inadvertently finding their way into the environment, have been shown to significantly affect crop growth. Researchers from the University of Exeter say this is especially worrisome because waste management systems are unable to remove drugs like diclofenac and ibuprofen from sewage in treatment plants. Sewage sludge is increasingly being used as fertilizer, while wastewater is often used to irrigate crops. The researchers focused on lettuce and radish plants and how several commonly prescribed drugs affected them. They found that drugs from the fenamic acid class affected the growth of radish roots, while ibuprofen had a strong influence on the early root development of lettuce.
The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) became the first weather bureau in the world to declare that the El Niño ocean warming in the tropical Pacific has returned. The phenomenon occurs every few years and causes a variety of weather shifts around the world. The JMA declaration came as the strongest Pacific storm to strike California since the last El Niño five years ago was roaring onshore. Various weather agencies around the world have issued conflicting El Niño forecasts over the past few months, but JMA meteorologist Ikuo Yoshikawa said Wednesday that it emerged between June and August.
A new study finds that armies of ants are keeping New York City clean by eating food litter left by the pedestrians who walk the streets of the city that never sleeps. Writing in the journal Global Change Biology, a team of researchers reveals how ants and other arthropods on a stretch of just 150 blocks of median strips in Manhattan can remove the equivalent of about 60,000 pounds of hot dogs or 600,000 potato chips each year. Lead researcher Elsa Youngsteadt from North Carolina State University says the insects are helping New Yorkers by competing with rats for food. You may not like ants, but you probably like rats even less, she told The New York Times.
- Extreme Temperatures: -57° F at Toko, Siberia; 116° F at Oodnadatta, S. Australia
December 11, 2014 (for the week ending December 05)
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Earthquakes |
- A sharp [magnitude 4.7] tremor centered near the Arizona resort of Sedona tossed items off shelves and caused some furniture to topple.
- Earth movements were also felt in northwestern Montana [magnitude 3.5], the Dallas-Fort Worth area [3.4], south-central Alaska [3.8], northern Chile [5.1] and metropolitan Melbourne, Australia [3.4].
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Tropical cyclones (not in U-T) |
- Hagupit: Residents of the central and northern Philippines were preparing late in the week for the arrival of potentially disastrous Super Typhoon Hagupit. The Category-5 storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 165 mph as it stormed toward some of the same areas devastated by Super Typhoon Haiyan just over a year ago.
- Sinlaku:
Tropical Storm Sinlaku drenched south-central Vietnam and northeastern areas of Cambodia. While Vietnam escaped significant damage from the storm, high winds blew the roofs off hundreds of homes in coastal areas near where Sinlaku made landfall. There were no reports of fatalities from the storm.
Japan’s Mount Aso spewed out chunks of lava for the first time in 21 years, causing flight cancellations in the south of the country. A column of ash and vapor soared almost 5,000 feet into the atmosphere. Ash and smoke damaged nearby crops and even reached the city of Kumamoto, more than 25 miles from the volcano. Mount Aso’s caldera is one of the largest in the world, dominating the landscape of the country’s main southern island of Kyushu. The volcano erupted several times between 1945 and 1993, with volcanic activity often continuing for months at a time.
Earth has already undergone significant climate and environmental changes since world leaders first gathered to try to solve global warming more than two decades ago. Diplomats from more than 190 nations are meeting in Lima, Peru, to prepare for a new treaty slated to be signed next year to finally reduce greenhouse gas emissions, albeit many years from now. An Associated Press survey found that worldwide CO2 emissions are up 60 percent, sea level has risen 3 inches and the average global temperature is up 0.6 degree Fahrenheit since 1996. Almost 5 trillion tons of ice that once covered Greenland and Antarctica also have melted during the period. The number of climate, water and weather disasters each year has more than doubled, compared to the period from 1983 to 1992. “Simply put, we are rapidly remaking the planet and beginning to suffer the consequences,” Michael Oppenheimer, professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton, told the AP.
It takes 10 years for a single greenhouse gas emission to wield its greatest warming influence on the atmosphere, rather than the several decades previously believed, according to new research. Scientists from the Carnegie Institution for Science combined data on how quickly oceans, plants and other natural elements absorb CO2 with information from climate models used in the latest U.N. climate assessment. They found the average time a single CO2 emission reached its greatest warming was 10.1 years, and reaffirmed that most of its warming then lingers for more than a century. “This means if we avoid an emission, we avoid heating that would otherwise occur this decade. This will benefit us and not just our grandchildren,” wrote researcher Ken Caldeira in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
An unusually mild November in the U.K. has encouraged some frogs to reproduce five months ahead of schedule in the earliest frogspawn observed for nearly a decade. Frogs typically lay their eggs in March across Britain, followed by the appearance of tadpoles about a month later. The earliest occurrence of frogspawn was on Oct. 26, 2005.“This year, I first saw frogspawn on 21 November, which is early, but not unheard of in a Cornish context,” said Rachel Holder, the ranger who first spotted the frogspawn on Cornwall’s Lizard Peninsula. She added that the “gamble of getting ahead in the breeding game must be worth taking, and the risk of a severe cold snap which could freeze the spawn is worth braving.”Other species of plants, insects and animals have been observed responding to climate change.
A total of 310 garter snakes have been removed from the home of an unnamed Saskatchewan family after the serpents invaded the basement, kitchen and even some upstairs bedrooms. Snake experts were called in after the Canadian prairie family from outside Regina captured 221 of the snakes on their own, but saw quite a few others they couldn’t easily reach. It’s believed the snakes were looking for a place to winter and came in through cracks in the foundation that grew wider after the basement flooded last spring. It’s also possible some of the snakes bred inside the home, causing a population explosion. Many of the snakes were freed at a nearby nature preserve, while others are being cared for beneath heat lamps over the winter at the Salthaven West wildlife center in Regina. The family says the snakes are more of a nuisance than terrifying. They asked to remain anonymous so other family members and friends could visit without fear.
- Extreme Temperatures: -55° F at Selagoncy, Siberia; 111° F at Telfer Mining Center, W. Australia
December 01, 2014 (for the week ending November 28)
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Earthquakes |
- Japan quake disaster: An unusually powerful 6.2-magnitude temblor in western Japan left at least 44 people injured and wrecked dozens of homes near the 1998 Winter Olympic Games venue of Nagano.
- A 5.9-magnitude quake in southwestern China’s Sichuan province killed five people and injured 60.
- Earth movements were also felt in islands of Indonesia’s Molucca Sea [magnitude 6.8], eastern Romania [5.5] and near Dallas [3.3].
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Volcanic eruptions |
- Fogo eruption
The violent eruption of a volcano in the Cape Verde archipelago prompted officials to call for hundreds of nearby residents to evacuate. Pico do Fogo’s first eruption since 1995 sent a plume of ash rising over Fogo, one of 10 volcanic islands that make up the chain off the coast of West Africa. The area around the volcano is a popular hiking destination and is home to a growing number of vineyards.
- Mexico’s Colima volcano spewed a column of ash 3 miles into the air along the border of Colima and Jalisco states.
Decades of acid rain that have made many Canadian freshwater lakes more acidic have also profoundly altered the ecological balance and turned some lake bottoms to jelly. Even though pollution controls have long since diminished the amount of acid rain, some affected lakes have not recovered from the pollution and have become home to expanding populations of a tiny, slimy crustacean called the Holopedium. The invertebrate is surrounded by a bulbous coating of jelly. Swimmers in affected lakes often emerge from the water with the caviar-like balls clinging to their arms and backs. Researchers have documented that decades of acid rain have flushed away much of the calcium in the lakes, which Holopedium’s biggest competitor, the Daphnia water flea, needs to create an exoskeleton. With the formerly dominant Daphnia now deprived of enough calcium to bulk up, and gradually disappearing, Holopedium has been able to reproduce unchecked since it needs far less calcium to make its gooey shell. This competitive edge is creating a jellied mess that threatens to clog water intake systems in the lakes.
Despite the recent Arctic blast that blanketed much of North America, 2014 is likely to go down as the hottest year on average worldwide since records began. With a month to go, the year has already surged ahead of 1998 and 2010, which tied for the hottest in modern times. Climate experts say that if the next few weeks bring only average temperatures for the 21st century, 2014 will still rank as the hottest year ever recorded. Deke Arndt, climate monitoring chief for NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, says the global heat is driven by the recent incredible warmth of the world’s oceans.
He says the six months ending in October were the warmest six months on record for sea-surface temperatures. This led to five of the last six months setting global monthly heat records in the atmosphere.
The on-again, off-again El Niño ocean warming in the Pacific appears to be more likely to soon appear, according to Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology. The agency predicts a 70 percent chance of the phenomenon occurring during the next few months, up from a 50 percent chance just two weeks earlier. Sea-surface temperatures have continued to rise across the tropical Pacific, threatening to bring parts of Australia extreme heat and drought.
Many in California have been counting on an El Niño to alleviate a parching drought across that state. Recent rains spurred on those hopes.
Peruvian officials were trying to find out what killed about 500 sea lions found rotting on a stretch of Pacific beach in the north of the country. Police were reported to be investigating allegations that the marine mammals had been poisoned by coastal farmers and fishermen who harvest shellfish. In early November, the bodies of an additional 187 sea lions were found farther to the north in Peru, along with four dead dolphins and the corpses of sea turtles and dozens of pelicans.
A wayward hummingbird, believed to have been blown off course in its southward migration by the recent polar vortex outbreak, was rescued in Minnesota and later flown to Texas by private jet to get it back on track. The rust-colored rufous hummingbird probably spent the summer in the Pacific Northwest and was aiming to spend a mild winter in Mexico or the far southern United States. But it was seen darting around a sugar-water feeder in St. Paul as temperatures plunged during early November. The homeowner captured the hummer because it was unlikely to survive the cold snap. The Star Tribune reports that after the bird was taken to a wildlife center, an anonymous benefactor agreed to fly it to Texas on a previously scheduled flight. It was later released there by a wildlife rescuer.
- Extreme Temperatures: -49° C at Agata, Siberia; 46° C at Oodnadatta, S. Australia
November 24, 2014 (for the week ending November 21)
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Earthquakes |
- Molucca quake: A sharp [magnitude 7.1] temblor centered beneath northern Indonesia's Molucca Sea sent people fleeing buildings in several nearby cities. It also generated a small tsunami that failed to cause any damage.
- Earth movements were also felt in New Zealand's North Island [magnitude 6.7], southern Greece [5.4], southern Scotland [2.6], northwestern Montana [3.9] and northwestern Nevada [4.0].
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Tropical Cyclones |
- Cyclone Adjali: The season's first cyclone in the northwestern Indian Ocean [south of the equator] formed from an area of disturbed weather to the south of the remote U.S. Diego Garcia military base. Cyclone Adjali briefly produced sustained winds of about 60 mph before slowly losing force.
An unusually powerful blast from Alaska's second most active volcano sent a column of ash soaring high above the Alaska Peninsula for several hours. The eruption of Pavlof, located about 625 miles southwest of Anchorage, prompted aviation officials to briefly warn aircraft flying near the volcano of the ash hazard. The Alaska Volcano Observatory said the eruption was much more energetic than any Pavlof has produced in the last decade or so. The major eight-hour blast was preceded by a lower-level eruption that began three days earlier. Geologists say the remote volcano has erupted more than 40 times in recorded history, including eruptions earlier this year and in 2013.
While recent findings point to the likelihood of more lightning around the world as the planet warms, other research suggests lightning strikes in some areas are already affected by solar activity. In a report published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, scientists say the orientation of the sun's magnetic field plays a significant role in the number of lightning strikes, at least in the United Kingdom. "What we found was there is significantly more lightning in the U.K. when the field is pointing toward the sun than when it's pointing away - which was surprising," said lead author Matt Owens from the University of Reading. He believes that the sun's pushing or pulling on Earth's magnetic field lets energetically charged particles filter down into the atmosphere, triggering the lightning. Owens and colleagues found that between 2001 and 2006, there was a 50 percent increase in thunder and lightning in Britain when the solar magnetic field pointed away from Earth.
A 13-year pause in the overall warming of the world's ocean surface ended this year with the average global mean sea surface temperature soaring to the warmest ever recorded. "The 2014 global ocean warming is mostly due to the North Pacific, which has warmed far beyond any recorded value and has shifted hurricane tracks, weakened trade winds and produced coral bleaching in the Hawaiian Islands," said climate scientist Axel Timmermann of the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He says sea-surface temperatures started to rise quickly in January across the North Pacific, followed by a surge of very warm water from the western Pacific to the eastern Pacific along the equator.
The cause of a massive die-off of more than 20 species of starfish along the Pacific Coast from Alaska to Baja California may have been identified. Since June 2013, millions of what marine biologists refer to as sea stars have wasted away from a disease that causes their limbs to pull away from their bodies and their organs to extrude through their skin. "They basically fall apart into a pile of goo on the bottom of the seafloor," said Cornell University biological oceanographer Ian Hewson. He and colleagues say the deaths are likely due to a parvovirus dubbed the sea star-associated densovirus. Hewson suggests the tiny virus has gone mainly unnoticed at low levels for many years, but has been found in museum samples taken from the Pacific in 1942, 1980, 1987 and 1991. Cornell ecologist Drew Harvell told Reuters the outbreak is "probably the largest epidemic in marine wildlife that we know of."
Thousands of fruit bats fell dead from trees in one area of eastern Australia as a heat wave pushed temperatures as high as 111 degrees Fahrenheit. The dead mammals, also known as flying foxes, piled up on the ground in Casino and the Richmond Valley of northern New South Wales, where wildlife officials warned residents not to touch the animals due to the danger of catching viruses or other illnesses. Hundreds of infant bats left orphaned were being cared for by animal-rescue workers who said they were overwhelmed by the environmental disaster. "Some areas along the riverbank are inaccessible, and the stench from the rotting carcasses will be quite unbearable for some time yet," council manager John Walker told Sydney's The Daily Telegraph. Last January, an unprecedented heat wave in neighboring Queensland killed as many as 100,000 flying foxes.
- Extreme Temperatures: -68° F at Turukhansk, Siberia; 111° F at Walgett, NSW. Australia
November 17, 2014 (for the week ending November 14)
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Earthquakes |
- Greek quake damage (not in U-T): A moderate [magnitude 4.9] quake centered about 85 miles west of Athens cracked buildings Saturday evening [Nov 8] and briefly alarmed residents along Greece's Gulf of Corinth.
- A sharp [magnitude 4.8] quake caused minor damage near the epicenter in southern Kansas. It was widely felt.
- Earth movements were also felt in Britain's Channel Islands [magnitude 2.2], southeastern Philippines [4.5], Tokyo [4.9], Hawaii's Kona Coast [3.8], northern Chile [5.8] and the San Francisco Bay Area [2.9].
The creeping lava flow from Hawaii's Kilauea volcano claimed its first home, igniting the structure as its residents watched nearby. The home in Pahoa was evacuated long before a finger of lava from the main flow arrived. The leading edge of the lava, which can reach temperatures of more than 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, later pushed through a fence surrounding the community's waste and recycling center. A storage shed and a cattle-feeding shelter have also burned.
Canada's oil sands industry is under fire for the deaths of 122 waterfowl that landed in three companies' tailings ponds, where waste from oil extraction is dumped.
Syncrude said many of the birds that landed at its Mildred Lake site in east-central Alberta had to be euthanized, and cited extreme fog as a leading factor in the tragedy.
It claims its waterfowl deterrence system was operating at the time. That company was earlier fined $3 million for the deaths of more than 1,600 ducks that landed on one of its tailings ponds in 2008. Regulators say oil sands operators are required to operate bird deterrents, like noise cannons, to scare wildlife from toxic areas. Oil sands mining creates a slurry of toxic substances that include bitumen, toluene, heavy metals and other chemicals harmful or fatal to birds.
Mike Hudema of Greenpeace Canada says the deterrence systems just aren't enough.
"The only way to keep birds and animals safe in, really, what is a toxic brew of chemicals is to get these tailings ponds off the Alberta landscape," Hudema told the industry news service Oilprice.
Climate change over the past 40 years has raised the temperature of water in the ground from the surface down to about 200 feet, according to a new longterm study of groundwater flows inWestern Europe.
Measurements taken around the German cities of Cologne and Karlsruhe during that period reveal the groundwater warmed significantly, following the warming pattern of the local and regional climate. "Global warming is reflected directly in the groundwater, albeit damped and with a certain time lag," said Peter Bayer, senior assistant at ETH Zurich's Geological Institute.
Days in northern Kenya have become so hot under climate change that some residents have turned nocturnal to escape the heat. Nightfall has become something to celebrate in Atheley and other villages, where afternoon readings in excess of 104 degrees Fahrenheit became common for the first time this year.
The Thomson Reuters Foundation reports this has made farming, going to school and other daily activities a struggle. Villagers now take refuge in circular huts, waiting for sunset before venturing outside.
Students at tend classes between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m., then return at dawn for an additional two-hour session. New solar lighting technology, which charges up during the broiling daylight hours, has allowed the remote villages to adapt to nocturnal life.
The entire Russian capital became enveloped in the foul smell of sulfur, hydrogen sulfide and oil products, prompting at least one resident to ask if the gates of hell had opened up beneath Moscow. A thick fog accompanied the stink, which seeped into apartments, offices, stores and even the underground metro. Officials in the emergencies ministry said faulty air filters at a refinery in southeastern Moscow were responsible for the stench. But state-controlled Gazprom, which operates the refinery, denied the claim. Air in southwestern Moscow briefly contained 2.5 times the maximum permissible levels of styrene, a toxic and mutation-causing chemical used for polymer production, according to city-run watchdog MosEcoMonitoring.
Researchers studying the sonic connection between bats and their insect prey found that at least one species of the flying mammals can use its sonar echolocation to confuse other bats targeting the same meal. A University of Maryland scientist studying how a particular moth is able to jam the sonar of big brown bats by making ultrasonic clicks when being hunted also found that other bats make sonar-jamming sounds.
In follow-up research, William Conner of Wake Forest recorded Mexican free-tailed bats generating high-frequency interference to gain the upper hand in hunting. "They use it at the moment of truth, when the hunter is zeroing in on its prey," Conner says.
- Extreme Temperatures: -58° F at Vostok, Antarctica; 108° F at Mandora, W. Australia
November 10, 2014 (for the week ending November 07)
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Earthquakes (not in U-T) |
- A magnitude 5.3 earthquake rocked Eastern Zambia for up to 40 s on Oct 31. There are no reports of significant damage or injuries.
- Earth movements were felt in Alaska [magnitude 4.6], Oregon [4.9], Nicaragua [4.3], W. Australia [4.3], Algeria [3.1], Zambia [5.3].
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Tropical Cyclones (not in U-T) |
- Former category-2 Hurricane Vance Brought local flash flooding and gusty winds to northwestern Mexico's Sinaloa state. The storm was primarily a threat to shipping lanes in the eastern Pacific.
The most violent eruption of Costa Rica's Turrialba volcano in 150 years sent a plume of ash soaring high above the country, prompting authorities to evacuate some nearby residents as a precaution. Witnesses said they heard booming sounds about 40 minutes before ash began billowing from the volcano.
The hole in stratospheric ozone over Antarctica has remained stubbornly large in recent years despite a worldwide ban since 1987 on the chlorine emissions that created it, according to NASA. While this year's maximum expanse of the ozone hole, reached on Sept. 9, was about 9 percent less than the record set in 2000, its coverage was about the same as during 2010, 2012 and 2013. Earth's ozone layer helps shield life on the surface from potentially harmful ultraviolet radiation that can cause skin cancer, cataracts and plant damage. The reason the hole isn't closing up despite no new chlorofluorocarbons being released into the atmosphere is clouded by a complex interaction between it and climate change, scientists say. The ozone hole itself is affecting the climate of Antarctica and Australia, and is being affected by it. It is changing the wind systems, said Jonathan Shanklin of the British Antarctic Survey, one of the three scientists who discovered the hole in the 1980s. He tells The Guardian he expects the ozone hole to gradually fill in even as the effects of climate change increase over the next 50 years or so.
The U.N. panel on climate change concludes in its fourth and final volume of climate assessment that humans may be forced to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero this century to avoid global temperatures rising to dangerous levels. It also warns that failure to eliminate the use of fossil fuels could compel the world to find ways of removing carbon emissions from the atmosphere in the future. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's assessment also says humans are to blame for nearly all global warming since the 1950s.
An emerging monkey-borne parasite spreading across Southeast Asia was released into the human population through unbridled deforestation in recent decades, primarily from expanding palm oil plantations and demand for timber. Plasmodium knowlesi malaria has long been endemic among the long-tailed and pig-tailed macaque populations of Malaysia and nearby countries. It remained isolated from the human population by the dense tropical rain forest habitats of the macaques until deforestation cleared the forests. New roads that were built during the process allowed humans infected in the wild to carry the parasite elsewhere. Research presented at the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene's annual meeting revealed that Plasmodium knowlesi malaria is the leading cause of malaria hospitalizations in Malaysia. While the parasite causes only mild symptoms in macaques, it has become the fastest-replicating malaria parasite in humans, multiplying every 24 hours in the blood. The research concludes that Plasmodium knowlesi has joined AIDS and Ebola as emerging or reemerging dangerous diseases being passed to humans as more and more layers of once-isolated tropical forest are ravaged by human development.
New research finds that while most birds appear to be attentive parents and faithful mates, divorce is actually common among many species and plays a role in breeding success. Writing in the journal Biological Reviews, study author Antica Culina says she and her colleagues observed that divorce occurs in 92 percent of all monogamous bird populations. The team found that birds were most likely to divorce when breeding success was low. But the research found that when birds break up, it isn't always good for the guy. Females who divorce gain better breeding success with a new partner, but males who divorce show no improvement, Culina says. She found that because females have a little control over how many eggs they lay, a small number of offspring may mean the female is not happy with her mate and wants him to move on.
- Extreme Temperatures: -62° F at Vostok, Antarctica; 109° F at Mandora, W. Australia
November 03, 2014 (for the week ending October 31)
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Earthquakes |
- A moderate, magnitude 5.2 quake centered in far northwestern Greece knocked items off shelves, but caused no significant damage.
- Earth movements were also felt in Sumatra and nearby areas of southern Thailand [M 4.8], Peru's Amazon region [5.6] and central England [2.6].
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Tropical Cyclones |
- Cyclone Nilofar weakened rapidly late in the week as it approached the India-Pakistan border region. The storm briefly attained Category 4 strength far from land over the Arabian Sea a few days earlier. India's meteorological agency warned that heavy rainfall from remnants of the storm could damage crops in the state of Rajasthan.
- Drought-plagued parts of Honduras and Nicaragua were drenched as Tropical Storm Hanna dissipated over the region.
Advancing lava from Hawaii's Kilauea volcano plowed through a residential area, burning structures and threatening to cut off the community from the rest of the Big Island. The flow has been creeping for weeks toward the town of Pahoa at about 45 feet per hour. Since the lava began to move again in September after a brief standstill, it has crossed a road, overrun a cemetery and triggered methane explosions. Residents of Pahoa were removing their personal belongings from structures in the path of the lava, and were told by officials that they would be allowed to watch their homes burn as a way to help them cope with the loss. Kilauea's current eruption began in 1983. A separate lava flow between 1983 and 1990 destroyed about 180 homes.
Vanishing Arctic sea ice appears to have been responsible for the spells of bitterly cold wintertime conditions in the Northern Hemisphere during recent years. Masato Mori of the University of Tokyo and colleagues found colder-than-normal winters are now twice as likely to occur across Eurasia under these conditions than before the record polar melting began. This past September saw the sixth-lowest minimum Arctic sea ice extent ever observed. A warming Arctic causes the polar jet stream to be weaker, allowing frigid weather systems to creep farther south. It can also promote blocking weather patterns that cause the chill to linger for weeks. While the study focused on a part of Eurasia that stretches from Eastern Europe to China, the past few winters have also brought frigid conditions not seen in decades to parts of Western Europe and North America.
A microbe recently discovered in the melting Arctic permafrost appears to be releasing vast amounts of the greenhouse gas methane, possibly speeding up climate change. Methanoflorens stordalenmirensis "breathes out methane like we breathe out carbon dioxide," said lead author Carmody McCalley, a scientist at the Earth Systems Research Center at the University of New Hampshire. Methane makes up only about 9 percent of all the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but it can store up to 21 times more heat than carbon dioxide. Researchers say they hope the microbic discovery will help scientists improve their simulations of future climate by providing a more accurate picture of how thawing permafrost releases greenhouse gases. The study was published in the journal Nature.
The largest group of sunspots seen in nearly a quarter-century sent a barrage of solar flares into space, three of which were among some of the most powerful that the sun can create. Solar flares are gigantic explosions on the surface of the sun, which send streams of dangerous, charged particles rushing into space. If Earth happens to be in the path of the blasts, the resulting geomagnetic storms can knock out satellite electronics, disrupt high-frequency communications and even bring down power grids. Such storms also produce vivid aurora displays. The largest sunspot in history was observed in 1947 and grew to be three times larger than the one currently producing the swarm of flares.
The famed giant tortoise of the Galapagos Islands has been brought back from the verge of extinction after its population dropped to only 15 by the 1960s. Captive breeding and conservation efforts have allowed that number to rebound to more than 1,000. "The population is secure. It's a rare example of how biologists and managers can collaborate to recover a species from the brink of extinction," said James P. Gibbs, a biologist at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. He was lead author of a study that charted the growing success of the islands tortoises, published in the journal PLOS ONE. But Gibbs cautions that the giant tortoise population is not likely to increase further on the island of Espanola until the landscape recovers from the damage inflicted by now-eradicated goats.
- Extreme Temperatures: -70° F at Vostok, Antarctica; 112° F at Santiago del Estero, Argentina
October 27, 2014 (for the week ending October 24)
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Earthquakes |
- Interior Alaska was rocked by an unusually strong, [magnitude 5.0] quake centered about 40 miles west-northwest of Fairbanks. No significant damage was reported.
- Earth movements were also felt in far southern New Zealand [4.2] and along the Ecuador-Colombia border region [5.6].
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Tropical Cyclones |
- Hurricane Gonzalo: Bermuda suffered a direct hit from the eye of Hurricane Gonzalo, which brought maximum winds of 110 mph. Remnants of the storm later buffeted the United Kingdom.
- While Hurricane Ana drenched the Hawaiian Islands, the storm's eye passed well offshore.
- Tropical Storm Trudy drenched southern Mexico.
A new flow of lava emerged from the Philippine volcano Mayon, ending two days in which no lava was seen flowing. "It's already erupting, but not explosive," said Renato Solidum, executive director of the geophysical agency Phivolcs. "Currently, the activity is just lava coming down. If there is an explosion, all sides of the volcano are threatened." The agency warned residents that Mayon is in a "state of unrest" due to movement of lava that could create an eruption.
The United States' northernmost settlement of Barrow, Alaska, has warmed during October a remarkable 12.96° Fahrenheit over the past 33 years because of shrinking summertime sea ice. Researcher Gerd Wendler of the University of Alaska's International Arctic Research Center says he is "astonished" by his finding, published in the Open Atmospheric Science Journal. "I think I have never, anywhere, seen such a large increase in temperature over such a short period," he said. Climate records show Barrow's average annual temperature has risen by almost 5 degrees since 1979. But the warming was far more pronounced during October, when the loss of sea ice in the adjacent Beaufort and Chukchi seas was at the highest. Wendler and colleagues caution that analysis of weather records from 1921 to 2012 shows a much more modest average annual rise at Barrow.
Earth's magnetic field has the potential to reverse within less than a century, and scientists say there is evidence the poles are now moving toward such a flip. Scientists from Italy, France, Columbia University and the University of California Berkeley say they made the conclusions by looking at paleomagnetic data in sediment around the volcanoes of southern Italy. Ash layers from prehistoric eruptions captured and stored magnetic field information in sediment as it accumulated at the bottom of an ancient lake. Those layers reveal the last magnetic reversal occurred approximately 786,000 years ago, long before humans walked the planet. The flip happened after more than 6,000 years of instability, including two intervals of low magnetic field strength that lasted about 2,000 years each. Such a quiet period in modern times could expose Earth's surface to harmful levels of solar radiation, possibly increasing the rates of cancer and disrupting electrical power grids, scientists caution.
he growing use of antidepressant drugs around the world appears to be harming the health of some bird populations, according to a new British study. Researcher Kathryn Arnold of the University of York found that starlings feeding on worms containing small amounts of the drug Prozac, absorbed by the invertebrates around sewage treatment facilities, lost interest in mating and had altered feeding habits. "Females who'd been on it were not interested in the male birds we introduced them to. They sat in the middle of the cage, not interested at all," said Arnold. "Compared with the control birds who hadn't had any Prozac, they ate much less and snacked throughout the day," she told the British magazine Radio Times. While the number of starling deaths linked to antidepressant exposure is very small, Arnold's findings join a growing body of evidence that suggests potent pharmaceuticals flushed into the environment could be causing a global wildlife crisis.
The two-man crew aboard a Greenpeace mini-submarine in the Bering Sea got one of the greatest thrills of their lives when a pair of Humboldt squids attacked their submersible vehicle. The researchers remained safe inside the sub as it was pummeled by the jumbo squids, or red devils - a name given to them because of the red color the cephalopods turn when in hunting or attack mode. A video of the attack, posted on Vine, shows the squids colliding into the sub and its attached equipment before dashing off in a puff of ink. Humboldt squids have tentacle suckers lined with sharp teeth that can tear their prey apart.
- Extreme Temperatures: -86° F at Vostok, Antarctica; 112° F at Las Lomitas, Argentina
October 20, 2014 (for the week ending October 17)
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Earthquakes |
- Central American Quake kills 1 in El Salvador: A 7.3 magnitude quake centered beneath the Pacific seabed killed one person in El Salvador as it rocked a wide portion of Central America on Monday evening. The victim was killed when a utility pole fell on him in San Miguel. About a dozen homes in that community were reported to have collapsed during the shaking. El Salvador's emergency services department initially urged residents along the coast to move inland out of concern that the seabed quake could have generated a tsunami. But the alert was lifted after no change in sea level was detected.
- Earth movements were also felt in Peru [M5.4], southern Mexico [5.3], Iran [5.6],
Sumatra [4.8], easter Indonesia [5.3], off-shore New Zealand [5.7] and Washington state [3.5].
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Tropical Cyclones |
The Northern Hemisphere tropical cyclone season appeared to peak with several named storms churning the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans.
- Cyclone Hudhud hammered eastern India's Andhra Pradesh and Odisha coasts, killing at least 24 people and inflicting considerable damage to the industrial city of Visakhapatnam.
- Remnants of former Category- 5 Typhoon Vongfong left at least two people dead and nearly 100 injured across Japan.
- Hurricane Ana took aim on Hawaii late in the week.
- Bermuda braced for a direct strike from powerful Hurricane Gonzalo only days after Tropical Storm Fay struck the island.
Violent blasts of ash and fountains of lava continued to emerge from western Indonesia's Mount Sinabung volcano. The volcanic activity was accompanied by eerie clouds that contained violent electrical discharges. Heavy rainfall also threatened to unleash massive flows of accumulated volcanic debris on the slopes of the mountain. Sinabung has forced more than 3,000 people to remain away from their homes for months, although many have braved the eruption to tend to their animals and farmland on the mountain's highly fertile slopes.
Calculations by NASA and the Japan Meteorological Agency revealed that this September was the warmest worldwide since records began in 1880. The unusual heat also made the past six months, collectively, the warmest such period ever observed. While July came in as the fourth-warmest on record, the rest of the months from April through September were the hottest of the climate record. Atmospheric scientists pointed out that the period would have been even hotter had El Niño developed during the Northern Hemisphere summer months as was predicted earlier this year. The Pacific Ocean warming is still expected to emerge during the next few weeks, but not with the intensity forecasters had earlier expected.
Heavy rainfall from passing typhoons this month may be behind a record spike in groundwater radioactivity found in test wells drilled next to Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant. Samples taken next to three reactors that suffered meltdowns following the March 2011 earthquake-tsunami disaster showed an almost fourfold increase in particles such as strontium-90 within a four-day period. The volume of isotopes such as cobalt-60 and manganese-54 also reached a record high, according to Tokyo Electric Power Co. This coincided with heavy rainfall from remnants of Typhoon Vongfong, which drenched much of Japan during the same period. More powerful Typhoon Phanfone had passed over the Fukushima disaster zone during the previous week. Tokyo Electric Power said the increase in groundwater from the storms could have mixed with radioactive elements left in the soil after the meltdowns.
Tropical fish species and invertebrates are being driven toward Arctic and Antarctic waters by climate change in a move prompted by a search for cooler, better oxygenated water. University of British Columbia scientists say that changes seen within the past few decades are consistent with predictions that fish would move more than 9 miles poleward each decade as the oceans warmed. Writing in the ICES Journal of Marine Science, lead author Miranda Jones says the shifting habitats will open up new opportunities for fleets to exploit fisheries in the Arctic.
As many as five monarch butterflies appear to have been blown across the Atlantic from their summertime breeding grounds in Canada to the far southeastern coast of England this fall.
The British group Butterfly Conservation said that while this fall's arrivals were far below the 300 individual monarchs that made a similar journey in 1999, the appearance is significant.
But they cautioned that some of the five sightings in early October could have been of the same butterfly.
At this time of year, coinciding with the big migration across North America, ex-hurricanes and storm fronts sweep across the North Atlantic. Monarchs' arrival has sometimes in the past coincided with the arrival of North American songbirds and dragonflies, the group's surveys manager Richard Fox told The Guardian.
- Extreme Temperatures: -92° F at Vostok, Antarctica; 112° F at Chhor, Pakistan
October 13, 2014 (for the week ending October 10)
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Earthquakes |
- China Disaster: One person was killed and hundreds of others were injured by a 6.0-magnitude quake that wrecked buildings in China's Yunnan province.
- Earth movements were also felt in the western Philippines [M 5.4], northern New Zealand [5.2], northwestern [6.2] and southeastern [5.4] Mexico and southern Nevada [3.6].
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Tropical Cyclones |
- Typhoon Phanfone left at least seven people dead and dozens of others injured after it lashed a long stretch of Japan, including metropolitan Tokyo.
- Typhoon Vongfong: Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands were drenched by developing Typhoon Vongfong, which later became the world's strongest tropical cyclone of the year while taking aim on Japan.
- Remnants of Hurricane Simon brought flash flooding to parts of northwestern Mexico and the Desert Southwest.
- Cyclone Hudhud threatened to strike eastern India late in the week as a Category-3 storm.
Unrest within Mayon volcano prompted Philippine authorities to move nearby residents and farm animals from areas threatened by what appeared to be an impending eruption. Approximately 55,000 people have been relocated since the 8,081-foot mountain began rumbling. Evacuees have been housed in makeshift centers, typically schools and other government buildings.
Two California scientists argue in a leading scientific journal that the 2-degree Celsius target for limiting global warming should be scrapped because it is impractical and unachievable. David Victor and Charles Kennel, both from the University of California San Diego, wrote in Nature that just as human health is measured by factors other than temperature, such as blood pressure, heart rate and body mass, "a similar strategy is now needed for the planet." Several climate scientists around the world slammed the proposal, saying the arguments behind it were flawed. And since the 2-degree target is the only one governments have ever agreed to, some argued that scrapping it could impede further efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Governments have pledged to finalize a treaty to limit climate change by late 2015 at a summit in Paris.
The offspring of frogs airlifted off the Caribbean island of Montserrat in 2009 to save them from a deadly, invasive fungus have been returned to their historic habitat. The mountain chicken frogs (Leptodactylus fallax) are the national dish of Montserrat and nearby Dominica. They are so named because they reportedly taste like chicken and make a clucking noise in the rough terrain of the British territory. They were nearly wiped out by both overhunting and a chytrid fungus that has ravaged amphibian populations worldwide. After being bred in U.K. zoos from just two females, 51 frogs were returned to the island with GPS locators. Scientists say they are hopeful the frogs won't be eaten or die from the pathogen. "The fungus hasn't gone away, but frogs are surviving," said Ben Tapley, head of herpetology at the Zoological Society of London. "It could be because they are tiny populations. It could be because they are living in microclimates that are not ideal for the fungus. Or they could be developing immunity."
Findings that show Arctic sea ice helps remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere have some scientists concerned that its recent record melt could accelerate global warming. Danish researcher Dorte Haubjerg Sogaard says that while it has long been known that Earth's oceans are able to absorb huge amounts of CO2, sea ice was thought to be impenetrable to the greenhouse gas. But Sogaard and colleagues found that a combination of chemical and biological processes extract the gas from the atmosphere, sending the carbon to the ocean floor. She said the finding should be taken into account when predicting future CO2 accumulations.
Reindeer and other grazing animals in Norway have shown a sudden spike this fall in the amount of the radioactive isotope cesium-137 found in their bodies. Scientists at the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority say there has been a fivefold increase in the amount of contamination from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster than was measured just two years ago. Lesser amounts of the isotope were found in some of the country's sheep. Scientists point to a bumper crop of mushrooms this year as the reason for the increase. The mushrooms readily absorb the contamination in the ground as they grow, and are later eaten by reindeer and other grazers. Scientists say they are a little surprised by the magnitude of the increase, given that cesium-137 has a half-life of 30 years. The Chernobyl disaster happened nearly 30 years ago, meaning about half of the radioactivity should have decayed by this time.
- Extreme Temperatures: -93° F at Vostok, Antarctica; 122° F at Podor, Senegal
October 6, 2014 (for the week ending October 3)
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Earthquakes |
- Peru Quake Disaster: At least eight people were killed when a 4.9 magnitude quake wrecked homes and other buildings in Peru's southern village of Misca, near the popular Andean tourist destination of Cuzco.
- Earth movements were also felt in western Bolivia [M 4.9], the northern Netherlands [3.1], western Montana [3.6], north-central Oklahoma [4.2] and the Sierra Nevada range in central California [3.8].
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Tropical Cyclones |
- Typhoon Phanfone formed north of Guam, then threatened Japan's eastern Honshu Island late in the week. Tropical Storm Kammuri passed over the same region days earlier.
- Hurricane Rachel formed well to the west of Baja California.
At least 47 people perished around the summit of Japan's Mount Ontake volcano when the mountain erupted without warning during a busy hiking weekend. Dozens of others sustained injuries in the disaster, including people who were hit by flying stones and inhaled hot, poisonous fumes. But many of the hikers survived by taking refuge in mountaintop shelters. Volcanologists say the disaster was not caused by rising magma, but was instead due to what's called a phreatic eruption, in which steam is the main force. Ground water within the volcano boiled and built up pressure until it exploded as water vapor, launching ash and hot stones high into the air. Such a blast often occurs without warning. Despite the 12 seismometers positioned around the slopes of Mount Ontake, the only warning hikers had of the eruption was a thunderous explosion moments before the ash began billowing out of the crater.
New reports have found evidence for the first time that some extreme weather can be attributed to man-made global warming. Experts have long maintained that no single event, like a drought, heat wave or storm, could be linked to climate change. But a growing number now say their thinking has changed, thanks to better computer models. The Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society released on Sept. 29 looks at 22 studies on 2013 climate extremes. While scientists say they could not find a global warming link to events such as an early South Dakota blizzard, freak storms in Germany and a cold British spring, other weather extremes had clear fingerprints of climate change. By running multiple global climate models, five independent studies found that decades of burning fossil fuels have made heat waves like those that baked eastern Asia, Australia and New Zealand in 2013 far more likely. A Stanford study found greenhouse gas emissions now make rain-blocking ridges of high pressure three times more likely to bring drought to California.
Five leading palm oil producers announced they will stop expanding their plantations through deforestation, a move hailed by environmental groups. The five join other corporations, including Cargill, that had already agreed to stop. Palm oil is used in cooking and various products. It's among the consumer items that create the greatest ecological damage. Deforestation has endangered a third of all mammals in Indonesia, including orangutans. It's estimated that the record deforestation accounts for 85 percent of Indonesia's contribution to global warming. Palm oil deforestation in Malaysia ranks a close second.
Loss of habitats, hunting, fishing and climate change killed off more than half of the world's wildlife populations between 1970 and 2010, according to a new report by the World Wildlife Fund. The group's Living Planet Report 2014 also cautioned that stress from man-made exploitation of the environment is now 50 percent greater than nature can withstand. It points to wholesale felling of the world's forests, groundwater pumping, nitrogen pollution from fertilizers and greenhouse gas emissions as some of the main perils facing the planet. The worst wildlife decline was found among freshwater species, which plunged by 76 percent during the 40-year period. Wildlife on land and in the oceans dropped by 39 percent.
The cowbells ringing around the necks of Swiss cows could become a thing of the past following a study that finds the bells destroy bovine hearing and affect feeding habits. Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich found the bells create a noise level of 100 to 113 decibels basically equivalent to that of a chainsaw and far in excess of safety standards. Agricultural scientist Julia Johns told Schweiz am Sonntag that thousands of Swiss cows may have been made deaf by the bells. "We didn't need long university research to tell us that the bells are not beneficial to cows," says Lolita Morena from a Swiss animal protection group. She told the Swiss site The Local: "Farmers will just have to spend a bit more time finding their cows in bad weather, like shepherds do. It's difficult work ... but they chose it."
- Extreme Temperatures: -93° F at Vostok, Antarctica; 113° F at Mecca, Saudi Arabia
September 29, 2014 (for the week ending September 26)
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Earthquakes |
- Wellington and other southern areas of New Zealand's North Island were jolted by a 5.4-magnitude quake and several aftershocks.
- Earth movements were also felt in the far southern Philippines [M 5.2], Bali [4.8], western Greece [5.2], northwestern Argentina [6.2] and south-central Oklahoma [3.6].
- At least 13 people were killed and five others injured as Tropical Storm Fung-Wong hit the far northern Philippines. The storm later dumped up to 24 inches of rainfall over Taiwan, killing one person and bringing much of the island to a near standstill.
- Tropical Storm Polo passed well off Baja California, sparing the battered peninsula further damage and misery in the wake of Hurricane Odile.
Lava flowing from Hawaii's Kilauea volcano slowed after two weeks of movement that threatened one community and ignited a brush fire in an uninhabited area of the Big Island. The molten stream bypassed dozens of dwellings in Kaohe, but veered toward the much larger town of Pahoa, a former sugar plantation town with a population of about 1,000. Kilauea is one of the world's most active volcanoes, and its lava flow has been traced directly to the Earth's deep mantle.
The ice cap around the North Pole shrank to its sixth-lowest size on record on Sept. 17, reaching a minimum coverage of 1.94 million square miles. That's down slightly from last September, but not nearly as low as the record-setting minimum of 1.32 million square miles in 2012. While the famed Northwest Passage in Arctic Canada failed to become ice-free this summer, the Northern Sea Route opened with little ice along the shipping route off Siberia. In contrast, ice surrounding Antarctica has grown to its greatest coverage on record. This marks the third year in a row that sea-ice extent there has reached the greatest ever observed. The expansion is due to stronger hemispheric winds brought on by climate change, which shove the ice together around Antarctica rather than letting it drift northward and melt, as was more typical decades ago.
Fall's vibrant colors currently spreading across the forests of the Northern Hemisphere may come later and last longer in the future due to climate change. David Medvigy and colleagues at Princeton University made the conclusion after developing a model that organizes local tree data across a wide area. He points out that climate change will affect the fall foliage of various tree species in different ways. Medvigy says trees in New England are likely to respond to changes in climate far more than trees in Alaska. Writing in the journal Global Ecology and Biogeography, he says the paper birch, a popular foliage tree that is the state tree of New Hampshire, could change color one to three weeks later by the end of the century. Trees farther south could experience an even greater overall delay.
The Northern Hemisphere summer of 2014 was the hottest since record keeping began in 1880, according to the U.S. agency NOAA. While most highly populated areas escaped excessive heat, the global average temperature in the hottest month of August was 61.36 degrees Fahrenheit, breaking the previous record set in 1998. August was unusually hot around the Pacific and Indian oceans and in Africa, but cooler in parts of the United States, Europe and Australia. The world's oceans in August basically tied June for being the all-time hottest. August was the 354th consecutive month that temperatures worldwide were above the 20th-century average. The warming has been so pronounced for nearly 100 years that the last time the world set a monthly record for being the coldest was back in 1916.
Radar technicians at the U.S. National Weather Service office in St. Louis were briefly stumped by a massive butterfly-shaped radar echo that stretched across their screen on Sept. 19. Despite the weather being sunny and bright, the massive blob detected by radar indicated something was in the air from about Columbia, Mo., to Salem, Ill., a distance of nearly 200 miles. After consulting with experts by phone and online, meteorologist Laura Kanofsky and colleagues determined that the blob was actually a huge number of monarch butterflies. The insects have been in sharp decline for years due to climate change and pesticide use. The radar echo may mean the monarchs are rebounding as they migrate between their summer homes in Canada and their wintering grounds in western Mexico. Another good sign is that the head of Mexico's nature reserves says the first butterflies have arrived earlier than usual this year. By November, the monarchs settle in across mountaintop forests of Michoacan state.
- Extreme Temperatures: -92° F at South Pole, Antarctica; 116° F at Hafar Al-Batin, Saudi Arabia
September 22, 2014 (for the week ending September 19)
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Earthquakes |
- Sweden's strongest earthquake in a century [M4.7] was felt across Scandinavia, knocking items off shelves.
- Earth movements were also felt in metropolitan Tokyo [M5.6], Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands [M6.7], northwestern Mexico[4.9], Washington's Puget Sound [M4.0], and central Oklahoma [4.1].
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Tropical Cyclones |
- Hurricane Odile Ravages Baja California
Former Category-5 Hurricane Odile made a direct hit on the southern tip of Baja California, causing extensive damage around La Paz and the popular resort of Cabo San Lucas. High winds of over 100 mph left a trail of destruction. Odile later triggered flash flooding over a wide area of the Baja Peninsula and southwestern United States.
- Typhoon Kalmaegi Drenches Philippines, China and Vietnam: Typhoon Kalmaegi brought flash flooding to the far northern Philippines before later drenching parts of southern China and neighboring areas of Vietnam.
- Hurricane Polo was predicted to pass to the south of Baja California.
- Hurricane Eduoard churned in the mid-Atlantic.
The most active volcano in the Philippines began to spew massive globs of lava, which flowed down its slopes in what authorities have warned could lead to a far more violent eruption. Residents across Albay province, about 200 miles southeast of Manila, have been able to see the glowing lava emerging from Mount Mayon's 8,070-foot summit. The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology elevated the volcano's warning status to "critical" due to the accumulating lava and worrying tremors. The provincial governor ordered the evacuation of at least 12,000 people living within a 5-mile radius of the volcano. Mayon is known for its almost perfect cone shape, and has erupted about 50 times since modern record keeping began in 1616. A violent eruption of Mayon in 1814 killed more than 1,200 people.
Unprecedented drought parching Sao Paulo and many other areas of Brazil has been brought on by the drying up of what a leading climatologist calls the "flying rivers" of the Amazon. A combination of deforestation and climate change has reduced the role of the Amazon rainforest, which used to release billions of gallons of water vapor from trees into the the low-level winds. These moist breezes typically bring crucial rainfall to other parts of the country. But the flying rivers failed to arrive during January and February for the first time since 2010. A real-time deforestation detection system revealed that after declining for two years, the felling of the Amazon rainforest for agriculture purposes rose by 10% percent between August 2013 and July 2014.
A new study warns that humankind has now reached an evolutionary paradox--not evolving fast enough to adapt to the environmental changes it's causing while at the same time being unable to control the constantly evolving pests and diseases that threaten its survival. Writing in the online Science Express, a team of international scientists argues that new evolutionary thinking is necessary to address these challenges. "Evolutionary biology is often overlooked in the study of global challenges," said the lead author Scott Carroll of the University of California at Davis.
A pool of unusually warm water off Washington's Olympic Peninsula has sent the bulk of this season's sockeye salmon northward into Canada, leaving Puget Sound fishermen with nearly empty nets. This diversion could be the highest on record, according to the Pacific Salmon Commission. Ocean temperatures more than 5 degrees Fahrenheit above normal this summer are not directly linked to climate change, but are due to a long stretch of cool, windless and foggy conditions last winter. Since sockeye prefer cooler waters, all but a few of them swam north of Vancouver Island and often into Canadian nets.
The Japanese village made notorious for its dolphin slaughter in the award-winning film "The Cove" has begun its annual killing season of the marine mammals, according to the conservation group Sea Shepherd. The environmental activist group webcast live images of the hunt in Taiji Bay, southwest Japan, and provided text updates via social media. On Twitter, @CoveGuardians said: "First dolphin murder of the drive hunt season is complete as dead bodies are dragged to Taiji butcherhouse." While the slaughter has brought international condemnation, Japan argues the dolphins are not endangered and points to the much larger number of cows, pigs and sheep butchered for food around the world.
- Extreme Temperatures: -97° F at Vostok, Antarctica; 114° F at Adrar, Algeria.
September 15, 2014 (for the week ending September 12)
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Earthquakes |
- Five miners perished when a 3.5 magnitude quake caused part of a Bosnian mine to collapse. Rescuers dug for 80 hours to find the workers.
- At least 12 people were injured in a magnitude 4.4 quake that jolted southern Pakistan's Sindh province.
- Earth movements were also felt in Indonesia's northern Sulawesi Island [M6.2], Iceland [M5.4], the Dallas-Fort Worth area [2.4], and north-central Oklahoma [M3.9].
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Intense rainfall from weakening Hurricane Norbert caused severe flooding in parts of southwestern Baja California, then later inundated the Phoenix area with record precipitation. The Arizona city's greatest rainfall for a single day turned freeways into small lakes. At least two people died in the flooding. You can read more about the flooding in California and Arizona here and here.
- Tropical Storm Fengshen passed over the western Pacific.
A new survey of blue whales off the coast of California suggests that there are now about as many of the marine mammals in the region as there were before whaling ships began hunting them to near extinction more than a century ago. Blue whales are nearly 100 feet in length and weigh about 190 tons as adults, making them the largest animals on the planet. During the height of whaling in the 1930s, the population of the ocean giants ranging from the coast of Mexico to Alaska had dwindled to about 750. The new study reveals that there are now about 2,200 of the whales there. But the blue whale recovery is not nearly as impressive in other parts of the world. Scientists say the population off Chile is 10% to 20% of pre-whaling levels. The population in Antarctic waters is 1% of what it once was.
Scientists say they have found that Earth's tectonic plates are now moving faster than any other point in the last 2 billion years. Plate tectonics is the prevailing geologic process that shapes the planet. It triggers most of the world's largest earthquakes and many volcanic eruptions, along with building mountains and moving continents. While earlier research seemed to reveal that the massive tectonic plates are actually slowing down as Earth's core cools, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology geochemist Kent Condie and colleagues say they have evidence of faster plate movements. Writing in the journal Precambrian Research, the team says they looked at how often new mountain belts form when plates collide, and compared it to magnetic data from volcanic rocks. That allowed them to determine where the rocks formed and how quickly the continents had moved.
California's 6.0 magnitude Napa quake on August 24 forced large amounts of groundwater to the surface, filling dry creek beds and formerly trickling streams. At least one water agency agency said it was attempting to capture the newfound water to replenish supplies depleted by the state's protracted drought. The USGS says it has received reports of sudden water increases as much as twenty times above average in the region's creeks. One resident says he saw a fountain of water emerging in the middle of a stream during the hours after the Napa quake. USGS geologist Tom Holzer said the quake opened new cracks and fissures, allowing groundwater to find new channels to the surface.
Nicaraguan officials said they believed a large crater gouged out of the ground near Managua at the same time capital residents reported hearing a loud blast was created by a meteor crashing to Earth. They further speculated that the crater, measuring 40 feet in width and 16 feet in depth, was caused by a fragment of an asteroid that passed within 25,000 miles of Earth over New Zealand about the same time. NASA said it had serious concerns about both claims.
The door of opportunity to control global warming is closing, according to United Nations climate chief Christiana Figueres. Her warning coincided with two independent studies that indicate the recent pause in surface warming may be the last for generations. "Unless the world acts on climate change in a timely way, (Pacific Islands) are going to be hardest hit," she told Agence France-Presse. Meanwhile, a team of researchers who were examining 31 climate models concluded that if greenhouse gas emissions keep rising, the chance of another 10-year period with no significant surface temperature warming will drop to virtually zero after 3030. Scientists believe the current pause is due to excess heat being stored in the deep oceans.
- Extreme Temperatures: -92° F at Vostok, Antarctica; 118.9° F at Hafar Al-Batin, Saudi Arabia.
September 8, 2014 (for the week ending September 5)(no Earthweek for this week)
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Earthquakes |
- Aftershocks continued to rattle the area around Napa, following the destructive 6.0 magnitude quake in August 24.
- Other earth movements were felt in interior parts of Southern California [M3.7, M3.2], north-central Oklahoma [M3.7], interior Alaska [5.1], Lebanon's Bekka Valley [M4.1], the Greek Island of Milos [M5.6] and along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border [5.1].
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Tropical cyclones |
- Tropical Storm Dolly drenched a long stretch of Mexico's Gulf of Mexico coast with up to 10 inches of rainfall.
- Hurricane Norbert skirted the southern tip of Baja.
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Balmy Britain |
Until an unwelcome shift toward cooler and wetter weather occurred in late August, the United Kingdom has been experiencing its warmest year since records began in 1910. The British Met Office said that January through July was also the third-wettest period on the books. So far this century, not including 2014, seven of Britain's warmest years on record have all occurred since 2000.
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Man-made difference |
Earthquakes triggered by high-tech energy drilling, including injection wells, feel considerably different to people than tremors from natural causes. By comparing reports from the U.S. Geological Survey's "Did You Feel It" survey on the agency's website, geophysicist Susan Hough found that people report significant less shaking from man-made quakes than from natural tremors. She writes in the Bulletin of the Seismology Society of America that artificial quakes with the same force as natural quakes with the same force as natural quakes felt as if they had a magnitude .8 smaller on average. The study examined quakes in Oklahoma, Colorado, Arkansas, Texas and Ohio.
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Breeding Barrier |
Nature appears to be using shifts in migration as a way to keep subspecies of birds from interbreeding or even surviving if they do manage to pair up. University of British Columbia researchers Kira Delmore and Darren Irwin wanted to see what happens to the offspring of parents that migrate on entirely different routes. The team tagged two subspecies of Swainson's thrushes, which meet up in western Canada each summer. They found that the hybrid offspring of those birds migrate in a completely different direction from their parents.
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Greenhouse warriors |
The lowly but ubiquitous ant may be a powerful buffering influence on climate change, trapping carbon dioxide through a process scientists don't entirely understand. Arizona State University researcher Ronald Dorn says that ants he studied in the Southwest "weathered" minerals in sand to produce limestone, trapping and removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in the process. He said this happens 300 times more quickly than in sand left untouched by ants.
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Mobile Microbes |
New research reveals that each human family carries its own uniques set of germs, and that those microbes move with their hosts as they relocate to new homes. The Home Microbiome Project also found that thousands of types of bodily microbes are unique to each household and can be used to identify the family. Lead researcher Jack Gilbert from the University of Chicago mapped the microbes of seven families, including three in the process of moving. By doing gene sequencing of samples taken from the family members' feet, hands and noses, researchers identified over 21,000 distinct microbes.
- Extreme Temperatures: -102° F at Vostok, Antarctica; 120° F at Al Qaysumah, Saudi Arabia.
September 1, 2014 (for the week ending August 29)
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Earthquakes (not in U-T) |
- Napa Wine Country Hit by Damaging Temblor: The San Francisco Bay Area's strongest quake in 25 years caused about $1 billion in damage when it struck the southern Napa Valley well before dawn on August 24. The [magnitude-6.0] quake caused extensive damage to some casks and bottles of wine near the epicenter, just south of the city of Napa.
- Earthquakes were also felt in Hawaii [4.1], Peru [6.9] and Chile [6.9].
Torrential rainfall from developing Hurricane Cristobal killed at least five people across the Caribbean and halted air transportation in the Turks and Caicos Islands. The storm then attained hurricane strength and passed over the open waters of the Atlantic, midway between the U.S. eastern seaboard and Bermuda.
Scientists monitoring Hawaii's Kilauea volcano say a new flow of lava that emerged in late June is advancing toward homes in the Kaohe neighborhood. The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) says the new flow isn't an immediate threat to residents but could become one of it continues to surge during the next few weeks. Kilauea has been continuously erupting since 1983. Most lava flows have advanced toward the south, reaching the Pacific about 75% of the time.
The sudden appearance of a massive crack on the surface of northwestern Mexico has scientists scratching their heads and a road crew trying to bridge the new chasm. The 26-foot-deep crack stretches for nearly two-thirds of a mile near the Sonora state capital of Hermosillo. Civil protection officials believe an earthquake is responsible for the fissure, but University of Sonora geologists say a subterranean stream could have undermined the ground. They believe the stream was created when a levee built by local farmers sprang a leak.
Initial signs from the monarch butterfly's first stop on the fall migration southward to Mexico indicate the insect's population could be about to rebound after a devastating two years. The CBC reports that staff at Ontario's Point Pelee National Park say they have found more caterpillars this year, as well as male monarchs defending patches of milkweed. Monarchs need that once-ubiquitous plant to breed and feed. "We're definitely seeing more monarchs fluttering around the park this year than we did at the same time last year; so that's encouraging for all of us." said park interpreter Sarah Rupert. Chip Taylor, director of Monarch Watch, says that after an all-time low population last hear, the number of monarchs could rise by 30% to 40% this fall.
Favorable weather during spring and most of this summer has allowed Norway's commercial whaling ships to slaughter more of the marine mammals that they have since the country resumed its whale hunt during 1993, in violation of a worldwide moratorium. While Japan kills whales under the guise of research, Norway and Iceland are the world's only two nations that conduct commercical hunts.
At least 729 whales have been harpooned by Norwegian ships so far this summer, up from the 590 rorqual whales slaughtered last year. Greenpeace says Norway's hunt will eventually end as demand for whale meat continues to wane. The delicacy has already become less popular in Norway as well as in Japan, where storehouses are flooded with surplus meat from the country's "research" whaling.
City living can be a challenge for many species of wildlife, but at least one type of spider appears to grow larger and have better success reproducing in crowded urban settings. A team from the University of Sydney made the discovery by observing golden orb-weaving spiders, which are native to the rural landscapes of southeastern Australia. One theory is that head stored in buildings, roadways and cornet, or the urban heat island effect, has led to the increased growth of the spiders.
- Extreme Temperatures: -77° F at Vostok, Antarctica; 119° F at Al Qaysumah, Saudi Arabia.
August 25, 2014 (for the week ending August 22)
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Earthquakes |
- Western Iran Quake Injures Hundreds, Wrecks Buildings: At least 250 people were injured when a 6.2 magnitude temblor struck western Iran before dawn on Monday, near the border with Iraq. The relatively shallow quake occurred at only about 6 miles below the surface at 4:30 a.m. local time, according to the USGS.
- Earth movements were also felt in the India-Myanmar border region [M 4.9], far northern India [6.2], south-central China's Sichuan province [5.0 and 5.1], the Southern California resort of Big Bear [3.7] and central Oklahoma [3.4].
Swarms of tremors from one of Iceland's largest volcanic systems prompted officials to close roads and alert aviation interests of the potential for a sudden eruption. A 2010 eruption of the country's Eyjafjallajokull volcano disrupted global air travel.
Geologists say the ongoing tremors at Bardarbunga could be caused by magma detected between 2 and 4 miles beneath the surface. But there has been no evidence magma is rising toward the surface. Barbarbunga and neighboring volcanoes are blanketed by the massive Vatnajokull Glacier.
An eruption would cause a rapid melt of that glacier, sending a surge of floodwater rushing toward the ocean. It would also create massive plumes of the kind of fine ash that threatened aircraft engines during the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull four years ago.
Tropical Storm Lowell churned the open Pacific well off the coast of Baja California after Karina briefly attained Hurricane force in the same area. Karina wandered westward toward Hawaii, then eventually lost force over cooler Pacific waters.
Health officials say that a promising vaccine is in development for a painful mosquito-borne disease that has been spreading across the Americas since last December. Chikungunya is seldom fatal, but does cause rashes, fever and severe joint pain that can linger for years in some cases. The first U.S. infections were reported in South Florida last month. Writing in the medical journal The Lancet, National Institutes of Health researchers say the new vaccine triggered an impressive immune response in all 25 adult volunteers who took part. There were also no significant side effects. The vaccine is now slated to go into Phase II trials.
Many thousands of birds are said to have caught fire in mid-air above a massive solar-thermal plant near the California-Nevada Border since it began operating in February. Workers at the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System call the dying birds "streamers," because of the trail of smoke that leave behind after igniting.
Federal investigators say they counted an average of one bird catching fire every two minutes during their survey. The $2.2 billion plant consists of three towers surrounded by an array of more than 300,000 mirrors, which some pilots say nearly blinded them as they flew past. The California chapter of the Audubon Society call the deaths "alarming," and one of the three companies behind the plant, NRG Solar, said it is taking the issue "very seriously." Federal wildlife officials call the plant a "mega-trap" because its bright light attracts insect-eating birds that get lured to a fiery death. Plant operators say they are looking at ways to frighten the birds away or redirect them from the plant's glaring danger.
In European lore, it's widely alleged that magpies are the bandits of the bird world due to their reputation of making off with shiny objects, such as jewelry. But psychologists at the University of Exeter's Center for Research in Animal Behavior say they have busted that myth with proof the birds are actually afraid of new and unfamiliar objects. By watching wild magpies on the grounds of the university, lead researcher Toni Shephard says that instead of finding evidence of a fascination with shiny objects by magpies, the birds exhibit neophobia, or fear of new things. "We suggest that humans notice when magpies occasionally pick up shiny objects because they believe the birds find them attractive, while it goes unnoticed when magpies interact with less eye-catching items." writes Shepard in the journal Animal Cognition.
A powerful ozone-depleting chemical is still making its way into the atmosphere from an unknown source decades after it was banned worldwide. Carbon tetrachlorite (CCl4) was once used in dry cleaning and some fire extinguishers before it and other chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) responsible for the ozone hole over Antarctica became regulated in 1987 under the Montreal Protocol.
All countries that signed that agreement say they had no CCl4 emissions between 2007 and 2012. But NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center scientist Qing Liang says that instead of the level of CCl4 disappearing at the predicted rate of 4% per year, it's declining at 1% annually, meaning it is still being released into the atmosphere. "It is now apparent there are either unidentified industrial leakages, large emissions from contaminated sites or unknown CCl4 sources," Liang said.
- Extreme Temperatures: -113° F at Vostok, Antarctica; 122° F at Hafar Al-Batin, Saudi Arabia.
August 18, 2014 (for the week ending August 15)
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Earthquakes |
- Ecuador Earthquake Kills Four: Three people were killed on Tuesday afternoon and six others were injured by a landslide triggered by a sharp quake just northeast of the Ecuadoran capital of Quito. The 5.1 magnitude temblor caused tall buildings to sway, sending capital residents rushing into the streets.The U.S. Geological Survey said the relatively shallow quake was centered 14 miles northeast of Quito at a depth of about 5 miles.
- Other earth movements were felt in Northern Japan [M6.0], Southern New Zealand [3.8], central Turkey [M4.0], Puerto Rico [4.6], southwestern Mexico [M5.8], and southwestern Alberta [4.3].
Southern Peru's Sabancaya volcano exploded with a plume of ash that soared nearly two miles into the Andean sky. The Peruvian Geophysical Institute said the explosion may have been linked to recent seismic tremors measured in the area.
- High winds and flash flooding from Typhoon Halong killed at least 10 people and injured nearly 100 others as the storm raked southern Japan. But a possible tornado from one of Halong's outer bands is believed responsible for violent winds that destroyed more than 460 buildings in Tochigi prefecture, north of Tokyo.
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- Hawaii escaped major damage from hurricanes Iselle and Julio. Iselle brought heavy rains, mainly to the Big Island, while Julio remained far out to sea from the state.
- Super Typhoon Genevieve passed over the open waters of the central Pacific.
The Ebola virus that has killed more than 1,000 people in West Africa has also devastated the continent's wild ape population. Ecologist Peter Walsh with the University of Cambridge says he observed 90 to 95 percent of the gorillas he was studying disappear in a Congolese sanctuary during two Ebola outbreaks earlier this century. He tells the Voice of America that Ebola, and human diseases being introduced into the wild population, are joining the bush meat trade as the primary reasons the apes are vanishing.
One of Norway's hottest summers on record has caused overheated reindeer to take refuge in a highway tunnel, located in the far north of the country. The invasion came as temperatures soared to 72 degrees Fahrenheit at the 1.4-mile-long Stallogargo tunnel, located about 250 miles north of the Arctic Circle and near the Nordic outpost of Hammerfest. Temperatures there peaked at 84 degrees earlier this summer. "Our maintenance crew attempted to chase the reindeer out of the tunnel, but it's hopeless; after a few hours they're back," highway official Tor Inge Hellander told the Finnmark Dagblad daily.
Florida researchers say they have found a possible link between the strength and frequency of tornadoes in the United States and the magnitude of climate change. Writing in the journal Climate Dynamics, Florida State geography professor James Elsner says that while the chance of a tornado forming each day has gone down under global warming, when twisters do form on a given day, there are more of them. Elsner points out that there were 187 days with tornadoes during 1971, and only 79 in 2013. But he says that a closer look at the data shows a greater severity in tornadic storms on a given day than before climate change accelerated under the influence of greenhouse gas emissions in the late 20th century. Elsner adds that at least "Tornado Alley" doesn't appear to be growing in size.
The depths of the late-winter snowpack on sea ice in the Arctic has thinned considerably over the past 70 years, according to a new University of Washington-NASA study. Writing for the Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, lead author Melinda Webster says the conclusion was made after combining data collected by ice buoys and NASA aircraft with historical records gathered by Soviet scientists from the 1950s through the early 1990s. Those measurements show the snowpack has thinned from 14 inches to 9 inches in the western Arctic and from 13 inches to 6 inches in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, north and west of Alaska.
- Extreme Temperatures: -98° F at Vostok, Antarctica; 117° F at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
August 11, 2014 (for the week ending August 8)
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Earthquakes |
- Chinese Earthquake Disaster Claims Nearly 400 Lives: Almost 600 people perished when China's Yunnan province was rocked by a powerful magnitude 6.1 temblor that wrecked thousands of homes. About 2,400 others were injured.
- At least six people died after a magnitude-5.6 earthquake hit near the Algerian capital on Aug. 1.
- South African Quake Kills 1 and Wrecks Homes: A rare and powerful magnitude 5.3 South African quake damaged about 400 homes and killed one person beneath a collapsed wall.
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Hurricanes and Tropical Storms |
- South Korea Swamped by Tropical Storm Nakri: At least 10 people were killed when Tropical Storm Nakri swamped South Korea. Seven of the victims perished when their car was swept away by floodwaters. Nakri attained tropical storm force for only a few hours, and had weakened to a depression before it made landfall Sunday on the country's Yellow Sea coast.
- Bertha Drenches Caribbean Before Becoming a Hurricane:
Areas of the Caribbean and parts of Bermuda and the Turks and Caicos were buffeted by Tropical Storm Bertha during Saturday and Sunday. The storm formed just east of the Windward Islands, then took aim on Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, where it later brought flash flooding. More than 1,200 lightning strikes that occurred around Puerto Rico during Saturday afternoon alone, triggering power failures. Bertha briefly attained hurricane force over the open Atlantic north of the Bahamas, then lost force over cooler waters to the north.
- Hurricane Iselle First of Two Storms to Menace Hawaii:
Former Category-4 Hurricane Iselle was barreling across the Pacific toward the Big Island of Hawaii on Thursday, packing winds of over 80 mph. Heavy rainfall was predicted for much of southern Hawaii as Iselle passed over the island. Between 5 and 8 inches of rain were predicted for some areas. Winds in the capital of Honolulu, more than 200 miles to the northwest of Iselle's predicted path, were expected to reach 40 to 50 mph, with gusts as high as 65 mph. Hurricane Julio was approaching Hawaii from the southeast, but was expected to curve northward and pass to the east of the state over open waters of the Pacific.
- Typhoon Halong hit southern Japan late in the week.
- Former Tropical Storm Genevieve, which had lost force southeast of Hawaii during the previous week, regenerated into a super typhoon as it reached the western Pacific.
The first eruption of southern Japan's Mount Shindake in 34 years sent a plume of ash rising over the small island of Kuchino-Erabu. A single blast sent 33 of the island's 135 full-time residents into emergency shelters. The eruption lasted about 10 minutes and caused a cloud of superheated ash and vapor to cascade down the volcano's flanks.
Trade winds blowing across the equatorial Pacific are at their strongest since records began in the 1860s, and scientists say a warmer Atlantic is the cause. Those winds have also become about 50 percent more powerful since the late 1990s. Earlier research pointed to the turbocharged Pacific winds as the source of the seeming pause in global warming. The stronger trades are thought to be churning the heat from atmospheric warming into the deep Pacific waters, masking the actual magnitude of climate change. Writing in the journal Nature Climate Change, researchers from the University of New South Wales say that a thermal lift from a warmer Atlantic is sending parcels of air high in the atmosphere, where they are carried by upper-air winds to the eastern Pacific. There, the parcels give the trade winds an extra boost as they cool while descending.
Hundreds of swimmers have rushed to a mysterious new lake discovered in mid-July by North African shepherds in Tunisia's arid Gafsa region. Known as Gafsa Beach, or Lac de Gafsa, it quickly inspired its own Facebook page even though authorities have warned that its water could be contaminated with radioactivity or other hazards. Geologists say the lake could have been formed by seismic activity or a disruption in the water table that caused groundwater to rise to the surface. Despite the warnings, Lac de Gafsa has tall cliffs that locals say are perfect to dive from into the deep water. But one discouraging development is that the color of the lake has changed from a clear turquoise to a murky green due to algae growth since it was first discovered.
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Migration source |
Some might think it's an issue akin to asking, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" But scientists say they have discovered that birds migrate from north to south rather than the other way around. It was earlier thought that birds split their time between North America and the tropics of South America to avoid competition for food and mating partners while in warmer climates. But new research points to the birds moving from the northern climates to avoid harsh winters. Writing in the journal PNAS, lead author Ben Winger of the University of Chicago says his colleagues studied the evolutionary history and family trees of 823 types of American songbirds. They found that most migrating species come from ancestors that originated in a temperate climate rather than in the tropics.
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Monkey men |
The Indian government has hired 40 humans to imitate monkeys and shoo away pesky primates, which frequently lay siege to Parliament House in New Delhi. Monkeys are revered by Hindus because of their association with the monkey god Hanuman, but they become a problem for the human population as they run free through many Indian cities. Large groups of macaques around the capital have attacked politicians and destroyed official documents. The practice of driving the marauding monkeys off with their larger langur cousins, accompanied by handlers, was outlawed in late 2012, when it became illegal to keep the langurs in captivity. Now, dozens of "monkey wallahs," which roughly translates to "monkey men," grunt, hoot and screech in their best langur impersonations to scare off the macaques.
- Extreme Temperatures: -100° F at Vostok, Antarctica; 123° F at Ouargla, Algeria.
August 4, 2014 (for the week ending August 1)
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Earthquakes |
- Gulf of Alaska Quake Cuts Telecom Cable: A powerful undersea off the Alaska Panhandle severed a key fiber-optic line early on July 25, leaving southeastern Alaska without cellphone and Internet service for nearly 24 hours. The 5.9 magnitude shaking awakened residents in the capital of Juneau and other panhandle communities when it struck at 2:54 a.m. local time.
- Another moderately strong magnitude 5.3 quake on July 25 wrecked two schools and other buildings in the southeastern Philippine province of Southern Leyte.
- Earth movements were also felt in southern Mexico [M 6.3], India's Andaman Islands [5.5], the southern Persian Gulf region[5.5], northern Oklahoma [4.3] and southwestern Montana[3.6].
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Tropical cyclones |
- Tropical Storm Genevieve formed briefly between Hawaii and Mexico's Baja California peninsula.
- ropical Storm Halong brought heavy rain to Guam before reaching typhoon force over the open Pacific.
- Hernan attained hurricane force for only a few hours during its two-day life span in the eastern Pacific.
Earth may be on the verge of the planet's sixth mass extinction, which scientists say would be caused this time by human activities rather than geological transformations or catastrophic asteroid strikes. Researchers say that despite biodiversity being the highest in Earth's 3.5 billion years of evolutional trial and error, more than 320 land animals have become extinct since 1500. Whether wiped out by hunting, loss of habitat or pollution, the unprecedented loss of animal species is the highest since humans emerged and grew to dominate the planet. Writing in the journal Science, lead author and Stanford biologist Rodolfo Dirzo estimates that between 16 and 33 percent of all species are globally threatened or endangered.
Three large and mysterious holes have appeared in and around Siberia's Yamal region, leaving some officials and geologists scratching their heads over what caused them.
The formations, in a remote region that locals refer to as the "end of the world," appear to be so deep that it is difficult to see the bottoms. Debris is piled up around the rim of each hole, indicating the ground "popped" open.
Some geologists say the holes, which are as large as 130 feet in diameter, are the results of underground ice melting in the permafrost because of recent climate change, releasing gas that built up pressure so high that it broke through to the surface.
"At some point, an explosion took place without any flame," said Vasily Bogoyavlensky, deputy director of the Oil and Gas Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The New Zealand government has approved a massive airdrop of poison pellets to kill rats and short-tailed weasels that threaten the country's native wildlife population. The controversial biodegradable poison 1080 will be spread across nearly 4,000 square miles of forests to kill the pests, which officials say are in "biblical proportions".
Opponents argue there is little proof the poisoning is necessary, and that the use of 1080 has been found to kill endangered kea birds. But Conservation Minister Nick Smith said the lives of millions of kiwi, kaka and kea birds are at stake. "Our kiwi will not exist in the wild for our grandchildren if we do not act now," Smith said. He told Radio New Zealand that the eradication of 30 million rats and about 25,000 weasels can't be accomplished with trapping alone. Those predators, or stoats, were introduced by European settlers in the 19th century.
Human activities have been linked to a steady increase of the most abundant greenhouse gas, water vapor, during the past 30 years. Researchers at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science and colleagues compared the increase in upper-atmospheric moisture during that period with climate model predictions. They determined that rising water vapor in the upper troposphere cannot be explained by natural causes, such as volcanoes or changes in solar radiation. But they found it can be attributed to increases in other greenhouse gases, like CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels. The increased moisture 3 to 7 miles above the surface causes the air to absorb even more heat, and is predicted to amplify global warming.
A fungus spread by an invasive beetle that hitchhiked to America in cargo from Southeast Asia is killing trees across the everglades. Since laurel wilt was first detected along Miami's western boundary with the wetlands in 2011, the blight has killed swamp bay trees in more than 300,000 acres of the Everglades. Scientists say they don't know of any way to prevent it from spreading. The fungus has also threatened avocado crops and redbay trees elsewhere in Florida and the Southeast since 2002. The first redbay ambrosia beetle carrying the fungus is believed to have arrived in a shipment of wood packing material from half a world away.
- Extreme Temperatures: -101° F at Vostok, Antarctica; 121° F at Ouargla, Algeria.
July 28, 2014 (for the week ending July 25)
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Earthquakes |
- Northeast Egypt Rattled by Two Quakes: Cairo and the Egyptian seaport city of Suez were jolted by two unusually strong earthquakes within a five-day period. The Egyptian Seismology research center said the first quake registered a magnitude of 4.2 about 18 miles northwest of Suez. A 4.7 magnitude tremor later struck beneath the Red Sea, about 18 miles to the south of the port.
- Earth movements were also felt in Far East Russia's Kuril Islands [M6.2], the Yukon-Alaska border area [6.0] and south-central Kansas [3.0].
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Tropical cyclones |
- Typhoon Rammasun Lashes South China and Vietnam: Typhoon Rammasun slammed into far southern China's island province of Hainan and neighboring Guangdong, killing at least 56 people as the strongest such storm to arrive there in 40 years. Those fatalities were in addition to the 94 people who perished in the storm's rampage across the Philippines a few days earlier. Officials in Hanoi said Rammasun later triggered flooding that destroyed crops and killed 11 people as it dissipated across far northern Vietnam.
- Taiwan Raked by Typhoon Matmo:
Taiwan and neighboring parts of mainland China were lashed by high winds and torrential rainfall from Typhoon Matmo.
- Tropical Storm Wali formed briefly to the southeast of Hawaii.
The March 2011 temblor that triggered a tsunami disaster in Japan may have also stirred the country's Mount Fuji to a higher risk of eruption. Studies by scientists at France's Institute of Earth Sciences and the Institute of Global Physics in Paris say they and their Japanese colleagues found that Fuji could now produce an eruption that would rival the last in 1707. Explosions at that time blanketed vast swaths of Japan in ash and caused untold damage at a time when the country was far less populated. The iconic volcano lies only 60 miles southwest of Tokyo, meaning an eruption today could bring catastrophic damage and cripple much of the nation's economy. "Our work does not say that the volcano will start erupting, but it does show that it's in a critical state," said lead researcher Florent Brenguier.
A green sea turtle has been tracked migrating 2,472 miles from the Chagos Islands of the central Indian Ocean to the coast of Somalia, in East Africa. It's s believed to be the longest green sea turtle migration ever recorded. Scientists from Swansea University in Wales made the discovery after attaching tags to the backs of eight of the turtles to determine if any new protected areas should be established to preserve the endangered species. Seven of the eight migrated to seagrass foraging areas outside a protected boundary around the Chagos Islands.
An extremely painful but rarely fatal viral disease native to Africa has infected two people through local mosquito bites in South Florida. Chikungunya was probably brought to the United States by travelers who became infected abroad and were subsequently bitten by Florida mosquitoes, which transmitted it to the other victims. The virus has spread rapidly across the Caribbean and Central America since it was first detected in the Western Hemisphere last December. The Dominican Republic, Haiti, Guadeloupe and Martinique have been especially hard-hit. Because two species of mosquito that can carry the virus are common across a wide area of the United States, some doctors warn Chikungunya could spread along the Gulf Coast later this summer or next year. The virus causes rash, fever and severe joint pain that can linger for years in some cases. There is no cure, but the pain can be treated. Health officials caution that the only way to combat the virus is to control the mosquito population.
An Alaskan fisherman pulled in an extremely rare blue-colored red king crab as part of his catch off Nome, on July 4. The startling genetic mutation Frank MacFarland found in one of his crab pots has since thrilled residents and fisheries professionals alike. "It's kind of the color of a forget-me-not," said Norton Sound Seafood Center assistant manager Justin Noffsker, referring to the vivid blue of Alaska's state flower. He and state biologist Scott Kent told the Alaska Dispatch News that they have never before seen such a variation of their usual catch. MacFarland says he plans to have his blue crab mounted.
The U.N.'s weather agency says the baseline for what is considered "normal" in weather needs to be adjusted to account for atmospheric shifts caused by global warming. A press release from the agency urges weather agencies to now use the 1981-2010 climate baseline for predicting temperatures and rainfall, and for recommending crop planting times.
- Extreme Temperatures: -92° F at South Pole, Antarctica; 121° F at Death Valley, California.
July 21, 2014 (for the week ending July 18)
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Earthquakes |
- Offshore Japan Quake Generates Small Tsunami: A wide area of northeastern Japan was jolted by a powerful offshore earthquake, centered near where a March 2011 temblor unleashed a titanic tsunami. A minor tsunami of less than 8 inches in height was generated by the 6.8 magnitude quake on July 12. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake struck about 80 miles east south-east of the city of Namie at 4:22 am local time.
- Earth movements were also felt in the southern Philippines [M 6.1], Indonesia's Sulawesi Island [4.8], northern Chile [6.1], Britain's Channel Islands [4.8], Costa Rica [4.2], central Oklahoma [4.3] and southern parts of the San Francisco Bay Area [3.4].
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Tropical cyclones |
- Typhoon Rammasun The strongest typhoon to strike the Philippines this year tore through the main island of Luzon on Wednesday, killing at least 40 people, but narrowly missing the capital of Manila. The coconut-growing province of Quezon, south of the capital, was said to have borne the brunt of Category 3 Typhoon Rammasun's wind gusts of up to 115 mph.
Molten lava flows increased in volume at Indonesia's Mount Sinabung volcano, along with discharges of ash clouds that fell over nearby farmland and villages. Ongoing volcanic activity during the past year has kept thousands from their homes. Officials say that as many as 10,447 people, or 3,143 families, are housed in 23 evacuation shelters, while another 3,683 evacuees live in houses provided by the government's disaster agency. A blast from Sinabung in February killed at least 16 people.
U.S. scientists have directly linked a decline in fall and winter rainfall across southwestern Australia to greenhouse gas emissions by using a new high-resolution climate model. The finding came after NOAA researchers conducted several climate simulations that looked at long-term changes in rainfall for various regions of the world. "This new high-resolution climate model is able to simulate regional-scale precipitation with considerably improved accuracy compared to previous generation models," said Tom Delworth, a research scientist at NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. The model simulated both natural and man-made climate influences. Since no natural variations could be linked to the Australian drying, the scientists concluded the trend is due to human activity. Southern Australia's rainfall began declining around 1970 and has since accelerated. The model projects a continued decline in rainfall there for the rest of the 21st century.
Four more elephants have been poisoned with cyanide by poachers in Zimbabwe, this time in the country's Zambezi National Park. More than 100 of the jumbos died in convulsions from the poison last September at Hwange National Park, the country's largest. Some of the 14 people arrested for the slaughter were given sentences of up to 16 years in prison and fined. Authorities say a well-coordinated poaching syndicate, targeting the animals' tusks, laced water and salt licks with the poison at main drinking sites in the park. While elephant populations have dropped sharply across many parts of Africa as poaching activity has accelerated in recent years, Zimbabwe still has one of the largest surviving populations.
Weather agencies around the world are backing off on their forecasts of a strong El Niño in the Pacific this year. The U.S. Climate Prediction Center says that while there is an 80 percent chance El Niño will take hold this year, forecasters say it will be only "weak to moderate" at its peak. Australia's Bureau of Meteorology also said that it is "increasingly unlikely to be a strong event." Officials in Peru, where the phenomenon got its name, say water temperatures off the coast peaked in June, but have since retreated and are likely to return to normal by August. Many had hoped a return of El Niño could help end a parching drought in California and the southwestern United States.
A fish with a reputation for being intelligent and exhibiting complex behavior has been found to have a memory that can last up to 12 days. Scientists from Canada's MacEwan University decided to study the notoriously aggressive African cichlid fish, which are popular with aquarium owners. They trained the fish to go to one end of a tank for food, then let them rest elsewhere for 12 days. Explaining their study at the Society for Experimental Biology's annual meeting, the researchers said that after the fish were returned to the tank, they spent more time in the area where they remembered being fed. The fish also remembered the location of the food when it was switched to the other end of the tank. "There are many anecdotes about how smart these fish are. Some people even believe that their cichlids watch television with them," lead scientist Trevor Hamilton told the BBC. Cichlids have a varied diet in the wild, which includes snails, small fish, insects and plants. It's thought the fish learn to associate certain locations with their favorite foods.
- Extreme Temperatures: -106° F at Vostok, Antarctica; 126° F at Death Valley, California.
July 14, 2014 (for the week ending July 11)
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Earthquakes |
- Southern Mexico Quake Kills Four: A 6.9-magnitude temblor centered near the Mexico-Guatemala border killed five people and damaged about 9,000 homes in the Mexican state of Chiapas. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake hit at 6:23 a.m. local time on the Pacific Coast 1 mile north-northeast of Puerto Madero. The quake also triggered landslides that blocked roads and knocked down utility poles.
- Earth movements were also felt in northern Japan's Hokkaido Island [M 5.5], western Sumatra [6.0], coastal Lebanon [4.1], the Scottish Highlands [3.0], New York's Hudson Valley [2.5] and around the Southern California resort of Big Bear [4.6].
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Tropical cyclones |
- Typhoon Neoguri Lashes Southern Japan:
Three people were killed when powerful Typhoon Neoguri lashed Japan's southern islands, including Okinawa with storm surges and powerful winds. The storm later drenched a long stretch of the main Japanese islands of Kyushu and Honshu.
- Tropical Storm Fausto churned a remote part of the eastern Pacific.
The low-lying Pacific nation of Kiribati has purchased 8 square miles of land in Fiji, about 1,200 miles away, in the event its population of 103,000 needs to be relocated because of rising sea level. Other island nations that face the same threat are considering similar purchases abroad. Kiribati is said to already be suffering some effects of rising sea level, including the contamination of fresh water supplies, the destruction of crops and buildings and the swamping of an entire island.
Radioactive contamination from Japan's 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster will fall by more than half by 2021 in areas now deemed uninhabitable, according to government estimates. The Cabinet Office said decontamination efforts being undertaken will bring radiation exposure down from the current annual level of more than 50 millisieverts to 20 millisieverts seven years from now. An annual reading of 20 millisieverts or less is needed for the disaster zone's evacuation advisory to be lifted. All residents within a 12- to 19-mile radius of the Fukushima Daiichi plant were forced to evacuate after the Japan earthquake and tsunami of March 2011 caused three of the plant's reactors to melt down.
Researchers studying chimpanzees in Uganda have translated gestures the primates use to communicate. Scientists from Scotland's University of St. Andrews found that the meaning of each movement was the same, regardless of which ape made it. While a captive chimp called "Washoe" was able to learn about 350 words of American Sign Language from humans in Nevada during the late 1960s, the Uganda study uncovered the vocabulary of the primates' native language. Researchers decoded 66 gestures that can be used individually or strung together to create more complex meanings. They found that when a mother shows the sole of her foot to her baby, she means "climb on me." When a chimp touches the arm of another, it means "scratch me."
It seems that some species of fish just don't have the heart to endure a warming climate. A New Zealand scientist says that climate change could be a leading factor in heart failure for some fish because the creatures aren't able to maintain an optimal body temperature in the warmer waters. The University of Auckland study found that when three fish species from various environments were exposed to warmer water, their hearts failed to function as temperatures increased. The findings could have implications for the world's food supply.
A new Cornell University study found that the dramatic increase in central Oklahoma earthquakes since 2009 is likely due to wastewater injection, or fracking, below the surface at just a few wells. Lead researcher Katie Keranen says that it would be possible to expand shale gas and other hydrocarbon extraction without triggering so many tremors if the industry adhered to a uniform set of standards. The study found that as the increased subsurface pressure from the wells expands, it increases the probability that it will encounter a larger fault and trigger stronger quakes.
- Extreme Temperatures: -109° F at Vostok, Antarctica; 126° F at Hafar Al Batin, Saudi Arabia.
July 7, 2014 (for the week ending July 4)
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Earthquakes |
- A wide area of the southwestern United States was rocked by an unusually strong, magnitude 5.2 quake centered near the southern Arizona-New Mexico border. Buildings near the epicenter sustained cracks.
- Earth movements were also felt in south-central Alaska [M4.4] and eastern Greece [4.7].
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Tropical cyclones |
- Hurricane Arthur Becomes Atlantic Season's First:
Hurricane Arthur became the first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season before skirting the U.S. Atlantic seaboard over the Fourth of July holiday. It was predicted to later soak the Canadian Maritimes.
- Tropical storms Douglas and Elida passed over the open waters off Mexico's Pacific coast.
Indonesia's Mount Sinabung volcano spewed ash high above Sumatra in its first major eruption since a blast in February killed at least 16 people. Almost 15,000 people have been living in 28 shelters, many for almost a year, due to ongoing activity. Mount Sinabung surprised scientists in September 2010 by erupting suddenly for the first time in 400 years. Scientists failed to notice signs of rising magma prior to the blasts.
The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has become the most deadly since the first case of the disease was recorded in 1976. The World Health Organization says at least 467 of the 759 people infected since last December have died. The charity Doctors Without Borders says the outbreak is "totally out of control" and the group doesn't have the resources to care for the growing number of infected people. It notes there was a 17 percent rise in the number of deaths within the span of only a week.
"The reality is clear that the epidemic is now in a second wave," said Bart Janssens, the director of operations for the medical group in Brussels. The spread of the hemorrhagic disease across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone is occurring in some of the world's poorest nations.
Almost all of the world's ocean surfaces are littered with plastic, mainly household items like bags, food and beverage containers, kitchen utensils and toys, a new study finds.
But researchers from Spain's University of Cadiz found far less of the man-made waste on the ocean surface than expected. "Ocean currents carry plastic objects (that) split into smaller and smaller fragments due to solar radiation," said researcher Andrés Cósear. "Those little pieces of plastic, known as microplastics, can last hundreds of years and were detected in 88 percent of the ocean surface sampled."
The study estimates that the oceans contain between 7,000 and 35,000 tons of floating plastic, but scientists had expected to find evidence of 100 times that amount. Cósear says that the missing plastic may have accumulated in the deep ocean or become attached to marine plants and animals in a process dubbed "biofouling."
A Kenya-based wildlife conservancy launched a project aimed at protecting some of humankind's closest relatives from a kind of enslavement. The Project to End Great Ape Slavery (PEGAS) says the practice of "brutally capturing" and selling wild apes threatens some species with extinction. The group said that great apes are in high demand at safari parks and zoos, and from private collectors, across the Middle East and East Asia.
Wildlife campaigners say they are outraged by the U.K. government's plans to capture the first wild beavers to be see in the English Countryside in 500 years. Beavers were hunted to extinction during the reign of Henry VIII in the 16th century. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs says it plans to capture and "re-home" the toothy animals and is looking for a zoo or wildlife sanctuary to take them in. But wildlife consultant Derek Gow told the Daily Mail: "This will be the first time in history that we have exterminated a native mammal twice, setting an extraordinary historical precedent."
- Extreme Temperatures: -106° F at Vostok, Antarctica; 125° F at Death Valley, California.
June 30, 2014 (for the week ending June 27)
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Earthquakes |
- Aleutian Island Temblor Pumps Up Small Tsunami:
A powerful earthquake rang the planet like a bell on Monday from an epicenter in a remote stretch of Alaska's Aleutian Islands, seismologists said. The 7.9 magnitude temblor generated a roughly 7.5-inch tsunami that washed onto Amchitka Island, part of the Aleutian chain. The entire population of Adak, about 200 miles to the east of the epicenter, evacuated to an emergency shelter on higher ground after water suddenly began to drain out of their bay. The director of the Alaska Earthquake Center said his staff felt the quake in Fairbanks, more than 1,500 miles from the epicenter.
- Other earth movements were felt in central New Zealand [M4.9], eastern Taiwan [4.4], northern Philippines [5.7], western India's Gujarat state [3.6] and Oklahoma [4.3].
A Pennsylvania-based researcher suggests that building huge walls across the American landscaper could end the threat of major tornado outbreaks in Tornado Alley.
Writing in the International Journal of Modern Physics B, Temple University's Rongjia Tao says the objective is to block the northward flow of low-level winds across the Plains with walls 1,000 feet tall. He said that would cut off one of the necessary ingredients for tornado outbreaks without blocking moisture for needed rain. He points to east-west mountain ranges in China that do the same thing, along with small-scale features in North America that provide local protection. The well-respected physicist proposes starting small with short segments to shield some of the most tornado-prone communities.
But he envisions an eventual network of walls across Texas and Louisiana, the Dakotas and a corridor somewhere between. Leading severe storm experts say Tao's proposal is impractical and just won't work.
Read the study here.
"Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water," two new studies find great white shark numbers are rebounding off both the east and west coasts of the United States. NOAA says that since 1997, the great white shark population has grown by 42 percent. Around the time the movie "Jaws" was made 39 years ago, the population had plummeted by 70 percent from historic levels. NOAA attributes the rebound to a greater number of seals, the sharks' favorite food, along with a federal ban on hunting them and conservationists' efforts to improve their image.
Earth's magnetic field has weakened this year, possibly leaving the planet more vulnerable to cosmic radiation and charged particles from the sun. Initial readings from a new three-satellite observation network for the planet's magnetic field also revealed that the magnetic north pole is drifting southward toward Siberia. But given the limited amount of time the European "Swarm" mission has been operating, researchers aren't too concerned with the weakening of the field. They say it's probably normal, and the protective cloak around Earth should regain its strength in the near future.
In a study likely to raise the ire of anglers, an Australian researcher says that fish have a level of mental complexity on par with most other vertebrates, and they can feel pain. Writing in the journal Animal Cognition, Macquarie University biologist Culum Brown says fish have very good memories, live in complex social communities and can even recognize themselves and others. He adds that fish behavior is very much the same as that of primates, except that fish do not have the ability to imitate.
Focusing on bony fish, Brown concludes that if any animals are sentient, fish must be, too. He suggests that we "include them in our 'moral circle' and afford them the protection they deserve."
One of only four known white whales in the world may be developing a kind of skin cancer, according to some who spotted the albino humpback off Australia's Queensland coast. The 28-year-old whale, known as Migaloo, was first identified in 1991 and has since been seen regularly as he migrated off eastern Australia. But photos and video showing a pink discoloration around Migaloo's dorsal fin this season have some concerned that his long periods on the surface in the sun could be taking a toll on his unpigmented skin. "It may well be just a growth, or it could be skin cancer, we're just not too sure at the moment," said White Whale Research Center founder Oskar Peterson.
A Swiss researcher is rushing to retrieve items covered for hundreds of years by ice that is now melting due to global warming. Leandra Naef told the Swiss Broadcasting Corp. that the project in the country's eastern mountains "has to happen now, or else it will be too late, if it's not already too late." Since a 5,000-year-old corpse was discovered by hikers in melting ice nearly a quarter of a century ago, items like leather leggings from about 3000 B.C., as well as an ancient arrow quiver, have also emerged from the receding glaciers.
- Extreme Temperatures: -97° F at Vostok, Antarctica; 121° F at In Salah, Algeria.
June 23, 2014 (for the week ending June 20)
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Earthquakes |
- Northwest Alaska Quakes Crack Eskimo Village:
Geologists are stumped as to why a remote and historically quake-free village in northwestern Alaska has been rattled since mid-April by an ongoing swarm of moderate earthquakes. Walls of buildings in the Inupiat Eskimo community of Noatak have sustained cracks from the five quakes of magnitude 5.7 during that period, along with hundreds of aftershocks.
- Other earth movements were felt in northwestern Japan [M5.7] and southwestern Pakistan [M5.2]
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Tropical cyclones |
- Tropical Storm Hagibis Soaks South China:
South China's Guangdong and Fujian provinces were drenched during two days of torrential rainfall caused by the passage of Tropical Storm Hagibis. As the first such storm to strike mainland China this year, it caused no significant damage or injuries.
Sicily's Mount Etna spewed fountains of lava during a vivid nighttime eruption that was the first significant activity of the year for the storied mountain. Most of the ash and lava were expelled from Etna's southeastern flank. The nearby Catania airport remained open during the fiery display, but two air corridors were temporarily closed due to a column of ash soaring above the island.
The slaughter of more than 20,000 African elephants for their ivory last year is putting some local populations at an immediate threat of extinction, according to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). The United Nations-linked conservation agency warns that criminal bands and rebel militias are killing the animals to cash in on the thousands of dollars per kilo the ivory fetches. CITES says this is the third consecutive year that more than 20,000 elephants were illegally killed in Africa, leaving only about 500,000 left on the continent. Meanwhile, one of the world's largest and best-known elephants was killed and mutilated for its ivory in Kenya's Tsavo East National Park. "Satao" was a favorite among visitors and rangers alike before poachers hacked off his face and took his long, massive tusks.
Birds that migrate back and forth across the equator from the high Arctic to the far more balmy landscapes of South America appear to be inadvertently carrying with them plant species that may successfully survive a journey to nearly half a world away. Researchers at the University of Connecticut think this may explain why genetically similar moss species crop up thousands of miles apart, and nowhere between. Lead researcher Lily Lewis, writing in the journal PeerJ, says her team found moss fragments trapped in the feathers of long-distance birds. Three of the species found carrying the potentially transplantable life forms build shallow nests by scraping mossy beds with their breasts, feet and beaks. Lewis and colleagues are now working to see if the plant fragments found on the birds can grow in the lab. There are potentially hundreds of thousands of plant parts being carried across the equator each year by migratory birds, Lewis says.
May 2014 was calculated to be the third-warmest May in the past 35 years of satellite-measured global temperatures, which could portend massive global weather shifts later this year. Given that this year is already unusually warm, Christy says the potentially emerging El Niño in the Pacific could challenge the 1998 episode's record.
After seven chilling months across the North American Great Lakes, winter's grip on the region has finally ended. With only days before the official start of summer, all five lakes became clear of the ice, which at one point in early March covered more than 92 percent of their combined surfaces. The last surviving chunk was on Lake Superior, near Marquette, Michigan.
- Extreme Temperatures: -89° F at Vostok, Antarctica; 117° F at Sibi, Pakistan.
June 16, 2014 (for the week ending June 13)
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Earthquakes |
- Residents of the Hawaiian Islands of Oahu, Molokai and Maui were jolted by a rare and extremely shallow 4.1 magnitude quake, centered in western Molokai on June 6. There were no reports of damage.
- Other earth movements were felt in southwestern Philippines [M5.2], New Zealand's North Island [5.1], California's Mojave desert [4.0], and north-central Arkansas [3.8].
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Tropical cyclones |
- Arabian Sea Cyclone Nanauk Spares Oman:
An area of disturbed weather off India's west coast developed into tropical cyclone that briefly menaced Arabian peninsula sultanate of Oman. Its development also disturbed India's crucial southwest monsoon pattern, which had been bringing rains to parts of the country during June. Nanauk failed to reach the hurricane force predicted by international weather agencies, and instead fizzled over open waters, far from any land areas.
- Hurricane Cristina churned the open waters of the Pacific, well off the coast of Mexico.
Reports of flames and liquid spewing from a hillside in northern India triggered panic and fears that the "volcano-like eruption" could destroy homes and crops. There are no active lava volcanoes on the Indian subcontinent, but local officials confirmed the "eruption" in the Himachal Pradesh state village of Gadiyada. "Gases and liquids are being emitted from holes in a (10-foot) area around the hill where the volcanic activity took place," said Ved Prakash, president of the local council. The Times of India reports that further examination by a team from the Geological Survey of India determined that the fiery phenomenon was due to a high-voltage current passing through the ground from an electric pole located on the hill. They found that the extreme heat caused by the current melted silica stones, which appeared to spew as lava.
A group of Chinese scientists is criticizing the country's bulldozing of hundreds of mountains to provide more flat land for agriculture and development. The government's largest land-flattening operations aim to remove more than 700 mountains and shovel the debris into valleys to create nearly 100 square miles of usable land. A smaller but similar project in Hubei province resulted in increased erosion, landslides and flooding, as well as altering the courses of rivers and streams. Writing in the journal Nature, three academics from the School of Environmental Science and Engineering in Chang/an University say the project has not been adequately considered "environmentally, technically or economically."
Officials say the project will generate billions of yuan from the sale or lease of the new flattened land.
Rising sea level due to climate change has begun to wash away graves from World War II battles on the Marshall Islands. A government official from the Pacific archipelago said that high tides have exposed one mass grave that contained 26 dead, presumably Japanese troops. "These last spring tides in February to April this year have caused not just inundation and flooding of communities, but have also undermined regular land, so that even the dead are affected," said Tony De Brum, the Marshall Islands' foreign minister. According to a recent U.N. report, the Marshall Islands is experiencing far greater rise in sea level than elsewhere in the world. The highest point in the chain is only about 6.5 feet above sea level.
The ebola epidemic that emerged in West Africa early this year has now killed more than 230 people and has become among the worst outbreaks since the virus was first recorded in 1976.
The first appearance of the disease anywhere in West Africa was in southeastern Guinea, which later spread to neighboring Sierra Leone and Liberia. Doctors Without Borders says that in each new outbreak, health workers must identify patients, then track down and monitor everyone with whom they have been in contact.
Rats have demonstrated what appears to be "regret" in laboratory experiments conducted by U.S. researchers. A team based at the University of Minnesota says it first had tomake sure that the behavior was actually regret rather than just disappointment. "Regret is the recognition that you made a mistake, that if you had done something else, you would have been better off," said neuroscientist David Redish. To elicit true regret, the rodents were given the choice to either wait a set amount of time for a food they liked or to move onto another unknown reward.
Those impatient rats that chose not to wait, only to find the other treat was not as good, appeared to demonstrate true regret, Redish says. In those cases, the rats often paused and glanced back at the better food they had passed over.
The study found that when the rats came across less-favored food without having made a bad choice, they didn't demonstrate such "regretful" behavior.
- Extreme Temperatures: -95° F at Vostok, Antarctica; 124° F at Hafar Al-Batin, Saudi Arabia.
June 9, 2014 (for the week ending June 6)
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Earthquakes |
- Southwest China Quake Injures 45:
A moderate earthquake centered along China's Yunnan province border with Myanmar (Burma) injured at least 45 people and sent hundreds of others into emergency shelters on May 30. The 5.9 magnitude quake hit Yunnan's Yingjiang County at 9:20 a.m. local time, according to the China Earthquake Networks Center.
- Other earth movements were felt in the Philippines [M5.1], eastern Afghanistan and neighboring parts of Pakistan [M4.6], Crete [M5.1], southeastern Alaska and neighboring parts of the Yukon [M5.7], Oklahoma City [3.7], eastern Colorado [3.7] and metropolitan Los Angeles [4.2].
Tropical Storm Boris became the first named storm of either the Atlantic or eastern Pacific hurricane season to make landfall when it struck far southern Mexico as a minimal storm. With maximum sustained winds of about 40 mph at landfall, Boris quickly weakened to a tropical depression yet still managed to drench the country's Chiapas state with more than 10 inches of rainfall.
- Volcanic Blast Halts Indonesian-Australian Air Traffic:Indonesia's Mount Sangiang exploded with such force on May 30 that it sent an ash cloud soaring 12 miles into the sky to the east of Bali. The blast occurred on the uninhabited island of Sangean, about 200 miles from the popular resort. Ash continued to billow from the volcano for more than 24 hours, disrupting aviation across the heart of Indonesia and in nearby countries. All commercial flights to and from Darwin Australia, were suspended for a full day as a plume of ash blew toward the Northern Territory capital.
- Alaskan Eruption: Elsewhere, Alaska's Pavlof volcano sent a plume of ash soaring as high as 24,000 feet above the Alaskan Peninsula prompting the state's volcano observatory to issue its first red alert since 2009. Campers reported seeing a flow of lava down the mountain's flanks.
The human population of Earth is now living longer in both rich and poor countries, but a new United Nations report says there is a major rich-poor divide. Based on global averages, a girl who was born in 2012 can expect to live about 73 years while a boy should reach the age of 68. "An important reason why global life expectancy has improved so much is that fewer children are dying before their fifth birthday," says Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of the WHO. But she adds that people in rich, developed countries have a much better chance of living longer than those in poorer countries.
Scientists are sounding the alarm over the threat of invasive species reaching the Arctic due to the recent record melt of the polar ice cap. Biologists from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, writing in the journal Nature Climate Change, say that shipping through the newly opened passages could inadvertently bring in organisms on the hulls and in the ballast water of vessels. "If unchecked, these activities will vastly alter the exchange of invasive species, especially across the Arctic, north Atlantic and north Pacific oceans," said lead author Whitman Miller.
Volunteers across the frog-friendly Baltic nation of Estonia saved thousands of the amphibians from likely being killed on highways after emerging from winter hibernation. Mariliis Tago, from the Estonian Fund for Nature, said volunteers with her group used buckets to carry 15,677 amorous frogs across roads before releasing them closer to where the females typically lay their eggs.
- Extreme Temperatures: -84.8 degrees Fahrenheit at Vostok, Antarctica; 120.2 degrees Fahrenheit at Sibi, Pakistan.
June 2, 2014 (for the week ending May 30th)
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Earthquakes |
- Greek Quake Injures Hundreds in Neighboring Turkey:
A wide area of the northeastern Mediterrenean and islands of the Aegean Sea were rocked on Saturday by a powerful quake that caused injuries to 266 people in
- Other earth movements were felt in Lebanon [M4.2], Southern Israel [M4.1], Southern Iran and nearby Persian Gulf states [M5.1], the China-Myanmar border region [M5.8], the Dominican Republic and neighboring parts of Puerto Rico [M5.8] and southwestern Mexico [M5.6].
Far East Russia's Shiveluch volcano spewed a column of ash high above the Kamchatka Peninsula in a blast that prompted and alert for trans-Pacific aviation. The ash posed no hazard to anyone living in the sparsely populated region.
The first named storm to emerge in the Eastern Pacific hurricane season quickly became one for the record books. Hurricane Amanda underwent explosive development after it formed well off the Mexican coast, soon reaching Category-4 force. With maximum sustained winds of 155 mph on May 25, Amanda became the most powerful May Pacific storm on record.
The monthly average concentration of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide remained above 400 parts per million (ppm) for the first time on record during April. According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), that means CO2 concentrations have risen by more than 40 percent above the 278 ppm level that existed before the Industrial Revolution launched the widespread burning of fossil fuels. "This should serve as yet another wake-up call about the constantly rising levels of greenhouse gases, which are driving climate change," WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said in a statement.
Japanese authorities have approved the construction of an underground "ice wall" around the meltdown-plagued Fukushoma nuclear power plant to keep groundwater from becoming contaminated before pouring into the Pacific. The frozen barrier will be created by inserting a network of pipes to a depth of 100 feet, which will circulate a coolant that has a temperature of minus 40 degrees. The designers say the resulting 1-mile frozen barricade of earth will help prevent a large volume of groundwater from flowing into the basements of the reactor buildings and mixing with highly radioactive water already accumulating inside.
A select group of animals with larges brains have been found to be capable of engaging in "platonic friendships", which researchers say are crucial to survival. New Scientist reports that creatures such as elephants, horses, killer whales and camelids can have best friends outside the bonded social groups of their species. You can read the report here.
A bumper population of whales feeding off the coast of New England appears to be responsible for the unusually high incidence of ships striking the marine whales during recent weeks. Of the three strikes during May, one involved a cruise ship hitting a sei whale and inadvertently dragging it into the Hudson River. NOAA believes the whales may be following food sources unusually close to shore when they haplessly swim into shipping lanes.
- Extreme Temperatures: -84.5 degrees Fahrenheit at Vostok, Antarctica; 120.2 degrees Fahrenheit at Jacobabad, Pakistan.
May 26, 2014 (for the week ending May 23rd)
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Earthquakes |
- Albania Quake Causes Light Damage Near Capital:
A moderate quake centered near the Albanian capital of Tirana cracked buildings and caused other scattered damage in the early hours of Monday. The country's seismological department said the quake struck at 2:59 a.m. local time about 27 miles south of the capital. It was a magnitude 5.2 tremor.
- Other earth movements were felt in Western Germany [M4.1], Bay of Bengal Region [M5.9], Northwestern Sumatra [M6.2], Taiwan [M5.6], south-central Mexico [M5.6] and in Central Oklahoma [M3.6].
Rumblings from El Salvador's Chaparrastique volcano prompted officials to evacuate almost 1,000 people from danger zones around the mountain. The country's civil protection department said the greatest risk posed by the mountain was from landslides of volcanic material dislodged from Chaparrastique's slopes by heavy rain.
The force responsible for creating mysterious "fairy circles" in the southwest African Landscape is once again in question after a 2013 study that claimed they were caused by sand termites is challenged. No termites have ever been observed creating the formations. Fairy circles are barren patches of dirt, usually surrounded by a dense ring of vegetation. Writing in the journal Ecography, Stephan Getzin says that natural competition for water on the edge of an arid ecosystem, where grasslands transition to desert, causes the circles. You can read the study here.
Powerful winds blowing around Antarctica are the strongest in 1,000 years and are being made even speedier by climate change, scientists say. They also point out that the Antarctic vortex is insulating the icy continent from the global warming that is affecting most other parts of the planet. Earlier research indicated that the ozone hole above Antarctica was causing the circumpolar winds to get stronger. However, Nerilie Abram and her colleagues from the Australian National University found that global warming has been a big factor in strengthening the winds since the 1940s.
Scientists say wind currents blowing out of northeastern China could be the main carriers of a mysterious childhood disease that was first identified in 1961 and can eventually lead to a fatal heart condition. Research at the Kawasaki Disease Research Center at the University of California suggests an airborne toxin in seasonal winds could be infecting children in Japan and as far away as Hawaii and California. High-altitude air samples downwind around Japan found a fungus called Candida, a member of the yeast family, was in the wind. Its known to cause a wide range of human fungal infections worldwide. Researchers believe something that has changed in agriculture or culture since WWII could be behind the new disease.
An evil-looking, fanged fish that is known to eat its own kind startled visitors at a pier in Nags Head, North Carolina, after the deep-sea creature washed up still alive. The long-snouted lancetfish is rarely seen unless it is accidentally hauled up by deep-sea tuna fishermen. The one found in the North Carolina Outer Banks was returned to the deep Atlantic, but later washed ashore again. Marine biology experts say that probably means the fish was ill.
The thick blanket of wintertime fog that is the bane of Northern California motorists but crucial to the state's Central Valley agriculture has thinned dramatically over the past three decades, according to new research. Scientists at the University of California, Berkley say that winter tule fog helps crops like almonds, pistachios, cherries and peaches enter a dormant period over the winter months. Its believed that a warming climate could be responsible for the increase in fog-free winter days.
- Extreme Temperatures: 96.7 degrees Fahrenheit at U.S. Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station; 113.9 degrees Fahrenheit at Hafr al-Batin. Saudi Arabia.
May 19, 2014 (for the week ending May 16th)
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Earthquakes |
- Pakistan Tremor Kills One, Crumbles Homes:
A relatively mild earthquake on May 9 killed one person in Southern Pakistan and left 70 others injured. The 4.3 magnitude jolt occurred at 4 a.m. local time in the district of Nawabshah, about 240 miles northeast of Karachi.
- Other earth movements were felt near South Australia's Flinders Ranges [M4.7], around the Greek capital of Athens [M4.8] and in Central Oklahoma [M2.5]
People living in population centers far north and south of the equator are coming under greater threat of powerful tropical cyclones due to a shift in where the strongest such storms can strike. Researchers have found that the location of where hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons reach their maximum intensity has shifted toward the poles at a rate of about 35 miles per decade during the past 30 years. While this could affect coastal cities not accustomed to such storms, the researchers warn that regions of the tropics that depend on rainfall from tropical cyclones may also be at risk of reduced precipitation due to the shift.
Alaska's Shishaldin volcano began producing long seismic tremors that geologists say could be signs of an impending eruption. Shishaldin is located on Unimak Island in the Aleitians and is unique among volcanoes in the state. Rather than containing a lava dome or crater, the Alaska Volcano Observatory says the symmetrical, conical volcano has a deep, open vent. "It's gas bubbles coming up through the throat or the vent of the volcano. And when they pop, it just kind of throws magma up into the air," observatory geologist Robert McGimsey told Alaska Public Radio, describing a typical Shishaldin eruption.
Saudi Arabia has advised its citizens to wear gloves and face masks when around camels to keep from becoming infected with the deadly MERS virus. Also known as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, MERS has killed at least 157 people in Saudi Arabia alone since it was detected in 2012. The number of new cases has soared over the past six weeks, especially in Saudi Arabia. Camels are believed to be the main source of infection.
A sudden and unexpected undermining of vast glaciers in Western Antarctica is set to reshape the world's coastlines for centuries, researchers warn. The bases of six glaciers are reported to be melting away due to the warming of the Southern Ocean, which surrounds the continent. The glaciers involved have the potential to elevate sea level by 4 feet, but that was not factored into the recent U.N. climate change report.
A new and unsightly phenomenon known as "rock snot," which has appeared in some of the world's rivers during the past decade, is not an invasive species, but rather a native organism responding to a changing environment, researchers say. Previously rare blooms of Didymosphenia geminate, or didymo, are the culprits. Since the algae is a native species, Taylor says current efforts to eradicate it are futile. He suggests addressing the environmental conditions that are promoting the blooms.
Researchers attempting to tag wild flamingos in South Florida came across the largest flock of the birds ever observed in the state's history. While the 147 pink birds counted in far western Palm Beach County may not seem like a large flock to some, that number startled the researchers. The species breeds in the Bahamas, Cuba, Mexico and Ecuador, but the researchers said they don't know exactly from where members of the large flock came.
- Extreme Temperatures: -92.7 degrees Fahrenheit at Vostok, Antarctica; 116.6 degrees Fahrenheit at Linguere, Senegal.
May 12, 2014 (for the week ending May 9th)
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Earthquakes |
- Tokyo Quake Injures 17:
A sharp quake centered south of Tokyo injured 17 people just after dawn on Monday, mainly due to them stumbling while trying to take cover. The Japan Meteorological Agency said Monday's jolt [M6.0] occurred at 8:18 a.m. local time about 60 miles south of the capital. The epicenter was almost 100 miles beneath the seabed.
- Northern Thailand Quake Cracks Buildings:
A strong temblor centered in far northern Thailand cracked roads and buildings across a wide area and even sent people rushing out of office buildings in Myanmar's largest city of Yangon, 200 miles away. The U.S. Geological Survey said the [M6.0] earthquake occurred at 6:08 p.m. local time about 17 miles southwest of Chiang Rai.
- Other earth movements were felt in
Washington state's Mt. St. Helens volcano is showing signs of rising deep inside, but geologists say that an eruption is still not likely anytime soon. The volcano erupted violently on May 18, 1980, killing 57 people and altering the landscape for miles around. "It is likely that the re-pressurization is caused by (the) arrival of a small amount of additional magma 2.5 to 5 miles beneath the surface." Seismologist Seth Moran at the Cascades Volcano Observatory told CBS News that the volcano could accumulate pressure inside for a long time before it starts to erupt.
A rare atmospheric phenomenon brought villagers in western Sri Lanka a bounty of small fish, which rained from the heavens still alive. Meteorologists have determined that such "fish rain" is due to a waterspout, or a tornado moving over a body of water, sucking up the fist and sometimes carrying them for quite a distance.
The discount prices for lobster feasts at restaurants across North America could be coming to an end due to a sharp drop in the seafood's numbers off the New England coast. Maine's Dept. of Marine Resources says the population of baby lobsters appears to have plunged by nearly 50 percent from 2007 levels.
Scientists say that chimpanzees have nearly the same personality traits as humans, revealing just how akin we are to our closest relatives in the animal kingdom. The similarity seems to result from the two species' comparable neurobiology. They also identified five personality factors that combine differently in each of the 174 individual chimpanzees studied. Those include conscientiousness, dominance, extroversion, agreeableness and intellect. This mirrors the five-factor model of the human personality, but the specific factors are a bit different in chimps.
More people suffer strokes following solar storms directed at Earth than when the planet's geomagnetic field is relatively calm, but scientists say they don't know why. Researchers in New Zealand found that of the more than 11,000 stroke sufferers studied in Europe, Australia and New Zealand between 1981 and 2004, the sudden disruption of blood flow in the brain was almost 20% more likely to happen on days with geomagnetic storms. "What we were particularly surprised with was the size and consistency of the effect of geomagnetic storms on the risk of stroke occurrence, suggesting that geomagnetic storms are significant risk factors for stroke," Feigin told Reuters.
Weather agencies around the world are predicting that the El Nino ocean-warming in the tropical Pacific is likely to return within the next few months. Some say the weather-altering phenomenon could arrive as early as July and warn that nations typically affected by its weather shifts should prepare for an unusually strong outbreak.
- Extreme Temperatures: -102.1 degrees Fahrenheit at Vostok, Antarctica; 114.8 degrees Fahrenheit at Balawalnagar, Pakistan.
May 5, 2014 (for the week ending May 2nd)
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Earthquakes |
- Tonga Jolted by Strong Undersea Temblor:
Residents of the South Pacific island nation of Tonga reported a violent jolt from a 6.2 magnitude undersea quake located 45 miles northeast of the capital Nuku'alofa. There were no reported changes in sea level following the temblor.
- Other earth movements were felt near South Australia's Flinders Ranges [M4.7], around the Greek capital of Athens [M4.8] and in Central Oklahoma [M2.5]
Ongoing eruptions of Peru's Ubinas volcano produced such a high volume of ash falling over nearby villages that some people were reported suffering from conjunctivitis, or "pink eye". The ailment was said to be caused by eye irritation from the caustic debris. Experts from the Volcano Observatory of Arequipa predicted that eruptions were likely to continue, spewing ash up to 18,000 feet into the Andean sky.
Typhoon Tapah brought high surf and occasionally gusty winds to Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands as it passed well to the east of the archipelago. THere were no reports of damage or injuries due to the remote location of the storm, which mainly threatened shipping lanes.
Climbers venturing to the summit of Mount Everest and back are exposed to a dose of cosmic radiation five times higher than that received by British nuclear power plant workers each year, according to new research.
In a report published by the Society for Radiological Protection, measurements gathered by mountaineer Bob Kerr indicate the dose received from an Everest ascent brings a 1-in-10,000 risk of developing a fatal cancer later in life. The exposure is due to cosmic rays not being filtered out by the thin atmosphere at the highest elevations of the mountain.
Some species of birds living in the Chernobyl nuclear disaster zone appear to be thriving, and maybe even benefiting, from long-term exposure to radiation. Since the 1990's, researching have captured and examined 16 different bird species and measured for radiation levels, oxidative stress and DNA damage. Previous studies of wildlife at Chernobyl showed that chronic radiation exposure depleted antioxidants and increased oxidative damage," said lead author Ismael Galvan. "We found the opposite-that antioxidant levels increased and oxidative stress decreased with increasing background radiation."
Litter from modern civilization has become so pervasive that scientists conducting the first comprehensive study of its undersea distribution couldn't find any place they looked, including in some of the deepest oceans, where it didn't exist. Using video from underwater drones and samples dredged off the seabed, researchers from 16 European organizations say they found rubbish everywhere from the Mediterranean to the mid-Atlantic ridge, about 1,250 miles from land. Writing in the journal PLoS ONE, the researchers said the most dense accumulations of litter were found deep in underwater canyons. You can read the report here.
The past winter, dominated by the polar vortex, was so harsh that it drove New York City rats to eat trees to survive, according to a U.S. Forest Service scientist. "With the deep snow and the cold winter, probably they didn't have access to the normal food supply and it was a lot colder this winter," research ecologist Rich Hallett told WNYC. The tenacious rodents gnawed throughout the bark to get to a sugary layer for nourishment and energy. But experts warn that some of the coldest winter rather on record is not likely to have made a significant dent in the rat population.
- Extreme Temperatures: -104.8 degrees Fahrenheit at Vostok, Antarctica; 115.2 degrees Fahrenheit at Nawabshah, Pakistan.
April 28, 2014 (for the week ending April 25th)
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Earthquakes |
- Southwest Mexico Quake Cracks Buildings:
A wide area of southwestern and central Mexico was rocked on the morning of April 18th by a 7.2 magnitude quake centered near the Pacific resort of Acapulco. At least 127 homes were damaged near the epicenter in the state of Guerrero, but officials said there were no reports of fatalities or significant injuries.
- Other earth movements were felt in the northeastern Caribbean [5.0], the northwestern Philippines [5.9], eastern Papua New Guinea [7.5], northwestern Vancouver Island [6.6], and central Oklahoma [3.5].
Tropical Cyclone Jack formed briefly over the open waters of the eastern Indian Ocean. The storm was initially a threat only to shipping lanes on the region, but its remnants later forced a temporary halt to the aerial search for missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370.
Increased seismic activity from within Indonesia's Mount Merapi was punctuated before dawn on April 20 by a blast that showered ash over areas within about 7 miles of the volcano's summit. While a glow was observed around the time of the blast at the top of Merapi, vulcanologists said no new lava was observed flowing from the volcano. That means the mountain was probably not entering a new eruptive phase.
The U.S. environmental agency NOAA says it calculated that March 2014 was the fourth-hottest on record for the entire planet even though America notably bucked that trend. The agency said the overall global temperature was 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average.
Scientists have found that a new strain of the Ebola virus is responsible for the latest outbreak in West Africa, where more than 120 people of the nearly 200 believed infected have died from the disease. In a report published in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers say that the virus may not even be new to the area, and could have been circulating undetected for some time. It's now believed that "patient zero" was a 2-year-old girl who died in December.
Wild storks observed nesting in eastern England could be the first pair to breed in Britain for nearly 600 years. The BBC reports that the birds are nesting on a chimney at Norfolk's Thrigby Hall Wildlife Gardens, near Great Yarmouth, and are engaging in mating rituals. The last stork to be documented breeding in Britain was at St. Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh, back in 1416.
A group aiming for early detection of asteroids that threaten to collide with Earth says that our planet experienced 26 powerful asteroid explosions in the atmosphere from 2000 to 2013. The nonprofit B612 Foundation says data collected by the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization, which uncovered the blasts, demonstrates that the chance of an asteroid inflicting catastrophic damage is higher than previously estimated.
- Extreme Temperatures: -97.6 degrees Fahrenheit at Vostok, Antarctica; 113.9 degrees Fahrenheit at Linguere, Senegal.
April 21st, 2014 (for the week ending April 18th)
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Earthquakes |
- Chinese Quake Wrecks Homes in Yunnan Province:
Western Nicaragua was rocked soundly by a series of three strong quakes that damaged homes and injured hundreds of residents. Most of the injured were struck by falling walls ceilings and other objects. All of the quakes were centered around Managua, with the strongest registering a magnitude of 6.6 about 40 miles SSE of the capital.
- Other earth movements were felt in
Australia's northern Queensland coast was lashed by powerful Cyclone Ita, which was the strongest storm to strike in the region in three years. The cyclone made landfall as a Category-4 storm on the international Saffir-Simpson scale very near Cooktown. The aboriginal community is located just west of where the storm roared ashore with sustained winds of more that 130 mph.
Peru's Ubinas volcano spewed ash high above the Andes Mountains in the south of the country in a violent eruption that forced the evacuation of nearby residents. THe country's mining institute said the mountain awakened with explosions that also shot out white-hot chunks of rock, some as large as 1 foot in diameter.
Weeks of speculation by various weather agencies about the possible re-emergence of El Nino later this year have led Australia's Bureau of Meteorology to predict that there is now a more than 70% chance of the ocean warning's return. El Nino usually brings drier-than-normal conditions to Australia, now suffering from a drought in the northeast that has forced ranchers to cull cows. The U.S. agency NOAA estimates the chance of El Nino expanding across the tropical Pacific during the Northern Hemisphere's summer at about 50 percent.
Zimbabwe wildlife experts say that the invasive myna bird has arrived in the southern African nation, posing a threat to indigenous bird species. The common, or Indian, mynas have become serious pests in many areas of the world where they have been introduced. In South Africa, the birds have been observed killing other birds' chicks and taking over the nest. Mynas, which are members of the starling family and are native to South Asia, can easily adapt to new environments and have been kept as pets because of their unique ability to "talk".
Botanists in Miami are enlisting local students to help raise a million native orchids in an attempt to repopulate the plants, which once covered much of South Florida. Collectors in the late 19th and early 20th centuries virtually wiped out the native species by pulling them out of the trees and selling them by the thousands each month to northern customers. "We want to bring back not just the orchids, but the insects that pollinate them," said Carl Lewis, who leads the Million Orchid Project and is director of the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden.
The latest report by the U.N. group responsible for assessing climate change says the world is running out of time to keep global warming from exceeding the 2 degrees Celsius limit agreed to in 2010. If greenhouse gas emissions are not curbed sharply, and soon, climate experts say that by 2100, temperatures will rise by between 3.7 and 4.8 degrees Celsius (6.6 and 8.6 Fahrenheit). China, the U.S. and Europe are the top emitters.
- Extreme Temperatures: -97.1 degrees Fahrenheit at Vostok, Antarctica; 113.7 degrees Fahrenheit at Matam, Senegal.
April 14th, 2014 (for the week ending April 11th)
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Earthquakes |
- Chinese Quake Wrecks Homes in Yunnan Province:
A strong quake centered in southwest China's Yunnan Province wrecked 75 homes and damaged thousands of others when it struck at dawn on April 5th. The China Earthquake Networks Center said the 5.3 magnitude jolt struck at 6:40 a.m. local time about 6 miles beneath the Xiloudu municipal area, near the border with the Sichuan province.
- Fracking Blamed for Record Oklahoma Tremors:
The at least 110 earthquakes of magnitude 3 or higher that have shaken Oklahoma so far this year total more than during all of 2013. They come in the wake of the state's explosive growth in tracking, or underground hydraulic fracturing, used in the extraction of natural gas and oil. Pumping fracking wastewater underground has been linked to a sixfold jump in quakes in the central U.S. from 2000 to 2011, according to the U.S.G.S.
- Other earth movements were felt in southern Greece [5.5], southeastern France [5.0], northern Chile [5.8], and San Diego County [3.0].
Two small Japanese volcanic islands have merged into one after the younger islet grew to overwhelm its older brother. Niijima Island broke through the ocean's surface last November 20th next to Nishinoshima, about 600 miles south of Tokyo. While scientists at the time questioned how long the island would survive before being eroded by the sea, it defied expectations and grew to merge with its neighbor and form one landmass. The combined islands now stretch about 3,300 feet across and have together reached about 200 feet in height above sea level.
- Heavy storms that eventually collected into Cyclone Ita triggered floods in the Solomon Islands that killed 23 people and left 25 others missing. The Red Cross reports that approximately 10,000 people were forced from their homes by the worst floods there in 28 years. It strengthened to a Category 4 storm late in the week as it approached Australia's northern Queensland state with maximum sustained winds of about 130 miles per hour.
- Additionally, Tropical Storm Peipah buffeted the western Pacific island nation of Palau, then dissipated before reaching the Philippines as a tropical depression.
- Tropical Storm Ivanhoe formed briefly in the eastern Indian Ocean
A London-based architectural firm has a solution to China's smog crisis--botanical gardens enclosed in giant "bubbles" where residents can take refuge. Orproject presented the idea to Beijing officials, including plans for a lightweight dome that would house a climate-controlled park with air kept clean by the plants inside and filtered air from outside. Critics say more should be done to combat the pollution at its sources.
Less than a month after West Africa's first Ebola outbreak emerged, the World Health Organization (WHO) warns it is the "most challenging" to strike since the disease first appeared four decades ago. More than 100 of the 157 people suspected of being infected have died in Guinea, where the deadly hemorrhagic fever first struck in mid-March. Despite isolated resistance, WHO is rushing in workers to teach residents how to avoid being infected, and how to handle those who are.
The winter ice cap around the North Pole reached its greatest extent on March 21st, but it also fell to the fifth-lowest peak coverage on record. Arctic sea ice usually grows to the largest expanse for winter on or about March 9th. The U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said the annual peak would have occurred about and then and been even smaller than the eventual coverage of 5.76 million square miles had it not been for strong and frigid surface winds that swirled around the Arctic mid-March. The Colorado-based center said the latest measurements reinforce previous studies that have revealed ice around the North Pole is disappearing much faster than earlier predictions.
Lightning from freak thunderstorms, stronger than some southern Chile residents can remember ever experiencing before, killed 63 cows in two separate strikes. A single bolt killed 54 dairy cows that had taken refuge beneath a tree near Los Rios. "We have electrical storms here, but never like this," Carlos Godoy, administrator of the Las Cascadas estate, told Chile's El Universo Daily.
- Extreme Temperatures: -93.3 degrees Fahrenheit at Vostok, Antarctica; 112.1 degrees Fahrenheit at Abu Na'Ama, Sudan.
April 7, 2014 (for the week ending April 4th)
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Earthquakes |
- Six Dead From Northern Chile Quake-Tsunami:
Northern Chile was jolted Tuesday evening by a massive "great" earthquake that killed six people and triggered a local tsunami that smashed between 70 and 80 boats near the offshore epicenter. The region had been rocked for the previous two weeks by a swarm of more than 300 tremors centered beneath the pacific about 60 miles NW of the mining port of Iquique.
- Greater Los Angeles Rocked by Sharp Quake:
An estivate 17 million people Southern California residents were jolted on the afternoon of March 28 by a 5.1 magnitude quake centered in interior parts of the Los Angeles Basin.
- Other earth movements were felt in Romania [4.7], SE New Zealand [4.0], Panama [5.1], and Yellowstone [4.8].
Cyclone Hellen strengthened to one of the most powerful such storms on record in northwestern Indian Ocean just before striking Madagascar. The cyclone was at Category-4 storm force when it made landfall in the northwest Madagascar's Boeny and Melaky regions. Maximum sustained winds near the storms center were clocked at about 145 mph just prior to landfall.
Migratory seabirds that spend part of the year around New Zealand after flying in from Japan's coastal waters are being checked for contamination from the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Because the shearwaters feed on seafood, it is feared the long-haul birds could be carrying radioactive debris from many thousands of miles around the Pacific Rim.
Parts of England were blanketed with record high levels of choking smog, which was worsened by a plume of dust that blew into the country from the Sahara Desert. Many motorists awoke to find their vehicles coated with the red dust. Greater London suffered with a smog that reached level 7.
A plague of tumbleweeds has been rolling across parts of Colorado this spring with piles of the iconic range debris piling up against homes so high that some residents resorted to calling authorities to be rescued. Masses of the dried weeds have also posed a high risk of wildfires across the parched front range landscape, fire officials warn.
Videos posted online of bison apparently fleeing Yellowstone National Park at about the same time the area was jolted by the strongest quake since 1980 have sparked fears of a catastrophic eruption. The geothermal park sits atop a massive super volcano that has produced a series of violent eruptions. But the YVO denies that there is an increased threat of an eruption, pointing out that that bison videos were posted (at least) weeks before the March 30 quake.
- Extreme Temperatures: -82.7 degrees Fahrenheit at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, Antarctica; 116.6 degrees Fahrenheit at Wadi, Addawasir, Saudi Arabia.
March 31, 2014 (for the week ending March 28th)
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Earthquakes |
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- Quake Swarm Keeps Northern Chileans on Edge:
Residents of far northern Chile became alarmed after more than 300 offshore quakes rattled the region during a single week. THe swarm began with a 6.2 magnitude temblor that prompted more than 100,000 coastal residents to briefly evacuate low-lying areas. More than a dozen quakes were felt in the port of Iquique on Monday alone.
- Other earth movements were felt in
Cyclone Gillian lashed Australia's Indian Ocean territory of Christmas Island with high winds that tore the roofs off homes and brought down trees as well as power lines. Gillian was only at tropical storm force when it skirted the Island, just south of Java, but later intensified into a Category-5 cyclone over a remote stretch of the eastern Indian Ocean.
An El Nino ocean-warming appears to be emerging across the tropical Pacific after nearly a four-year absence. There is already a new and very warm pool of water in the Western Pacific. Satellite monitoring indicates it is expanding eastward toward the coast of South America. Should the warming develop into a strong and mature El Nino, it could help bring drought-breaking rains to California once that state's rainy season returns late this year.
Countries across West Africa began scrambling to halt a new outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus that is suspected to have killed at least 63 people. The hemorrhagic disease emerged in mid-march in parts of Guinea, and is now feared to have spread to neighboring Sierra Leone and Liberia. Experts have determined that the current West Africa outbreak is due to the Zaire strain of the virus, which killed 187 people when it last emerged in 2007 in parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The head of the United Nations weather agency says that global warming has not changed and will continue for at least centuries due to the burning of fossil fuels by humans. The report concludes that last year tied with 2007 as the sixth hottest since reliable records began over 150 years ago. "Greenhouse gases are at record levels, meaning that our atmosphere and oceans will continue to warm for centuries to come. The laws of physics are non-negotiable," Michal Jarraud added.
Worms are struggling to cope with the use of pesticides, which a new study reveals alters both the physiology and behavior of the important soil-aerating creatures. "They spend a lot of energy on detoxifying, and that comes with a cost," said researchers Nicolas Givaudan and Claudia Wiegand. The cost is that they are less successful at reproducing and are much smaller than worms living in organic farming fields.
Climate change has stretched the wildflower blooming season in the Rocky Mountains by more than a month, with half the flowers beginning to bloom weeks earlier than before. But researcher David Inouye of the University of Maryland says that the flowering plants' response to climate change is complex, with different species responding in unexpected ways. Writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, he says that the peak time of wildflowers bursting into bloom has moved up five days per decade during his study. You can read the study here.
One of the most endangered waterfowl in the world had been found living in the wild on the Hawaiian island of Oahu for the first time in centuries. A pair of Hawaiian geese, or nene, is believed to have flown on its own from another island to nest on Oahu's North Shore. It has since successfully hatched 3 healthy goslings.
- Extreme Temperatures: -91.5 degrees Fahrenheit at Vostok, Antarctica; 113.0 degrees Fahrenheit at N'guigmi, Niger.
March 24, 2014 (for the week ending March 21st)
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Earthquakes |
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- Northwest Peru Quake Damages Cathedral:
A sharp temblor centered beneath northwestern Peru damaged a church and sent residents fleeing their homes on Saturday evening. The 6.3 magnitude quake was centered about 30 miles south-southwest of the town of Piura at a depth of 6 miles, according to the USGS.
- Other earth movements were felt in
Drought-weary farmers across northern New Zealand were disappointed by the meager rainfall brought by remnants of Tropical Cyclone Lusi. Forecasters had anticipated that the storm would bring widespread beneficial rainfall to the North Island. The only reports of flooding were at the coast, where high winds blew sea water into the basements of seaside homes.
Despite being hunted by humans for their meat, blasted solo into space and used extensively for medical research, chimpanzees appear to trust people more that they do baboons and members of their own species that they don't know. The empathetic response to humans was discovered by examining how the chimps reacted to yawns from various people, members of their own species and baboons.
Canadian fisheries officials say about 40 white-beaked dolphins died after becoming trapped in jagged pack ice off the coast of Newfoundland. The marine mammals struggled for days to stay alive in shallow water with no easy way to escape from ice that was hugging the shores of Cape Ray.
Greenland's last remaining stable portion of ice sheet has now lost its grip due to climate change and is stable no longer, according to researchers. Once thought to be immune to the effects of global warming, the Zachariae glacier began shrinking rapidly in 2003 and has since lost more than 10 billion tons of ice per year, retreating by more than 12 miles. Greenland's ice cap has become a yardstick for global ocean rise because if it melted entirely, global sea levels would rise by about 23 feet.
UV flashes regularly given off by high-voltage transmission lines and their pylons could be scaring wildlife as well as disrupting migrations and other animal activities, researchers warn. It's long been observed that many creatures for some reason steer clear of power lines, even though the cables don't pose serious physical barriers. But by using UV-sensitive cameras aboard a helicopter, researchers from Univ. College London captured seemingly magical balls of light bursting to life briefly along the power lines. The scientists say the flashes, or coronas, would appear far brighter to many animals that see the entire UV spectrum rather than the limited part captured by UV-sensitive camera images.
Residents of the South Korean city of Jinju have been scouring the kills and rice paddies in search of meteorites since a fireball shattered overhead earlier this month. The country's science institute confirmed that two rocks found in the area were "ordinary chondrite" meteorites of high iron composition. The stones are believed to have come from the same chunk of space debris that exploded while entering Earth's atmosphere on March 9.
- Extreme Temperatures: -92.4 degrees Fahrenheit at Vostok, Antarctica; 113.4 degrees Fahrenheit at Damazine, Sudan.
March 17, 2014 (for the week ending March 14th)
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Earthquakes |
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- Unusually Powerful Quake Jolts Northern California:
Parts of Oregon and northwestern California were jolted for approximately 20 seconds Sunday evening by an offshore quake centered 50 miles west of Eureka, California. The 6.9 magnitude temblor struck at 10:18 p.m. local time and was one of the strongest to jolt the state in decades. USGS seismologist Ken Knudsen said the epicenter of the quake was far enough offshore to allow the energy to dissipate before reaching the coast.
California's severe drought has wildlife officials considering whether to move millions of hatchery-raised Chinook salmon by tanker trucks to the ocean. THe unusual move would be because the Sacramento River and its tributaries have become to shallow and warm for the fish to migrate to the sea on their own.
A great white shark, tagged off Jacksonville, Florida, appears to be headed for British coastal waters in an epic trans-Atlantic journey researchers say is the first ever observed in the species. The satellite-tracked fish, named Lydia, was recently observed crossing the mid-Atlantic ridge, which is roughly the midpoint between North America and Europe. Lydia has zigzagged approximately 20,000 miles across the western Atlantic since being tagged last March.
Four mysterious and previously unidentified man-made compounds have been found that can destroy Earth's upper atmosphere ozone, possibly preventing the ozone hole from healing. The production of chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) gases came under restriction worldwide in the mid-1980's after the compounds were found to be creating the hole above Antarctica. But researchers say the four newly discovered chemicals, also powerful greenhouse gases, may be leaking from insecticide production and from solvents used in cleaning electronic components. Scientists now caution that many others probably exist.
Outbreaks of smog around Beijing have become so acute that officials are testing a new, more efficient type of drone to be used to spray smog-clearing chemicals, primarily around airports. The South China Morning Post reports that drones equipped with parasails can carry about 1,500 pounds of the unspecified smog busting compounds, which are said to have the capacity to cleanse the air in a 3-mile radius. Environmental advocates warn that such a process would simply coat the city's surfaces with still-toxic pollutants.
Far East Russia's Karymsky volcano spewed ash high above the Kamchatka peninsula. Almost all of its distinctive cone is mantled by lava flows that are less than 200 years old.
At least three people were killed when Cyclone Lusi lashed the South Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu, causing buildings to collapse and low-lying communities to become inundated. Lusi then took aim on northern New Zealand late in the week as a weakening tropical storm.
- Extreme Temperatures: -87.3 degrees Fahrenheit at Vostok, Antarctica; 112.3 degrees Fahrenheit at Dampier, Western Australia.
March 10, 2014 (for the week ending March 7th)
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Earthquakes |
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Earth movements were felt in Alaska [4.4], southern California [2.7], Oklahoma [3.9], Costa Rica [6.4], Venezuela [3.7], and off the coast of Taiwan [6.7].
Guatemala's Pacaya volcano spewed ash and lava with such force that officials began considering the evacuation of about 3,000 nearby residents. The volcano created a fountain of lava that rose 2600 feet above the summit crater. Pacaya is one of the Central America's most active volcanoes, striking a picturesque pose on the horizon just to the south of the capital.
Sub-freezing temperatures for weeks on end this winder across the northern US and southern Canada are leaving insect experts hoping the chill will kill off some invasive species. "Given that temps have gotten really cold..there's a tendency for a lot of people to hope for insect mortality," said Deborah McCullough, a professor at Michigan State University. The relatively mild winters of the past two decades have allowed some pests to spread northward, like the destructive emerald ash borer and the hemlock wooly adelgid.
Deer are still staying on their respective sides of the former Iron Curtain a quarter of a century after the electrified barbwire border fencing was removed at the end of the Cold War, researchers say. The animals were fitted with radio collars along the border of Germany's Bavaria region and the western edge of the now Czech Republic during a six year study. Only a small handful of deer were found to break with tradition, wandering a short distance across the border. It's believed that female deer pass of territorial boundaries to their young from generation to generation.
Researchers are designing a spacecraft equipped with a nuclear bomb that could be deployed to blast apart an asteroid even less than a week before it could bring Armageddon to Earth. The Hypervelocity Asteroid Intercept Vehicle, or HAIV, would first bore a crater on the threatening space debris before the nuclear bomb would be detonated inside it. Scientists say that would increase the destructive power of the blast by a factor of 20 and leave only .1 percent of the destroyed objects mass to strike Earth in tiny bits. It could become operational in 2015.
An epic deathmatch near a Queensland mining town pitted an olive python against a crocodile, eventually leaving the snake fat, happy and victorious. Travis Corlis and his wife, Tiffany, photographed the wrestling match in which the 10-foot python and smaller crocodile first began to grapple in lake Moondarra, near Mount Isa. Corlis said the battle went on for several hours, but the croc eventually "sort of gave in" and was then swallowed whole by the python.
Tonga was hit by the second tropical cyclone to strike the South Pacific island nation in less than two months. The center of tropical storm-force Cyclone Kofi passed just to the south of the archipelago on Sunday, with the storm's outer bands bringing gales and locally heavy downpours to some islands.
- Extreme Temperatures: -78.5 degrees Fahrenheit at Vostok, Antarctica; 110.7 degrees Fahrenheit at Dampier, Western Australia.
March 3, 2014 (for the week ending February 28th)
One of Costa Rica's most popular tourist attractions exploded from within a crater lake heated by rising lava during the previous weeks. Earlier in February, scientists warned that the mountain's summit crater was glowing red-hot with molten lava that was also emitting sulfur. The small-scale explosion, caused by lava beneath the crater lake making in become super-heated, was not uncommon.
The oldest rock ever to be unearthed on the planet has been found in Western Australia. Scientists say the zircon crystal has been accurately determined to be 4.374 billion years old by two independent methods. The age of the crystal was determined by using uranium-lead radioactive dating as well as atom probe tomography after it was found in sandstone about 500 miles north of Perth. You can read more about the finding here.
China's frequent outbreaks of toxic air pollution have become so bad that a report by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences says "Beijing is barely suitable for life". Other scientists warn that the smog's sun dimming effects resemble those that would occur during a "nuclear winter". Despite late February's extremely hazardous pollution levels, officials still didn't feel the smog was bad enough to curb the use of cars and trucks. But they did ban barbecues, fireworks and demolition work.
Chilean officials are enlisting squadrons of owls to combat a rat-borne plague that has killed 15 of the 36 people infected since September. This deadly and highly contagious strain of bantavirus, carried by long-tailed pygmy rice rats, has been spread into residential areas after wildfires earlier this year destroyed the rodents' habitats. The forest service is stepping up efforts to breed and release Chilean white owls and Magellanic horned owls to hunt down the infected rats. The owls feed almost exclusively on rodents and neither the rats nor the rodents become ill from the hantavirus.
New research suggests that flowering plants could be hubs for the transmission of plant and animal diseases in the same way schools and busy airports allow germs to circulate widely. Pollinators, such as bees, are believed to be picking up and spreading pathogens as they go from flower to flower.
The survival of some bird species around southern Britain could be at risk after weeks of nearly constant storms killed a record number of seabirds. The Wildlife Trust said many of the birds died from starvation because they couldn't find enough food to survive during the storms. Beyond the 60 seabirds found washed up in Wales, including razorbills and puffins, an additional 11,000 puffins are feared to have perished during the storms in France.
- Extreme Temperatures: -70.1 degrees Fahrenheit at Vostok, Antarctica; 109.4 degrees Fahrenheit at Vredendal, South Africa.
February 24, 2014 (for the week ending February 21st)
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Earthquakes |
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- Windward Islands Rocked by Atlantic Seabed Quake: Islands of the Eastern Caribbean were jolted early a tuesday by a 6.5 magnitude temblor centered beneath the Atlantic Ocean about 115 miles northeast of Bridgetown, Barbados. The quake struck at 5:27 a.m. local time and was said to have not been felt by many of those driving to work in the pre-dawn hours.
- Other earth movements were felt in Columbia [5.7], The Philippines [5.4], Greece [4.6], Central Oklahoma [4.2], and along the South Carolina-Georgia border [4.1].
A powerful blast from Indonesia's Mount Kelud volcano killed four people and disrupted air transport across Java and the holiday resort of Bali. Kelud, located about 375 miles east of Jakarta, had been rumbling for several weeks prior to the violent 90-minute eruption. Eyewitnesses said violent electrical storms that accompanied the rising ash plume added to the sense of doom.
Cyclone Guito steadily intensified as it passed southward through the Mozambique Channel. Gales and locally heavy rain from the storm's spiral bands brushed Madagascar and Mozambique as the eye of the Category 1 storm remained well offshore.
A meteor exploding over northern Argentina caused such a loud noise and strong shaking that many residents feared they had been hit by an earthquake. Officials said the explosion, which occurred at an altitude of about 45 miles, was heard in a nearly 200-mile radius.
A new and detailed study into the recent 13-year pause in the rise of global surface temperatures points to a stronger trade winds in the central Pacific as a primary cause. Scientists recently explained that the deep oceans have been absorbing the brunt of excess social radiation due to higher greenhouse gas levels. But they didn't know exactly how that was happening. Research just published in Nature Climate Change shows that the strengthening of the trade winds has churned the Pacific so much that heat is being drawn from the air down to waters between about 300 and 1,000 feet in depth. The same churning brings up cooler waters from the deeps, cooling the air above the ocean surface.
Residents from North America to Britain, weary of ice, blizzards and catastrophic flooding this winter, may have to get used to weeks or even months of such miserable conditions on a regular basis. That's the conclusion of a Rutgers-NOAA study that found that the jet stream is now taking a longer and more erratic path due to global warming. Because temperatures across the Arctic have been rising two to three times more rapidly than in the rest of the world, those differences are now less and causing the jet stream to slow. This is resulting in weather that remains the same for prolonged periods, like in the barrage of blizzards that buried parts of Canada and the United States and the onslaught of oceanic storms that has swamped and battered Britain most of this winter.
A Romanian Politician introduced a bill in his country's parliament that would recognize dolphins as 'non-human persons' and make the marine mammals equal to people before the law. Remus Cernea claims dolphins deserve such rights because of their highly developed intelligence, personalities and behavior. Cernea says he wants to protect the native dolphins that swim off his country's Black Sea coast, and to promote the rights of the species worldwide.
- Extreme Temperatures: -66.3 degrees Fahrenheit at Vostok, Antarctica; 113.2 degrees Fahrenheit at Vredendal, South Africa.
February 17, 2014 (for the week ending February 14th)
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Earthquakes |
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- Homes Wrecked by Western China Temblor: A powerful earthquake centered Thursday on the edge of western China's Xinjiang region "toppled" almost 150 homes and damaged 3,300 others, according to local officials. The U.S. Geological Survey said the strongest quake, which hit at 5:19 p.m. local time, was centered about 167 miles east-southeast of Hotan at a depth of about 6 miles. Another tremor of magnitude 5.7 struck five minutes later, about 3 miles beneath the surface and was followed by a series of aftershocks of up to 4.2 magnitude.
- Other earth movements were felt in Hollywood [3.0], Central Oklahoma [4.1], Western British Columbia [4.1], Massachusetts [2.4], southeastern Azerbaijan [5.4] and northeastern Japan [5.1].
Ash from powerful blasts at Ecuador's Tungurahua volcano has damaged crops around the towering mountain, causing a produce shortage and higher prices for residents. The volcano roared to life on Feb. 2, sending a giant plume of ash soaring 8 miles above the Andes and pyroclastic clouds cascading down Tungura's slopes.
Tropical storm-force Cyclone Fobane churned the open waters of the Indian Ocean. It later dissipated to the south of Rodrigues Island after menacing remote shipping lanes for nearly a week.
A huge specimen of an unnamed species of jellyfish washed up on a beach south of Hobart, Australia, last month. A photo taken of the nearly 5-foot-wide creature by Josie Lim after her family came across it caught the attention of experts at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), who are in the process of naming the new type of lion's mane jelly.
Britain's national weather service says there is no longer any doubt that recent larger and more damaging storms are connected to a warming global climate. While the Met Office's chief scientist, Dame Julia Slingo, says it is not possible to blame any specific storm on global warming, she said a trend toward more volatile weather patterns due to climate change is clear.
Three of North America's 600 whooping cranes were killed by gunshots over the past few months with the latest found dead in Louisiana on Feb. 7. Whooping cranes are America's tallest bird and were once a common sight across parts of the country. By the 1940's, the use of the pesticide DDT, hunting and habitat loss wiped out all but 14 of the birds.
A new Russian fad of nabbing squirrels out of parks to keep them as pets has officials threatening large fines for those who continue to squirrel away the animals. People who collect the bushy-tailed animals can resell them as pets for about 5,000 rubles ($144).
February 10, 2014 (for the week ending February 7th)
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- Second Strong Quake Rocks Western Greece: The far western Greek island of Kefalonia was hit by a powerful aftershock of a comparable quake that damaged that damaged dozens of buildings there just a week earlier. The 6.0 magnitude quake was centered about 8 miles northwest of the island's capital of Argostoll. Monday's sharp aftershock hit before dawn at 5:08 local time at a depth of only 6,560 feet.
- Other earth movements were felt in Java [6.1], Southeastern Iran [4.9], Costa Rica [4.5], the IL-KY border [2.6] and the VT-NH border [2.3].
Efforts to allow people to their homes near a Sumatran volcano after months in evacuation centers proved deadly when the mountain proved deadly when the mountain exploded a day after they went home. It was inside a 3-mile danger zone around Sinabung's crater where evacuees had not yet been told to return, but many locals had regularly gone back to check on their house and to tend their crops.
Tropical Storm Kajiki killed three people as it cut through the same part of the southern Philippines devastated by Typhoon Haiyan late last year. Two of the victims drowned in flash floods while the other was electrocuted due to inundation. The minimal tropical storm, which made landfall well before dawn on Saturday, took just over a day to pass over the provinces of Cebu and Southern Leyte before dissipating over the South China Sea.
Residents of a gritty cowboy and mining town in Australia's Queensland State may have to pack up and leave because of a protracted drought that has nearly exhausted their water supply. The drought parching a wide swath of Australia is typically caused by the El Nino ocean warming phenomenon in the Pacific. But since there is currently no El Nino in progress, meteorologists say its impossible to say how much longer the exceptional dry spell will continue.
The seemingly never-ending rounds of flooding that have plagued Britain for the past two years could be averted in the future by reintroducing beavers to the wild, a leading scientific organization advises. The U.K. Mammal Society has recommended to the environment secretary that the "master river engineers" could permanently alleviate the nation's frequent floods.
Penguin chicks in Argentina's coastal Patagonia are being killed by chilling rains that climate change is bringing to the historically arid region, along with spells of unprecedented heat. "Climate variability in the form of increased rainfall and temperature extremes, however, has increased in the last 50 years and kills many chicks in some years," the authors write.
More than 400 dead dolphins have washed up over the past month on some of the same beaches in northern Peru where scientists were never able to determine what killed some 850 of the animals in 2012. IMARPE, the Peruvian Sea Institute, says 220 of the dead marine mammals were found during the last week of January alone. Marine biologists say that determining what's killing the dolphins is difficult because their laboratories have only three or four of the approximately 100 chemicals available to solve the mystery.
- Extreme Temperatures: -72.9 degrees Fahrenheit at Russia's Siberian community of Verkhoyansk; 114 degrees Fahrenheit at Port Augusta, South Australia.
February 3, 2014 (for the week ending January 31st)
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Earthquakes |
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- Western Greece Quake Cracks Buildings, Injures 7: A state of emergency was declared on the western Greek island of Kefalonia after a 6.1 magnitude quake Sunday afternoon injured seven people and damaged numerous buildings. The Athens Observatory said the temblor struck at 3:55 p.m. local time about 180 miles west of the capital at a depth of 15 miles beneath the Kefalonia town of Lixourian.
- Other earth movements were felt in Java [6.1], Southeastern Iran [4.9], Costa Rica [4.5], the IL-KY border [2.6] and the VT-NH border [2.3].
Tropical storm-force Cyclone Dylan roared onto Australia's Queensland coast before dawn on Friday with wind gusts of nearly 90 mph. Storm-surge flooding arrived at nearly the same time that astronomical high tides also lifted ocean levels. The storm also dumped as much as 18.5 inches of rainfall, triggering local flash flooding inland as well.
Pennsylvania and Nebraska researchers have disproved a 1936 scientific proposition that said dolphins simply aren't strong enough to swim as fast as they do, instead relying on hydrodynamic tricks for the ability. Nearly 80 years after Sir James Gray formulated the paradox, using the limited tools available then to estimate the marine mammals' physiological power, modern measurements have shown that dolphins are up to 10 times stronger than some of the most accomplished human athletes.
The Ugandan Wildlife Authority (UWA) says it will start using surveillance drones to help protect elephants and other endangered animals that have come under increased threat from poachers in recent months. The unmanned aircrafts are scheduled to be flying by the end of the year. UWA Executive Director Andrew Seguya told reporters that the drones will catch poachers "while in the act". More than 11,00 forest elephants were killed over the past decade in Gabon's Minkebe National Park.
Environmental and wildlife advocates slammed Western Australia's move to begin killing sharks along the Indian Ocean coast at the southwest tip of the country in the wake of seven fatal sharks attacks within the past three years. A new poll by the leading UMR research company finds that 82% of Australians don't think the sharks should be killed and say people enter the water at their own risk.
The lowest number of monarch butterflies ever recorded in their Mexican winder home has experts worrying about the future of the epic monarch migration. A new report by the WWF and two Mexican agencies says this year's precipitous plunge in monarch numbers is due to the loss of the insect's main food: milkweed.
Polar bears have changed their diets over the past few years to cope with a warmer Arctic climate that has cut them off from their usual prey of ringed seal pups. Since Arctic sea ice has been melting earlier and freezing later each year, polar bears have only a short period of time to hunt the seals. This forces them to move to other food on land.
- Extreme Temperatures: -69.5 degrees Fahrenheit at Russia's Siberian community of Selagoncy; 114 degrees Fahrenheit at Oodnadatta, South Australia.
January 27, 2014 (for the week ending January 24th)
- A strong quake cracked buildings and tossed items off shelves as it rocked much of New Zealand's lower North Island, including the capital of Wellington, on Monday afternoon. The 6.3 magnitude earthquake was centered about 70 miles northeast of the capital at a depth of about 19 miles, according to the country's GeoNet agency. It was followed by scores of smaller aftershocks.
- Other earth movements were felt in Southern Sumatra [4.9], Southern Italy [4.4], and across much of Costa Rica [5.2].
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Tropical Storms |
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- Cyclone June Lashes New Caledonia and New Zealand: Remnants of Cyclone June downed trees and knocked out power across of parts of New Zealand's North Island after earlier drenching the French overseas territory of New Caledonia. June formed around the Solomon Islands, then intensified to tropical storm force while passing southward over the Coral Sea.
- Cyclone Deliwe Kills 5 While Drenching South Madagascar: Five people were killed and hundreds made homeless by heavy rain and strong rain and strong winds brought to southern Madagascar by Cyclone Deliwe. Most of the fatalities were due to surging water levels on rivers in the worst-hit region of Melaky, according to the country's disaster officials.
The world's most influential global weather phenomenon is likely to more than double in frequency if efforts to limit global warming by curbing greenhouse gas emissions fail, according to a new report. An international team of researchers, writing in the journal Nature Climate Change, says that the current rate of greenhouse gas emissions will bring twice as many extreme outbreaks of El Nino ocean-warming to the tropical Pacific over the next century as have occurred over the past 100 years. The last extreme El Nino wreaked havoc on global weather patterns in 1997-1998, causing billions of dollars in damage and killing approximately 23,00 people.
The amount of air pollution from China's booming manufacturing industry is so great that it is affecting weather patterns across the Pacific in North America, according to a new study published by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. The new report shows that the unexpected side effect of the demand for China's cheap manufactured goods is adversely affecting weather and health half a world away.
A northern New Zealand fisherman and his two sons were baffled after pulling in a nearly foot-long translucent marine creature that looked a lot like a see-through fish. Little is know about [Salpa Maggiore] or how the unusually large one caught by Fraser came to be so far from its normal habitats in the Souther Ocean, which surrounds Antarctica.
Chinese and U.S. researchers say a virus that typically infects plants has been found in honeybees. The scientists inadvertently found tobacco ringspot virus (TRSV) during routine screening of bees. One-third of U.S. honeybee colonies died off during the winter of 2012-2013, a 42 percent increase in fatalities from the previous winter. TRSV infections could be at least one factor behind colony collapse disorder, which has stumped scientists for years.
The first wild beaver to be spotted in the U.K. since the species was hunted to extinction during the reign of Henry VIII in the 16th century has set up home on a farm along the River Otter. A farmer suspected the returning animal after spotting several trees that had been chomped on and felled along the waterway, which runs through Somserset and Devon.
- Extreme Temperatures: -68.6 degrees Fahrenheit at Russia's Siberian community of Verkhoyansk; 113.9 degrees Fahrenheit at Windorah, Queensland, Australia.
January 20, 2014 (for the week ending January 17th)
- One of the strongest earthquakes to strike U.S. territory in recent years cracked floors and knocked out power in Puerto Rico early Monday. There were scattered reports of injuries or major damage from the 6.4 magnitude temblors, which struck about 35 miles north of the island.
- Other earth movements were felt in California [4.5] and [4.4], Oklahoma [2.7], Dominican Republic [5.1], Turkey [4.2], and Southern Australia [2.8].
Lava flowing down the flanks of Guatemala's Pacaya volcano prompted the evacuation of people threatened by the eruption. Lava flows were said to be nearly 2,000 feet wide and two miles long just south of Guatemala City. Small explosions and accompanying bursts of gas and ash were also produced by the resistive volcano.
Loss of habitat and killing by humans is ravaging the populations of about three-quarters of the world's largest carnivores, according to a new study. The loss of the predators at the top of the natural food chain is allowing the numbers of other species to surge, including elk, deer and even primates. You can read the full study here.
The level of the shrinking Dead Sea dropped even further this winter despite drenching rains that filled up reservoirs elsewhere across Israel and the occupied West Bank. Hydrologists say the widespread rain and snow even refilled most of the coastal aquifer while failing to replenish the Dead Sea. The retreating shoreline has destabilized the ground, causing massive sinkholes that have devoured entire villages.
The bulge of warm air over Northern Europe, pushed up by the Arctic Vortex on the other side of the Atlantic, has caused bears to emerge early from hibernation in Finland and plants to bud earlier than normal in Norway. The Norwegian Newspaper Sunnmørsposten published reader photographs of daffodils emerging as early as December, along with crocuses, daisies, dandelions and honeysuckle.
Powerful Cyclone Ian suddenly jogged from a relatively harmless predicted path to one that wreaked catastrophic damage to the island nation of Tonga. Ian underwent explosive and unexpected strengthening as it was entering Tonga's northern waters, striking the archipelago with wind gusts of nearly 180mph as a Category-4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
- Extreme Temperatures: -60.7 degrees Fahrenheit at Russia's Siberian community of Verkhoyansk; 116.8 degrees Fahrenheit at Mardie, Western Australia.
January 13, 2014 (for the week ending January 10)
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Tropical Storms |
- South Pacific Cycloe Ian Skirts Tonga: Northern islands of Tonga were threatened with high winds and days of heavy rainfall as Cyclone Ian spun nearly stationary for two days over the Koro Sea between Fiji and Samoa. Maximum sustained winds were predicted to increase to nearly 100 mph as the center of the storm became more organized and passed between Tonga's main islands late in the week.
- Sri Lanka-Southern India Doused by Cyclone 01B: Cyclone 01B formed briefly over the southwestern Bay of Bengal, but lingering clouds brought three days of downpours to a swath of northern Sri Lanka and far southern India. WInd gusts still managed to reach near 60 mph briefly near Sri Lanka's northern city of Jaffna, according to the country's meteorological service.
A spell of scorching summertime weather in Australia's southern Queensland state killed as many as 100,000 bats in an environmental disaster officials call unprecedented. Wildlife officials say the flying foxes are a key part of the ecosystem, and such a massive loss to their populations will have consequences.
Surfers and swimmers on popular Western Australia beaches can now get warnings of nearby sharks thanks to new wireless technology and Twitter. Marine biologists have attached tiny transmitters to more than 320 sharks, including great whites. Their progress up and down the Indian Ocean coast is monitored, and a computer automatically sends out shark alerts via short messages on Surf Life Saving Western Australia's Twitter feed.
Sumatra's Mount Sinabung erupted 115 times during a three-day period in a relentless eruptive phase that began in September, sending even more people fleeing its flanks. Indonesian geologists say magma beneath Sinabung is rising from deep within the Earth, swelling the size of the lava dome near its peak. That dome occasionally collapses, triggering pyroclastic clouds and gushes of lava.
Earth's upper atmosphere is still littered with radioactive particles from the more than 500 above-ground nuclear tests that took place decades ago, according to a new Swiss study. Most of the plutonium and cesium isotopes from those blasts have since been rinsed out of the lower levels of the atmosphere by falling in rain or snow, or by being brought down by gravity. The stratosphere was also thought to be relatively fallout-free before the Swiss team found its contamination to be about 1,000 to 1,500 levels higher than in the troposphere, the layer just above the surface.
The most brutal chill in decades, which plunged the American Midwest and parts of southern Canada into a sudden deep freeze, also triggered loud booms that sounded like explosions or falling trees. Meteorologists assured nervous residents that the sounds were being caused by a relatively rare phenomenon known as "frost quakes." The booms occur when water in the soil freezes and expands in extreme cold, causing the ground to suddenly fracture like a jar of water in the freezer.
- Extreme Temperatures: -68.1 degrees Fahrenheit at Russia's Siberian community of Selagoncy; 119.0 degrees Fahrenheit at Onslow, Western Australia.
January 6, 2014 (for the week ending January 3)
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Earthquakes |
- Tremors Before Major Baja California Highway Collapse: A series of relatively minor tremors in northern Baja California is believed to have contributed to the collapse of a stretch of coastal highway near the port city of Ensenada. The strongest quake measured a magnitude of 4.6, causing portions of the road and adjacent ground to begin cracking on Dec. 19.
- One person was killed and 30 others injured by an Iranian quake of magnitude [5.5].
- Other earth movements were felt in Palm Springs [3.7], Central Oklahoma [4.1], the Canary Islands [5.4], Southern Italy [5.0], Southern Turkey [5.8], Northeastern Japan [5.1], and Alaska's Kenai Peninsula [4.1].
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Tropical Storms |
- Indian Ocean Cyclone Beijsa Strikes Reunion Island: The Indian Ocean Island of Reunion was lashed on Thursday by wind gusts of up to 124 miles per hour as the center of Cyclone Bejisa passed just to the west of the French territory. Forecasters said the cyclone was ten times the size of the island as it passed from north to south.
- Cyclone Christine Lashes Northwest Australia: Category-2 Cyclone Christine uprooted trees and damaged homes along parts of northwest Australia's Pilbara coast. The storm made landfall near Roeourne with winds of up to 124 mph. More than 5 inches of rain fell as the storm moved ashore in the mainly arid region.
El Salvador's San Miguel volcano (also known as Chaparrastique) produced its most powerful eruption since 1976 with a plume of ash that soared 3 miles above the Central American country. The volcanic debris fell on nearby coffee plantations and forced aviation officials to suspend more than 36 international flights. The mountain last erupted in 2002.
Earth's atmosphere reacts far more to greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought, leading experts to predict that the planet's surface temperature is likely to rise an average of 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. Writing in the journal Nature, a team of Australia-based researchers says it has found how cloud formation plays a role in climate, which has been one of the greatest uncertainties in the prediction of global warming. You can read the article here.
Starvation looms for some residents of the Arab nation of Yemen as a plague of desert locusts has devoured vast tracks of crops there. Unusually heavy rainfall during the past several months has created the perfect breeding conditions for the insects, according to agriculture officials. The U.N. agency says that the insects can lay waste to entire farming regions within days.
The sun's magnetic field underwent a total reversal of polarity during the closing days of 2013. The flip marks the midpoint of Solar Cycle 24, which has generated the weakest solar activity in a century. For more information about this phenomenon, click here.
About 5,000 polar bear cubs were born in the Arctic around New Year's Day, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). WWF celebrates the polar bears' birthday on December 29 and estimates the global population of the iconic animal is between 20,000 and 25,000.
- Extreme Temperatures: -61.8 ° F at Verkhoyansk, Siberia; 120.0 ° F at Tarcoola, South Australia.
