SIO15: Natural Disasters

Source: Steve Newman at the San Diego Union Tribune

Earthwatches

December 28, 2020

December 21, 2020

December 14, 2020

December 07, 2020

November 30, 2020

November 23, 2020

November 16, 2020

November 09, 2020

November 02, 2020

October 26, 2020

October 19, 2020

October 12, 2020

October 05, 2020

September 28, 2020

September 21, 2020

September 14, 2020

September 07, 2020

August 31, 2020

August 24, 2020

August 17, 2020

August 10, 2020

August 03, 2020

July 27, 2020

July 20, 2020

July 13, 2020

July 06, 2020

June 29, 2020

June 22, 2020

June 15, 2020

June 08, 2020

June 01, 2020

May 25, 2020

May 18, 2020

May 11, 2020

May 04, 2020

April 27, 2020

April 20, 2020

April 13, 2020

April 06, 2020

March 30, 2020

March 23, 2020

March 16, 2020

March 09, 2020

March 02, 2020

February 24, 2020

February 17, 2020

February 10, 2020

February 03, 2020

January 27, 2020

January 20, 2020

January 13, 2020

January 06, 2020

December 28, 2020 (for the week ending Dec 25)



Earthquakes

• Much of northeastern Japan was jolted by a magnitude 6.5 temblor.
• Earth movements were also felt along the Iran-Turkey border [magnitude 4.5], in Sicily [4.6] and far western Colorado [4.3].



Tropical Cyclones

• Late reports from Fiji say that Super Cyclone Yasa killed two people as it flattened entire villages on the South Pacific country’s second-largest island of Vanua Levu on Dec. 18. Yasa was the third Category 5 cyclone to hit Fiji since 2016. Cyclone Winston killed 44 people that year and destroyed tens of thousands of homes.
• Minimal Tropical Storm Krovanh formed briefly near the Spratly Islands of the South China Sea.



Hawaiian eruption

Plumes of ash and gases soared above Kilauea volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island as fountains of lava illuminated the night sky around the summit caldera. Residents in the area were warned to stay indoors and avoid exposure to falling ash. A magnitude 4.4 tremor shook the south flank of the volcano about an hour after the eruption began. Kilauea last erupted in 2018, destroying more than 700 homes while spewing massive amounts of lava.



Antarctic rumble

Scientists working in Antarctica say they have recorded more than 30,000 tremors just off the Antarctic Peninsula since August. The University of Chile’s Seismological Center says the strongest registered a magnitude of 6 in an area where tectonic plates and microplates meet between the South Shetland Islands and the peninsula. This has caused the islands to separate from Antarctica about 6 inches per year, almost twice the average rate.



Walled nature

The accelerated construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall over the past year has disrupted animal movements, caused mountains to be dynamited and toppled century-old saguaro cactus. “Interconnected landscapes that stretch across two countries are being converted into industrial wastelands,” Randy Serraglio of the Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson told The Associated Press.
Field cameras at southeastern Arizona’s San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge have recently captured 90 percent fewer movements of animals like mountain lions, bobcats and javelinas. “This wall is the largest impediment to wildlife movement we’ve ever seen in this part of the world,” said Myles Traphagen of the Wildlands Network.



Recalculated heat

The world may have less time than expected to curb carbon emissions and avert a life-threatening climate catastrophe after it was discovered that manmade greenhouse gases may have already warmed the planet by 18 percent more than predicted. “Climate change hasn’t suddenly got worse. It’s just our estimate of how much warming has taken place has improved,” says Tim Osborn of Britain’s University of East Anglia. The findings come as 2020 appears to be vying with 2019 as the second-warmest year on record. The British Met Office predicts 2021 is still likely to at least be among the six warmest years on record, chilled a bit by the ongoing moderate La Niña ocean-cooling in the Pacific.



Bird blackout

A New Zealand South Island village has switched off all of its streetlights in an attempt to stop young birds from crash-landing on roadways. Wildlife experts say the Westland petrel fledglings are possibly mistaking the streetlights of Punakaiki for the bioluminescent fish they typically eat. The town hosts about 6,000 breeding pairs of the rare birds each March, which is celebrated with a festival. But the introduction of blue-white LED lights last year has some local bird-watchers believing that it’s confusing the seabirds even more than usual, causing them to crash onto roads and sometimes be struck by cars.


• Extreme Temperatures: -63°F Verkhoyansk, Siberia; 110°F Nullagine, W. Australia

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December 21, 2020 (for the week ending Dec 18)



Earthquakes

• At least nine light earthquakes rattled residents in parts of Wichita, Kan., for a second week without inflicting damage. [The largest had magnitude 3.0.]
• Earth movements were also felt in the San Francisco Bay Area [magnitude 3.7], Hawaii’s Big Island [4.4], northeastern Japan [5.5], India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands [4.6], southeastern Pakistan [3.5] and the Russian republic of Chechnya [4.6].



Tropical Cyclones

• Category-5 Cyclone Yasa was predicted to cut a path through the heart of Fiji late in the week, triggering flash flooding as well as destroying structures and crops.
• Tropical Storm Zazu raked Tonga with damaging winds and powerful thunderstorms.



Etna eruption

Sicily’s Mount Etna produced a dramatic and colorful eruption that coated parts of nearby Catanian villages with ash.
Glowing lava spewed from the mountain’s southeastern flanks, illuminating the area during an overnight eruption that lasted several hours. One lava fountain appeared to shoot up almost 300 feet above the summit at the peak of the eruption. Residents the following morning had to wash the volcanic debris from their cars, streets and balconies.



La Niña persists

U.S. forecasters predict there is a 95 percent chance the current moderate La Niña episode will prevail until at least March, triggering a unique set of global weather shifts. They add there is a chance it will peak in the strong range during January.
While El Niños typically last just one year, La Niñas often fade, then redevelop the following year. Australian meteorologists say the ocean-cooling across the tropical Pacific can probably be linked to a cyclone-like storm that was lashing the coast of Queensland in mid-December. The deepening climate crisis is also said to be a factor in that storm and accompanying floods.



White penguin

The Galapagos National Park reports a white penguin that appears to have a rare genetic condition is living along the northern coast of Isabela Island. Park scientists say the leucism responsible for the white appearance of the Galapagos penguin differs from albinism because the bird has normal eye color.



Towering relocation

Two of eight giraffes marooned on an island in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley were very carefully moved by barge to a new home where they will be free to roam. Rising lakes have stranded giraffes and other wildlife on islands, forcing officials to launch relocation efforts. “Moving a giraffe is a delicate process. It took a whole day just to move one giraffe, with the barge taking at least two hours to get to the mainland,” said Jackson Komen, a warden for the Kenya Wildlife Service in Baringo. “The remaining, including some pregnant females, will be moved a little later,” Komen added.



Roman invasion

Rome’s iconic umbrella pine trees are under siege from a tiny insect known as the pine tortoise scale. Originally from North America, the invasive Toumeyella parvicornis has an oval shell that makes it look like a tortoise. It first appeared in Naples to the south five years ago, ravaging that city’s stone pines. Agronomists say it can kill trees within just two or three years by operating like a vampire, sucking sap then coating trees with a fungus that blocks photosynthesis. They are looking at natural predators to control the infestation since it is not practical to use pesticides in the bustling Italian capital. “In Europe, our pines have never seen this insect and have no defense mechanism,” said entomologist Antonio Garonna.


• Extreme Temperatures: -68°F Oimyakon, Siberia; 111°F Rivadavia, Salta, Argentina

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December 14, 2020 (for the week ending Dec 11)



Earthquakes

• An eastern Mediterranean [magnitude 5.3] temblor was felt widely from southern Turkey to Israel and Egypt.
• Earth movements were also felt in southern Spain [magnitude 3.4], northern Chile [6.1], the central Philippines [5.4], Taiwan [6.1], northeastern New Zealand [4.4] and Kansas [3.0].



Tropical Cyclones

• The cyclone season in the Indian Ocean heated up with Tropical Storm Bongoyo forming midway between Australia and Madagascar.
• Cyclone Three spun up just south of Java.



Solar record

The sun has begun a new 11-year cycle of activity, which some scientists predict could be one of the strongest since observations began 270 years ago. Writing in the journal Solar Physics, a team from the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) says Sunspot Cycle 25 will peak with a maximum of about 210 to 260 sunspots, putting it near the top of the most active. But the official NOAA forecast says the new cycle will be about the same as No. 24, which peaked with only 116.
Predicting solar activity is very difficult, and the NCAR researchers say that if their prediction is accurate, their new understanding of the sun’s internal magnetic dynamics “is on the right path.”



Human footprint

Centuries of humankind’s impact on Earth will soon result in the combined weight of all concrete, metal, plastic, bricks and asphalt being greater than that of all living matter, according to new scientific estimates. A team at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Sciences says the weight of manmade objects is now about one teraton and growing.
For every person in the world on average, more than their body weight is now being generated weekly. Writing in the journal Nature, the team says this is causing the weight of all the stuff humans create to double every 20 years. They add that, combined with the loss of plant life and vanishing or dwindling of species due to human activities, the planet’s weight balance between nature and man’s creation is shifting.



Second wave

East African officials say weather conditions are now favorable for another wave of ravenous locusts to swarm across the region from the Red Sea to Kenya. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization also predicts fresh immature swarms will soon migrate southward to Ethiopia and Somalia before eventually invading northeastern Kenya. These same areas were hit earlier this year by massive swarms that also originated around the Red Sea. Successive generations are still devouring grasslands, threatening food shortages and laying eggs.



Herbal prevention

An international team of researchers says it has found that a species of sparrow intentionally uses medicinal herbs to ensure the health of its offspring. Such behavior was earlier thought to be restricted to only a small number of animals, mainly higher primates. William Feeney of Australia’s Griffith University says russet sparrows use wormwood leaves to build nests. “The phytochemical compounds within wormwood leaves reduced infestation of the nest parasites, which results in the production of healthier chicks,” said Feeney. Writing in the journal Current Biology, he and colleagues say that the birds seek out those leaves and adjust how many are in their nests through their sense of smell.



Ray scanning

Japanese scientists have proposed a novel way to map the ocean’s vast unexplored seabed by equipping stingrays and electric rays with ultrasonic pingers and tiny cameras to collect data. “Electric rays and stingrays are benthic animals, meaning that they spend most of their time swimming around the ocean floor in deep places,” said Yo Tanaka of the RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research. By placing cameras on rays and linking the timing of the recorded video to the timing and locations determined by the pingers, the researchers believe they can create accurate maps of the ocean floor. Tanaka says trial experiments confirm the scheme is practical.


• Extreme Temperatures: -65°F Oimyakon, Siberia; 112°F Boulia, Queensland, Australia

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December 07, 2020 (for the week ending Dec 04)



Earthquakes

• Nevada’s most powerful quake since 1954[, a magnitude 5.1 temblor,] was felt widely from Las Vegas and Reno westward to central California.
• Earth movements were also felt in south-central Kansas [magnitude 2.6], the Alaska Peninsula [6.3], northeastern Taiwan [5.1], the central Philippines [4.8], southeastern Turkey [5.0] and around the Greek capital of Athens [4.5].



Tropical Cyclones

• The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season ended with a record-breaking 30 named storms and the second-highest number of hurricanes ever observed. Among them were the greatest number of storms to make landfall in the continental United States.
  Climate scientists say that the unprecedented hurricane season had an undeniable link to the deepening global climate crisis.
• Far southern India and neighboring Sri Lanka were raked by new tropical storm-force Cyclone Burevi.



Eruptions

Falling ash and sulphur killed livestock and blanketed several villages around Java’s Mount Semeru following a powerful blast.
It came two days after Mount Ili Lewotolok shot out columns of hot clouds high above the island of Lembata, in Indonesia’s East Nusa Tenggara province.



Record heat

The U.N. weather agency predicts that 2020 will come in as almost the hottest year on record, just behind the current record-holder, 2016. Global weather data now put this year as the second-warmest ever, with its heat waves, devastating tropical cyclones and firestorms. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told an audience at New York’s Columbia University that manmade greenhouse gas emissions are to blame, and that world leaders have yet to adequately confront the climate crisis. “To put it simply, the state of the planet is broken,” said Guterres. “Humanity is waging war on nature. This is suicidal.”



Frayed edges

The world’s biggest iceberg, which threatens to blockade wildlife on Britain’s South Atlantic island of South Georgia, is showing signs of disintegrating under the influence of the warmer waters it is encountering. The British Antarctic Survey says that Iceberg A68a is now riddled with cracks as it is battered by waves, shedding countless tiny icebergs around its edges. Images from SkySats orbiting spacecraft, which can reveal details as small as 20 inches across, show that the iceberg is now in the shape of a hand with an outstretched index finger.
A68a broke off from Antarctica in 2017. It has surprised scientists by managing to stay intact for so long.



Tagged giraffe

The world’s only known white giraffe is now sporting a GPS tracking device so Kenyan park rangers can receive hourly updates of its location to protect it from poachers. The juvenile has a rare genetic condition called leucism, which causes it to lose skin pigmentation. Since it is believed to be the last of its kind, wildlife officials fear it could be poached like its relatives, a female and her 7-month-old calf with a similar condition. They were found dead in the same region of eastern Kenya where the white calf currently lives alone. Giraffes are the world’s tallest mammals and are designated a vulnerable species, with an estimated global population of 68,293.



COVID companions

Researchers say that pets have truly been lifesavers during the COVID-19 pandemic, providing much-needed comfort to their human companions through hugs, cuddles and their physical presence. Writing in The Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy, a team from the University of South Australia documents how pets have played a crucial role while typical human-to-human interactions sometimes proved to be life-threatening. “Touch is an understudied sense, but existing evidence indicates it is crucial for growth, development and health, as well as reducing the levels of the stress hormone cortisol in the body,” the researchers write.


• Extreme Temperatures: -46°F Seymchan, Siberia; 116°F Bourke, New South Wales, Australia

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November 30, 2020 (for the week ending Nov 27)



Earthquakes

• Russia’s Bellingshausen Antarctic research station was rocked by a magnitude 6.0 temblor off the Antarctic Peninsula.
• Earth movements were also felt in central Chile [magnitude 6.1], Guam [5.4], northeastern Japan [5.8] and southeastern Spain [2.4].



Tropical Cyclones

• Somalia was raked by Category 2 Cyclone Gati, which killed at least four as the strongest such storm on record there.
• India’s Tamil Nadu state was raked by Category 1 Cyclone Nivar.



Warming bites

Warmer temperatures may be causing blood-sucking ticks to shift their feeding preference from dogs to humans in a potentially growing threat to public health. This finding is alarming because ticks carry and can transmit deadly Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Experiments conducted at the University of California Davis School of Veterinary Medicine placed a human in one box and a dog in an adjacent one. The researchers watched at various temperatures as the ticks sniffed out which mammal would bring their next blood meal. While at 75 degrees Fahrenheit the ticks showed a distinct preference for the dog, they became 2.5 times more likely to prefer humans at around 100 degrees.



Greenhouse rise

The U.N. weather agency says that while global carbon emissions fell by as much as 17 percent globally at times during the COVID pandemic, the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have continued to rise to even higher records this year. “The lockdown-related fall in emissions is just a tiny blip on the long-term graph,” said World Meteorological Organization chief Petteri Taalas. “We need a sustained flattening of the curve.” He added in a statement that such a rise in carbon dioxide levels as observed over the past four years has never been seen before, either in direct measurements from the atmosphere or in ice-core samples that reveal CO2 concentrations from up to 800,000 years ago.



Lofty plastics

Scientists report they have found the uppermost-recorded microplastic pollution on the planet near the summit of Mount Everest. An international team organized by England’s University of Plymouth says it collected “substantial quantities” of polyester, acrylic, nylon and polypropylene fibers at an elevation of 27,690 feet. The team says that while some could be from material carried up Everest by climbers, much of it could have been blown there by the powerful winds that often impact the mountain’s higher slopes. Plastic pollution has been found in recent years from the world’s highest mountain to its deepest ocean trench.



Returning giants

Critically endangered blue whales, the largest creatures ever known to have existed, are returning to Britain’s sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia. U.K. scientists say the whales appear to be growing in numbers around the island after being nearly wiped out by whaling 50 years ago. While only a single blue whale was seen there between 1998 and 2018, 58 were spotted in a survey in February of this year. Another recent study found that humpback whales are also returning to the same waters.



Regal death

The oldest lion in Kenya’s Maasai Mara Game Reserve died peacefully and with dignity after a 16-year reign in the park.
Olorpapit had sired many offspring while shuttling between five separate prides, according to the reserve. “It was a celebrity lion that was a darling to tourists,” Chief Warden James Sindiyo told the Nairobi News. It reports that as soon as word went out that the famous lion had passed, hundreds of tourists and wild cat lovers who had interacted with him sent condolences. The lion was said to have been injured when younger territorial lions attacked him a few weeks ago.


• Extreme Temperatures: -50°F Oimyakon, Siberia; 113°F Rivadavia, Salta, Argentina

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November 23, 2020 (for the week ending Nov 20)



Earthquakes

• A sharp [magnitude 5.1] temblor in the central Philippines wrecked a municipal building in Biliran province.
• Earth movements were also felt in west-central Sumatra [magnitude 5.8], northeastern India’s Mizoram state [5.2], western Pakistan [5.5], west-central Texas [3.5] and interior Southern California [3.4].



Tropical Cyclones

• Former Category-5 Hurricane Iota killed dozens as it ravaged parts of Central America and Colombia. It was the strongest named storm on record to strike Nicaragua when it made landfall in the same area as Hurricane Eta, which caused widespread devastation two weeks earlier. It was also the strongest storm so far of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season.
• After leaving at least 67 dead as the strongest typhoon to strike the Philippines this year, Typhoon Vamco later pummeled the same area of central Vietnam already ravaged by several other storms in 2020.
• Cyclone Alicia, the first of the season in the region, formed briefly in the southwestern Indian Ocean.



Stromboli blast

A sudden eruption of ash and lava inside a volcano on the Italian island of Stromboli sent debris cascading down the slopes of its namesake volcano.



Superbolts

Scientists have for the first time documented how often a rare breed of extreme lightning bolts can occur in the skies above Earth and how bright they are. These superbolts can be 1,000 times brighter and stretch hundreds of miles farther than their more common counterparts. Writing in the American Geophysical Union’s Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, Los Alamos researchers say roughly one-third of 1 percent, or 1 in every 300 lightning strikes, are superbolts. Recent research finds that these extreme flashes occur in rare, positively charged cloud-to-ground events rather than the more common negatively charged cloud-to-ground discharges.



Pervasive plastic

Researchers have found that most whales, turtles and fish may be swimming the world’s oceans with plastic in their bodies. Writing in the journal Global Change Biology, Marga Rivas at Spain’s University of Almería and her team analyzed data from 112 published studies from the past decade. They conclude that 66 percent of all sea turtles had macroplastics and microplastics in their systems, while 55 percent were contaminated with a class called microfibers. The highest rates of plastic contamination were in the Mediterranean and northeastern Indian Ocean.



Rhino return

Conservationists will repopulate Zimbabwe’s Gonarezhou National Park with black rhinos before the end of the year, bringing the critically endangered animals back 27 years after they went locally extinct. The Gonarezhou Conservation Trust has hired 39 game rangers, mainly from areas around the park, and trained them to protect the returning rhinos. South Africa’s CAJ News reports the animals first went extinct in the area sometime in the 1930s or 1940s. A similar reintroduction project between 1969 and 1977 saw rhino numbers increase to about 140 before a civil war in neighboring Mozambique caused the park to close. By 1994, the rhinos were extinct there again.



Marine heat wave

Climate experts warn that the third marine heat wave in four years is developing off northern New Zealand as the country enters the southern summer. Such a warm-water designation means the ocean temperatures have been cooler 90 percent of the time in the past. “We’re not even at the peak of our sea-surface temperatures, which typically occur over January and February,” said meteorologist Ben Noll of the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research. Heat waves at sea can alter the marine ecosystem, bringing in species of fish and other aquatic life from more tropical waters. They can affect the land environment as well. The 2018 marine heat wave off northern New Zealand led to a population boom of some land animals, including rodents.


• Extreme Temperatures: -50°F Oimyakon, Siberia; 115°F Oodnadatta, S. Australia

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November 16, 2020 (for the week ending Nov 13)



Earthquakes

• A rare [magnitude 3.6] temblor in southern Massachusetts was felt widely across New England and caused some structural damage.
• Earth movements were also felt in Jamaica [magnitude 3.6], North Macedonia [5.0], western India’s Gujarat state [4.2], south-central Alaska [5.0], southeastern Utah [3.8] and West Texas [3.0].



Tropical Cyclones

• After leaving approximately 200 people dead from floods and mudslides in Central America, Hurricane Eta swamped Cuba then made landfall in Florida twice as a tropical storm, causing local floods.
• Tropical Storm Theta made 2020 a record year for the number of named storms in the Atlantic Basin. [NB: Tropical Storm Theta became the first ever 29th name tropical cyclone in the Atlantic.]
• Typhoon Vamco killed at least 39 on Luzon Island as the 21st named storm to hit the Philippines this year.



Java eruption

Hundreds of villagers around Indonesia’s Mount Merapi fled their homes as the volcano spewed lava and ash during a weeklong increase in activity.
A major eruption in 2010 killed more than 300 people and forced nearly 400,000 others to evacuate.



COVID-susceptible

Canadian researchers warn that whales and other marine mammals could become infected with COVID-19 through inadequately treated sewage effluents. While no such cases have been reported, scientists at Dalhousie University say their genomic mapping determined that almost all whale, dolphin and porpoise species have the same or higher susceptibility to the coronavirus as humans. “Many of these species are threatened or critically endangered,” said Dalhousie’s Graham Dellaire. “In the past, these animals have been infected by related coronaviruses that have caused both mild disease as well as life-threatening liver and lung damage.”



'River' damage

Strengthening rivers of relatively warm and moist air blowing southward from the middle latitudes are melting huge patches of sea ice around Antarctica, new research reveals. Diana Francis at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi and her colleagues found that these atmospheric rivers are now making the storms that rage around Antarctica more powerful by fueling them with more water vapor. The storms help churn up nutrients for marine life. But when amplified by the atmospheric rivers, they accelerate climate change by breaking up the sea ice and opening up large patches of darker ocean water. These openings, known as polynyas, reflect less solar energy back into space than the white ice, allowing the water to heat up.



New Colony

Scientists in South Africa are trying to save from extinction the only penguin that breeds in Africa by establishing a new colony at a protected site about 140 miles southeast of Cape Town. More than 1 million pairs of what was once South Africa’s most abundant seabird thrived back in the 1920s. But people began harvesting their eggs for human consumption, helping to cause the populations to plunge to around 13,000 breeding pairs last year. Dwindling fish stocks and climate change have also contributed to the decline. About 50 hand-raised juvenile birds, abandoned by their parents, will be released each year to try to establish a colony at the De Hoop nature reserve.



'Zombie' batteries

The pervasive dumping of discarded batteries from personal electronics and other devices is causing hundreds of fires a year at recycling and waste sites in the United Kingdom, officials say. The Environmental Services Association warns that battery types such as lithium-ion and nickel-metal hydride can explode or ignite when damaged, and are known to spark fires in nearby material if not disposed of properly. “Batteries in household waste and recycling can lead to large-scale and protracted fires. These incidents are often very challenging for fire services,” said Mark Andrews of Britain’s National Fire Chiefs Council.


• Extreme Temperatures: -90°F Vostok, Antarctica; 115°F Matam, Senegal

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November 09, 2020 (for the week ending Nov 06)



Earthquakes

• More than 115 people perished in southwestern Turkey and the Greek island of Samos from a powerful [magnitude 7.0] temblor on Oct. 30.
• Earth movements were also felt in India’s Jammu and Kashmir territory [magnitude 4.4], northeastern India’s Meghalaya state [4.4], around Indonesia’s Banda Sea [6.3] and islands of the eastern Caribbean [4.6].



Tropical Cyclones

• t least 24 people perished when Category 4 Typhoon Goni it the Philippine islands of Catanduanes and Luzon as the strongest named storm on the planet this year.
• Hurricane Eta, one of the strongest to ever hit Central America, killed five people as it brought devastating floods and wind damage on its slow passage across Nicaragua and Honduras.
• Tropical Storm Atsani formed to the northeast of the Philippines.
• Tropical Storm Odalys spun up briefly to the west of Mexico.



Light pollution

Humanity’s pervasive use of artificial light is causing widespread impacts on the world’s animals and plants, and researchers say it should be limited where possible. Writing in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, University of Exeter scientists say their analysis of more than 100 studies reveals light pollution causes changes to animal behavior and physiology, especially hormone levels and patterns of waking, sleeping and activity. They say even low levels of artificial light can have profound effects. “In effect, we need to view light like any other pollutant,” wrote researcher Kevin Gaston.



Brazilian blazes

The number of wildfires blackening tracts of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest surged last month, reaching a level 25 percent higher from January through October than in the same period of 2019.
And the 17,326 hot spots observed this October were more than double the number during the same month last year. Brazil’s National Institute of Space Research also observed a record number of blazes farther south in the Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetlands, which extends across Brazil’s borders with Paraguay and Bolivia. The World Wildlife Fund and other environmental organizations blame the blazes on the policies of President Jair Bolsonaro, who promotes opening both regions of the country to logging and farming.



Collision course

The world’s most massive iceberg appears to be taking dead aim on a remote British territory in the South Atlantic, where it could have devastating consequences for the island’s wildlife. Iceberg A-68A, roughly the size of Cyprus, broke off from Antarctica’s Larsen Ice Shelf in 2017 and is predicted to run aground in the shallow waters surrounding South Georgia in less than a month. Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey warn the massive chunk could block foraging routes for many thousands of the three penguin species that populate the island.
This could threaten their chicks, as well as seal pups on the island, with starvation.



Overpowering heat

The U.N. weather agency says 2020 could wind up as one of the hottest years on record even with the current La Niña ocean-cooling across the Tropical Pacific. World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Petteri Taalas says that while La Niña produces a cooling effect on the planet, it is now more than offset by global heating and the climate crisis it is driving.



Dirty & dangerous

Many of the world’s oldest and most-polluting vehicles are not winding up in scrapyards but are instead being “dumped” on the roadways of poor countries where they continue to spew high levels of carbon emissions. A report by the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) says that from 2015 to 2018, about 14 million outdated cars were exported from Europe, Japan and the U.S., with most winding up in Africa, Latin America and Asia. One of the authors of the report authors says about 80 percent of those vehicles aren’t roadworthy and don’t meet European emission standards.


• Extreme Temperatures: -74°F Vostok, Antarctica; 110°F Linguere, Senegal

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November 02, 2020 (for the week ending Oct 30)



Earthquakes

• Central and northwestern Iran were jolted by two separate temblors [, of magnitudes 5.1 and 5.2] that were widely felt.
• Earth movements were also felt in southern Scotland [magnitude 2.0], northeastern Taiwan [5.1], New Zealand’s North Island [4.5] and the Himalayan Indian state of Sikkim [3.6].



Tropical Cyclones

• The northern Philippines was lashed by high winds and flash floods as Typhoon Molave formed over the region. The storm later killed at least 35 people and worsened Vietnam’s months-long flood crisis.
• After drenching Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, Hurricane Zeta raked Louisiana as the fifth named storm to hit the state so far this year.



Arctic loss

Sea ice surrounding the North Pole was at a record low extent for October due to unusually warm Arctic Ocean temperatures, according to Danish researchers. They say the ice has been slow to re-form following the past summer’s melt, and coverage was at the lowest of the past 40 years of satellite observations. “It’s a trend we’ve been seeing the past years, with a longer open water season making the sun warm the sea for a longer time, resulting in shorter winters so the ice doesn’t grow as thick as it used to,” said Rasmus Tonboe of the Danish Meteorological Institute. Measurements show an 8.2 percent downward trend during the past 10 years.



Night bites

Artificial light is causing some disease-carrying mosquitoes to track down and bite humans more frequently outside their usually active periods, researchers say. Writing in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, scientists say that Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which normally fly and bite in the early morning and during the afternoon, will now bite at night in illuminated areas. They warn that increasing levels of light pollution could increase the chance of infection in humans with diseases such as dengue fever, yellow fever, chikungunya and Zika. Unlike other species that may emerge from the forest to feed on humans and animals, Aedes aegypti evolved with humans and prefers to feed on them.



Galapagos bounty

Ecuador’s Galapagos National Park says populations of the archipelago’s penguins and flightless cormorants have seen a record increase since 2019, reaching the highest levels since 2006. Galapagos penguins are the only ones that live on the equator. They have grown in numbers from 1,451 in 2019 to 1,940 this year. The flightless cormorant population has increased from 1,914 to 2,220 during the same period. The park says La Niña conditions have helped provide more food for both species, allowing their populations to increase.



Isotope warning

Plans to dump more than a million tons of contaminated water from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster into the ocean are being highly criticized. Greenpeace warns in a report that the water stored after the 2011 meltdowns at the facility has such high levels of the isotope carbon-14 that it could damage human DNA if released into the Pacific. The move has also been strongly opposed by local fishermen. The Greenpeace report says that carbon-14 has a half-life of 5,370 years and would become “incorporated into all living matter” over time if released into the wild. But Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga says the dumping can’t be postponed forever.



Kamchatka kill

The massive deaths of sea creatures along the eastern coast of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula are being blamed by officials on a natural bloom of toxic algae and not on man-made pollution. Images of dead seals, octopuses and other marine life started appearing on social media in early October, accompanied by reports of local residents complaining of being sickened as well. Russia’s Investigative Committee said the deaths were entirely due to natural causes. But initial tests found levels of oil products and phenol, used to make plastics, in the water.


• Extreme Temperatures: -78°F Vostok, Antarctica; 110°F Rivadavia, Salta, Argentina

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October 26, 2020 (for the week ending Oct 23)



Earthquakes

• A temblor near the Alaska Peninsula triggered small tsunami waves. [The quake was a magnitude 7.5.]
• Southwest Iceland’s strongest quake in 17 years [a magnitude 5.6] was the latest in a series of temblors in recent months.
• Earth movements were also felt in the northwestern Philippines [magnitude 5.4] and along the California-Mexico border [3.5].



Tropical Cyclones

• Bermuda was pounded by large waves as nearby Hurricane Epsilon churned in the Atlantic.
• The northern Philippines was drenched by strengthening Typhoon Saudel before it took aim on central Vietnam late in the week.



Pre Dust Bowl?

A new study finds dust levels are rising in the American Great Plains due to farming practices and climate trends that scientists say are reminiscent of the lead-up to the 1930s Dust Bowl period. The University of Utah research finds that the amount of dust has risen up to 5 percent per year, which coincides with the expansion of cropland and seasonal crop cycles. Writing in Geophysical Research Letters, the scientists suggest farming practices could now be exposing more soil to wind erosion, albeit much less than when 1920s Midwestern farmers were tilling the topsoil with mechanical plows. This led to the Dust Bowl after severe drought struck.



Fracking fallout

A new Harvard study finds that there are significantly elevated levels of airborne radioactive particles up to 31 miles downwind of U.S. fracking sites. Using 16 years of data from 157 federal radiation monitoring stations, researchers found that sites with 100 fracking wells within 12 miles upwind had an average of about 7 percent more radiation in the air. The highest contamination was near the Marcellus and Utica shale fields in Ohio and Pennsylvania, where radioactivity was 40 percent higher than normal. While conventional oil and gas drilling doesn’t result in much impact on underground rocks that contain uranium isotopes, hydraulic fracturing blasts through shale and other layers containing them. Scientists say the resulting radioactive particles are carried downwind.



Seal tragedy

More than 5,000 seal mothers have aborted their pups at a key breeding colony along the coast of Namibia since early September, worrying marine scientists. Biopsies and tests have yet to determine why the miscarriages occurred on such a massive scale. Experts from Ocean Conservation Namibia say similar events happen every few years, but never before on such a large scale. They add that the mothers often sit beside their aborted pups, or carry them around for a few days in grief. It’s believed that starvation, disease or pollution could be behind the disaster.



Rift Valley floods

Lakes in the heart of Kenya have risen to levels not seen in at least a half-century after months of extreme rainfall scientists say is linked to climate change. The rising waters have swamped villages and pastures, forcing tens of thousands of people to move to higher ground. “It’s been phenomenal,” Guy Erskine told AFP as hippos wallowed in his submerged hotel on Lake Naivasha. Meteorologists say seasonal rains predicted for the weeks ahead threaten further inundation.



Drone recovery

A leading international conservation group has come up with a novel plan to regenerate the vast tracts of Australian bushland blackened by recent firestorms. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) says it is urgent to restore the habitats of koalas and other wildlife lost in the conflagrations. It suggests that specialized drones could plant up to 40,000 gum trees per day in inaccessible areas to create green corridors that wildlife can feed on, live in and migrate through. Gum trees are the koalas’ main food source. WWF Australia wants to raise $210 million to fund the initiative and double koala numbers along the country’s eastern coast.


• Extreme Temperatures: -89°F Vostok, Antarctica; 113°F Rivadavia, Salta, Argentina

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October 19, 2020 (for the week ending Oct 16)



Earthquakes

• Much of northern Taiwan, including the capital of Taipei, was jolted by a magnitude 4.9 quake.
• A rare but mild [magnitude 3.3] temblor shook northern Arizona.



Tropical Cyclones

• China’s Heibei Island and the northern half of Vietnam were drenched by tropical storms Nangka and Linfa, which struck the region in rapid succession.
• At least four people were left dead in the wake of Hurricane Delta's fury along the Louisiana coast. Power was knocked out and lowlands inundated in a region still recovering from disastrous Hurricane Laura in August.



Lava hazard

Lava, which during a 2002 eruption killed about 250 people and destroyed parts of a major East African city, is once again rising into Mount Nyiragongo’s lava lake in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Researchers from Italy’s University of Campania predict the threat from the accumulating lava will peak in about four years, but a quake could unleash it at any time.
The volcano has the world’s largest lava lake, which drained in a matter of hours after a 2002 temblor, releasing low-silica and runny lava that cascaded into the eastern Congolese city of Goma at nearly 40 mph.



'Dying' Arctic

Researchers returning from the world’s most ambitious study ever of the North Pole say they found proof that the Arctic Ocean “is dying,” due to unprecedented warming and the melting of the polar ice cap. A team of several hundred scientists from 20 countries say they found during their 389-day Arctic mission that the North Pole is surrounded by “badly eroded, melted, thin and brittle ice.” The mountain of data they collected will take up to two years to analyze and may help to predict conditions up to 100 years in the future. The team from the German Alfred Wegener Institute’s Polarstern ship says the results will also help them understand how dwindling sea ice influences the Arctic’s climate system and how it’s felt around the world.



Micro fliers

U.S. researchers have developed a sensor so tiny that it can be deployed on insects or mini drones to reach places too small or dangerous for humans to go. The University of Washington invention can be released from its tiny airborne transports by a Bluetooth command, then drop up to 72 feet when it has reached its desired location. Once on the ground, it can measure things like temperature, humidity or other factors for almost three years. The sensor weighs only about one-tenth the weight of a jellybean, or one-hundredth of an ounce. It is designed to spin as it falls, with its low weight and rotation keeping its maximum falling speed at around 11 mph. Scientists say a network of the sensors could monitor an entire forest or farm.



Climate disaster

A new report says disasters triggered by the deepening climate crisis have risen at a “staggering” rate since the start of this century. The World Meteorological Organization publication says this is in sharp contrast to the far fewer disasters during previous two decades. “This is clear evidence that in a world where the global average temperature in 2019 was 1.1 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial period, the impacts are being felt in the increased frequency of extreme weather events, including heat waves, droughts, flooding, winter storms, hurricanes and wildfires,” the report says.



Massive ozone hole

The ozone hole in the stratosphere above Antarctica reached its annual peak on Oct. 1, which scientists say was the largest and deepest in 15 years. This was in contrast to an unusually small and short-lived ozone hole in 2019 caused by unusual weather conditions. “There is much variability in how far ozone hole events develop each year,” said Vincent-Henri Peuch, director of Europe’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service.
He added that it’s proof nations need to continue enforcing the Montreal Protocol, which bans emissions of ozone-depleting chemicals.


• Extreme Temperatures: -90°F Vostok, Antarctica; 112°F Aqaba, Jordan

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October 12, 2020 (for the week ending Oct 09)



Earthquakes

• One of the largest swarms of quakes on record in Southern California’s Imperial Valley subsided after the strongest quakes tossed items off shelves. [The strongest was a magnitude 4.9.]
• Earth movements were also felt in southern Utah [magnitude 4.4] and the India-Myanmar border area [4.6].



Tropical Cyclones

• Hurricane Delta raked Cancun and other parts of the Yucatan as a Category 3 storm before taking aim on the U.S. Gulf Coast. Tropical Storm Gamma had drenched the same area of Mexico days earlier.
• Tropical Storm Norbert remained weak in the eastern Pacific
• Chan-hom skirted southern and eastern Japan.



Iceless winters

Warmer winters brought on by the deepening climate crisis are bringing more ice-free years to lakes around the Northern Hemisphere, according to a new study. Researchers writing in the journal Geophysical Research Letters say that beyond the ecological changes this causes, communities around some of those lakes are suffering because they depend on frozen festivals and winter recreation. The lack of ice also makes the lakes more prone to toxic algal blooms, which could harm fish and make swimming more dangerous. “This isn’t just happening in one lake in the northern United States. It’s happening in thousands of lakes around the world,” said lead author Alessandro Filazzola.



Night warming

The first worldwide assessment of how global heating is affecting temperatures during the day and night reveals that nights are warming up much faster for much of the planet.
Scientists from Britain’s University of Exeter found that while days did warm more quickly in some locations, the nighttime warming was twice as great worldwide. “Greater nighttime warming is associated with the climate becoming wetter, and this has been shown to have important consequences for plant growth and how species, such as insects and mammals, interact,” wrote lead author Daniel Cox in the journal Global Change Biology. Species that are active only at night are the most affected, the study says.



COVID risks

Researchers say they have identified more than two dozen animals frequently in contact with humans that may be vulnerable to COVID-19 infection. The University College London study found that a protein in sheep, great apes and bonobos may be susceptible to becoming bound with the spike protein from COVID, allowing them to become infected as strongly as humans. Lead researcher Christine Orengo says those animals at risk include some endangered species, and that they all would have the potential to infect humans they later come in close contact with.



Devilish return

A small number of Australia’s Tasmanian devils have been transplanted to a forest near Sydney in a test project to repopulate the predators on the mainland. The devils died out there more than 3,000 years ago after dingos were likely brought to Australia by prehistoric immigrants from Indonesia. And about 90 percent have been wiped out in their only remaining habitats on Tasmania by a deadly tumor cancer since the 1990s. The “rewilding” project of healthy devils by Aussie Ark is designed to ensure the survival of the species and help restore Australia’s ecological balance.



Arctic greening

The record heating of the Arctic since the turn of the century has caused the polar region to be 40 percent greener than in 1985, researchers discovered. Writing in the journal Nature Communications, the authors say they looked at vast amounts of satellite data from across the Canadian and Eurasian Arctic, which confirm reports from Arctic indigenous people that their homelands are becoming more verdant. Since the warming Arctic is affecting much of Earth’s climate, the scientists say the trend is alarming.


• Extreme Temperatures: -90°F Vostok, Antarctica; 112°F Poxoréo, Brazil

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October 05, 2020 (for the week ending Oct 02)



Earthquakes

• A [magnitude 5.3] Aegean Sea quake was felt from western Turkey to Bulgaria.
• Earth movements were also felt in southwestern Iran [magnitude 4.7], Taiwan [5.1], New Zealand’s North Island [4.9], India’s Gujarat state [4.1], the California-Mexico border region [4.9] and the San Francisco Bay Area [3.3].



Tropical Cyclones

• Typhoon Kujira briefly reached Category 1 force over the open waters of the western Pacific.
• Hurricane Marie gained strength late in the week on a westward path between Mexico and Hawaii.



Ash damage

Farmers in central Ecuador were counting their losses after Sangay volcano spewed a massive cloud of ash over the region, coating their crops with the eruption debris. Agriculture officials say that banana plantations that provide the fruit to many international markets were among the hardest hit. The ash also forced officials to halt operations at Guayaquil’s international airport for several hours while crews removed ash from the runways. Sangay’s first recorded eruption was observed by Spanish colonists in 1628 and was followed by others in 1728, 1916 and 1934.



UV protection

A new study finds that one species of maple offers the best protection from the sun’s damaging ultraviolet (UV) radiation for those who want to plant shade trees. Writing in the journal Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, researchers say the crimson king maple (Acer platanoides) provides the most protection. The University of Toronto team found that swamp white oak, hackberry and copper beech trees also offered good UV protection. “One way to reduce effects of UV reflectance is to increase tree canopy. This is particularly important in urban areas where concrete and other hard surfaces pose heightened UV exposure risks to humans,” said coauthor Sivajanani Sivarajah.



Orca punks

Yachtsmen off the coast of northwestern Spain have experienced some terrifying moments in recent weeks as orcas inexplicably rammed their vessels, causing damage to rudders and hulls. Officials have since banned sailboats less than 50 feet in length from navigating the affected coastal waters except for a specific route to the high seas. Biologist Bruno Diaz of Spain’s Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute told reporters that the ramming is probably being done by “immature teenage” orcas getting rowdy.



Plant peril

Almost 40 percent of Earth’s plant species are now at risk of extinction due to human activities, according to Britain’s Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Its latest annual report on the state of the world’s plants and fungi says more than twice as many plants are at risk than previously thought. It points to agriculture and aquaculture threatening a third of the plants at risk, while climate change appears to threaten only about 4 percent. The Kew researchers say some of the plants in danger hold great promise for medicine, fuel and food.



Arctic tinderbox

The start of this year’s Arctic fire season two months earlier than normal is a sign that the Arctic is now burning in an entirely new and dangerous way, according to researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Writing in the journal Nature Geosciences, the scientists blame zombie fires, which smoldered in the ground over winter following the previous summer’s firestorms, for launching the early fire season this year. They also point to vegetation such as tundra and brush that has become drier and warmer under global heating for providing the fuel for the unprecedented blazes. The scientists say these Arctic landscapes were previously resistant to such conflagrations.


• Extreme Temperatures: -94°F South Pole, Antarctica; 115°F Yanbu, Saudi Arabia

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September 28, 2020 (for the week ending Sep 25)



Earthquakes

• More than 100 buildings were damaged when a magnitude 5.3 temblor struck southern Turkey’s Nigde province.
• Earth movements were also felt in southern England [magnitude 3.1], India’s Jammu and Kashmir territory [3.7], the southern Philippines [6.1], northeastern New Zealand [4.3] and coastal Southern California [4.5].



Tropical Cyclones

• The Atlantic hurricane season continued to be one for the record books. After the list of official names became exhausted with Tropical Storm Wilfred, storms Alpha and storms Beta were given names from the Greek alphabet for the first time since 2005.
• Remnants of Hurricane Paulette's regenerated into what meteorologists dubbed a “zombie” tropical storm near the Azores.
• Nearby, Tropical Storm Alpha soaked northern Portugal and Spain.
• Hurricane Teddy raked much of Atlantic Canada while Tropical Storm Beta inundated eastern Texas.



Medicane Ianos

Greece was pounded by a cyclonic storm swirling over the central Mediterranean that looked very similar to a tropical storm or hurricane. Dubbed Medicane Ianos, the storm triggered flooding and inflicted wind damage responsible for at least three deaths in the Ionian Islands and the western Peloponnese before the storm moved inland over central Greece. The first such storm on record occurred during the autumn of 1995, and they have become more frequent in recent years. One in 2017 triggered floods that killed 25 people and left hundreds homeless.



Summer melt

Arctic sea ice melted to its second-smallest expanse on record on Sept. 15, covering only 1.44 million square miles around the North Pole, according to the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center. Only during the summer of 2012 did the polar ice cap shrink farther. And since the unprecedented drops in sea ice extent in 2007 and 2012, there have been fewer areas with thick, multiyear ice that has accumulated over countless winters. Experts believe this and global heating will keep the ice from recovering, and will soon lead to ice-free summers across the Arctic.



Super pigs

Experts are warning of a “feral swine bomb” that could go off at any time. It would be due to a population explosion that has seen numbers of hybrid wild pigs soar to 6 million and spread from 17 to 39 U.S. states within the past three decades.
The National Feral Swine Damage Management Program at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) says that the female “super pigs” can reproduce twice a year, beginning at only 3 months of age, with litters of around 10 piglets each. The USDA says the hybrids of European boars and domestic pigs cause major damage to property, crops, livestock, native species and ecosystems.
The super pigs also threaten the health of people, wildlife, pets and other domestic animals.



Warming awash

An international team of scientists warns that sea levels will rise by 8.5 feet even if global warming is limited to only 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, as outlined in the Paris Agreement. Writing in the journal Nature, the team says that while the rise won’t be immediate or even rapid, it will be relentless as Antarctica’s ice melts farther into the next century. And if efforts to curb carbon emissions aren’t successful and the Earth warms an additional 3 degrees, the Antarctic melt will eventually lift ocean levels by 21 feet.
That would render parts of many coastal communities around the world either submerged or uninhabitable.



Scorching summer

Scientists have calculated that this June, July and August were 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the 20th-century average, making the season the hottest Northern Hemisphere summer on record. During the same period, the Southern Hemisphere experienced its third-warmest winter yet. NOAA predicts this abnormal warmth could lead to 2020 being one of the five hottest years on record.


• Extreme Temperatures: -101°F Vostok Station, Antarctica; 118°F Yanbu, Saudi Arabia

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September 21, 2020 (for the week ending Sep 18)



Earthquakes

• Residents across central and eastern Nepal were shaken by a relatively strong [magnitude 5.3 temblor].
• Earth movements were also felt in central New Zealand [4.7], northeastern Japan [6.1], Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula [6.4] and northern Iceland [4.6].



Tropical Cyclones

• Five tropical cyclones spun simultaneously across the Atlantic for only the second time in recorded history. The most threatening was Hurricane Sally, which caused severe flooding from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle as it crept ashore from the Gulf of Mexico.
• Power was knocked out across Bermuda by Hurricane Paulette's high winds.
• Typhoon Noul was taking aim on central Vietnam late in the week.



Avian tragedy

Scientists are trying to determine what caused untold thousands of migratory birds to fall from the sky dead or dying across parts of the southwestern U.S.. The songbird fatalities could be linked to the thick pall of wildfire smoke they flew through en route from Alaska and Canada to their winter grounds in Central or South America. Or they could have used up their fat reserves trying to fly around it before they perished in New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, Arizona and parts of Nebraska. Some fear the smoke damaged their lungs. “They’re literally just feathers and bones,” New Mexico State University graduate student Allison Salas wrote on social media.



La Niña emerges

Sea-surface temperatures across the tropical Pacific have cooled to the point in recent weeks that weather agencies have officially recognized the phenomenon as a new La Niña. The opposite of an El Niño, La Niña also develops about every three to five years with its own set of weather disruptions, including the chance of more and stronger tropical cyclones in the Atlantic basin. It also can bring wetter weather to northern Australia, Indonesia and the Philippines, along with drier weather for western South America and cooler-than-normal temperatures for western Africa. NOAA predicts the new La Niña has a 75 percent chance of persisting into next year.



Eaten live

A mosquito population boom in the wake of Hurricane Laura’s fury in late August along the Gulf Coast has led to deer, cows, horses and other livestock being killed by the insects. Animals as large as bulls have been drained of their blood and stressed to fatal exhaustion, according to veterinary experts at Louisiana State University. The pests became so pervasive that several Louisiana parishes launched aerial spraying operations. Similar swarms occurred after Hurricane Lili in 2002 and Hurricane Rita in 2005.



Firefighting express

An Australian foundation is backing plans to use satellites, sensors and drones to detect and douse bushfires within an hour to curb the chance of major disasters. The Minderoo Foundation says there are already data networks developed outside Australia that can detect a wildfire within three minutes, and its goal is to expand from detection to actually extinguishing the blazes. “We want to push the boundaries of science and technology,” said Adrian Turner, the chief executive of the foundation’s Fire and Flood Resilience plan. The first step is to identify possible ignition points and predict which have the potential to become disasters.



Wayward migration

Three humpback whales on their way to Antarctic waters made a wrong turn into a crocodile-infested river in far northern Australia. While two appear to have turned back, one continued swimming upstream, where wildlife experts say it has little chance of being attacked by the much smaller reptiles. But there was concern that the lone whale could get stranded in a very remote area miles upstream where rescue efforts would be impossible, and it would then become “croc bait” as it foundered.


• Extreme Temperatures: -99°F Vostok Station, Antarctica; 118°F Dubai, U.A.E.

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September 14, 2020 (for the week ending Sep 11)



Earthquakes

• At least 34 people were injured when a magnitude 5.2 quake damaged homes in northeastern Iran’s Golestan province.
• Southern England was soundly shaken by a [magnitude 3.9] temblor that many said felt like a large explosion.
• Earth movements were also felt in northeastern Japan [magnitude 5.2], central New Zealand [5.7], Vanuatu [6.2], northern Chile [6.3] and eastern New Jersey [3.1].



Tropical Cyclones

• Typhoon Haishen took a destructive path across far southern Japan and the Korean Peninsula similar to Typhoon Maysak during the previous week.
• Tropical storms Paulette and Rene churned the central Atlantic.
• Tropical storm Julio passed to the west of Mexico.



Plastic soils

New research finds that microplastic pollution is causing harm to the tiny creatures living in the ground.
Writing in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society, scientists say the assault is occurring in soil-dwelling mites, larvae and other creatures that are crucial to the fertility of the land. They play an important role in recycling carbon and nitrogen, and they break down organic material. Plots contaminated with microplastics saw a reduction of those creatures of between 15 percent and 62 percent, the scientists said.



Arctic CO2 surge

Carbon emissions from wildfires raging across part of the Arctic this summer have been a third higher than those of last summer’s record conflagrations in the region. The European Copernicus atmospheric monitoring service points to so-called zombie fires that smoldered beneath the ground through the winter months for triggering even higher emissions. About 205 megatons of the greenhouse gas were emitted in June and July alone as Siberia was roasted by a heatwave. Many of the blazes in early summer were unreachable to firefighters and burned out of control.



Baby boom

Five baby gorillas have been born within six weeks deep in their tropical forest habitats of Uganda, offering hope that conservation efforts are paying off. In total, seven babies have been born so far this year, compared to only three in 2019. There are about 400 mountain gorillas living in the country’s Bwindi National Park, and they are under constant threat of poaching. “This is highly unusual; it’s an incredible blessing,” said Uganda Wildlife Authority spokesman Bashir Hangi.



Singing dogs

A rare species of dog that can sing, or more accurately yodel, has been rediscovered in the wild in the remote highlands of the Indonesian part of New Guinea. The howls of the canines have been compared to the calls of humpback whales. There are about 200 captive descendants of the eight dogs that were gathered in the 1970s, but they are now seriously inbred. While none have been seen in the wild for half a century, a new expedition returned to the capture site and found 15 of the wild dogs there are genetically similar enough to their captive cousins to provide them fresh genes.



Arctic pollution

An increasing number of polluting ships are now sailing across the Siberian coastal stretch of the Arctic Ocean because of the more open waters that have resulted from record melting sea ice. An analysis by Reuters found that traffic through the icy waters’ busiest routes along the coast of Siberia increased 58 percent between 2016 and 2019. Those ships are carrying iron ore, oil, liquefied natural gas and other fuels. Reuters says that the COVID pandemic has not slowed the trend, with 935 voyages being documented in the first half of 2020, compared with 855 in the same period last year.


• Extreme Temperatures: -102°F Vostok Station, Antarctica; 125°F Death Valley, California

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September 07, 2020 (for the week ending Sep 03)



Earthquakes

• Northern Chile was jolted by a magnitude 6.8 temblor and more than a dozen aftershocks.
• Earth movements were also felt in the eastern Caribbean [magnitude 4.9], the India-Myanmar border region [5.3], far northern New Zealand [5.2] and the mid-Mississippi Valley [3.6].



Tropical Cyclones

• Category 2 Typhoon Maysak ravaged the South Korean coast near the country’s second-largest city of Busan before inundating an already-waterlogged Korean Peninsula.
• The same region was threatened by developing Typhoon Haishen, which was predicted to attain Category 4 force before making landfall.
• Tropical storms Hernan and Iselle churned the Pacific near the southern tip of Baja California.
• Hurricane Nana doused Belize, Honduras and Guatemala while Tropical Storm Omar formed briefly off the U.S. eastern seaboard.



Mud eruption

Four villagers in Central Java were recovering from fumes they inhaled during the sudden eruption of a mud volcano that killed nearly 20 of their cattle. A toxic mixture of mud, methane, carbon dioxide and nitrogen spread widely across the landscape surrounding the eruption site. Scientists say the spewing mud was the result of seismic activity and not drilling.



Wounded ice

This summer’s record heat around icy areas of the Northern Hemisphere has left a “deep wound” in the planet’s cryosphere, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says. It said the damage to the icy landscape came amid record Arctic heat, dwindling polar sea ice and the fracturing of what had been Canada’s last fully intact ice shelf. WMO spokeswoman Clare Nullis called the Arctic heating at twice the global warming average a “vicious circle” that influences warming elsewhere.
“The rapid decline of sea ice in turn contributes to more warming, and so the circle goes on and the consequences do not stay in the Arctic,” said Nullis.



La Niña return

The U.N. weather agency says that even with the chilling effect of a possible La Niña ocean cooling in the Pacific later this year, the deepening climate crisis will still bring above-normal atmospheric temperatures. The World Meteorological Organization says there is a 60 percent chance a weak La Niña will appear between September and November. “2020 remains on track to be one of the warmest years on record, with much extreme weather, ranging from scorching temperatures and wildfires to devastating floods and marine heatwaves,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.



Dolphin frolic

A pair of dolphins was observed and photographed off the coast of Scotland engaging in sportful feats that included acrobatic flips and even moves that resembled playing fish volleyball. Images that photographer Zaneta Blaszczyk captured of the marine mammals at play off the Black Isle Peninsula went viral. “It almost looked like they were playing volleyball or something similar, but instead of a ball they used a fish, that kept flying in the air from one dolphin to another before it was finally consumed,” said Blaszczyk.



Spill legacy

The 1,000 tons of fuel oil that spilled around Mauritius from a grounded Japanese tanker in July appears to have left at least 40 dolphins dead. Dead fish, turtles, whales and crabs were also observed. Fishermen say they saw a mother dolphin using the last of her energy in a futile attempt to keep her faltering calf alive. While the country’s fisheries minister said that at first glance, the deaths didn’t appear related to the spill, local oceanographer Vassen Kauppaymuthoo told reporters the dead dolphins smelled of fuel.


• Extreme Temperatures: -93°F Vostok Station, Antarctica; 116°F Rafha, Saudi Arabia

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August 31, 2020 (for the week ending Aug 28)



Earthquakes

• A wide area of Costa Rica, including the capital of San Jose, was shaken by a strong [magnitude 6.2] temblor.
• Earth movements were also felt in the Banda Sea [magnitude 6.9], the far northern Philippines [4.5], northern Queensland [4.9], western Scotland [2.6], southwestern Iceland [3.7] and southeastern Michigan [3.2].



Tropical Cyclones

• The central U.S. Gulf Coast was battered by two cyclones in rapid succession, including Category 4 Hurricane Laura , which produced extensive damage as it slammed into southwestern Louisiana.
• Typhoon Bavi lashed Okinawa and the Korean Peninsula before dissipating over far northeastern China.



No COVID respite

The sharp decline in greenhouse gases spewed into the atmosphere during the global pandemic this year will have virtually no impact on the future of global heating, scientists predict. Even with far fewer vehicles on the world’s roadways and industrial production sharply curbed, a new analysis says global temperatures will be only 0.01 degree Celsius lower by 2030 than earlier predictions. Writing in the journal Nature Climate Change, Piers Forster, from the University of Leeds, and colleagues say that only strong green energy stimulus efforts can keep the world from exceeding the 1.5-degree Celsius warming target by 2050.



Birds vs. turbines

Norwegian researchers say that simply painting one blade of wind turbines black can cut the number of bird deaths the spinning devices cause by up to 70 percent. “Collision of birds, especially raptors, is one of the main environmental concerns related to wind energy development,” said researcher Roel May of the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research in Trondheim. The contrast of the black blade against the sky and other blades appears to help make the turbines more visible to passing birds.
Other tests are planned around the world to make sure the Norwegian success isn’t unique to the region.



Polio eradication

The World Health Organization declared that the entire African continent is now free of the virus that causes polio after no new cases were reported during the past four years. A $13 billion global effort over the past 30 years has virtually wiped out the crippling disease, with only Afghanistan and Pakistan still reporting cases — 87 so far this year. While the poliomyelitis virus was eradicated in the industrialized world after a vaccine was discovered in the 1950s, poorer nations in Asia and Africa went decades unable to provide that vaccine to their citizens.



Migratory tragedy

More than 300 wildebeests perished during a suspected stampede while crossing the Mara River on Aug. 23 in Kenya’s Maasai Mara Game Reserve. The Nation daily reported that the bloated carcasses littered the river, filling the air of the country’s most famous game park with the stench of death. The park’s deputy chief game warden, Eddy Nkoitoi, said there were so many dead wildebeests in the water that the crocodiles and vultures couldn’t eat them all. Those that drowned unfortunately picked a part of the river to cross that was swollen by heavy rains upstream.



Overshoot Day

Scientists designated Aug. 22 this year as Earth Overshoot Day, the date when humans have used all of the ecological resources the planet can produce in an entire year. While the date had been getting earlier and earlier as consumption grew, the drop in what has been taking from nature this year during the worldwide pandemic has pushed it back by more than three weeks. Using data compiled by the United Nations, the Global Footprint Network, which determines Earth Overshoot Day, found that humans began consuming more than the Earth can provide without being replenished about the year 1970.


• Extreme Temperatures: -104°F Vostok Station, Antarctica; 124°F Death Valley, California

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August 24, 2020 (for the week ending Aug 21)



Earthquakes

• At least one person died and dozens of others were injured when a magnitude 6.6 temblor struck the central Philippines’ Bicol region. Significant damage was reported.
• Earth movements were also felt in Bali and East Java [magnitude 4.9], southern Sumatra [6.9], northern Fiji [4.8], coastal Tanzania [6.0], southern Greece [5.0] and northern Baja California [5.1].



Tropical Cyclones

• Tropical storms Josephine and Kyle swirled over the Atlantic as the earliest 10th and 11th named storms on record.
• China’s Guangdong province was drenched by Tropical Storm Higos.
• Hurricane Genevieve brushed the tip of Baja California while Tropical Storm Fausto churned the Pacific.



Beyond recovery

Scientists say that Greenland has now shrunk past the point that it can recover from global heating even if the goal to limit temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius this century is achieved. Writing in the journal Nature Communications Earth & Environment, they say there is no longer enough snow in winter to replenish the glaciers of snow and ice that are being lost to the melt of summer. “Greenland is going to be the canary in the coal mine, and the canary is already pretty much dead at this point,” said Ian Howat of Ohio State University.



Earth's hottest

The official thermometer in Death Valley measured an air temperature of 130 degrees Fahrenheit on Aug. 16, which meteorologists say could be the hottest ever recorded on the planet. While a reading of 134 degrees was taken in Death Valley in 1913, recent studies suggest it was incorrect because of observer error. A 131 degree reading at Kebili, Tunisia, during July 1931 is now also suspected to be bogus. This summer’s mid-August heat also baked much of the western United States, triggering lightning storms that sparked a spate of destructive wildfires and blackouts across California.



Euro heat stress

Recent stress from the record heat and arid conditions resulting from the deepening climate crisis has caused long-term damage to some European forests, according to a new study. The unprecedented scorching summer of 2018 ravaged many trees across Germany, Austria and Switzerland, where leaves wilted, aged and were shed prematurely. Writing in the journal Basic and Applied Ecology, scientists say many trees didn’t form new shoots the following year, meaning they were partially or entirely dead.
Spruce, beech, silver fir and pine were said to have sustained extensive damage.



Magpie mayhem

A changing climate appears to be extending the season when Australia’s magpies swoop down and terrorize cyclists and pedestrians, according to bird experts. While the aggressive birds, which swoop to protect their hatchlings, typically don’t begin calling for a mate until the last full moon of August, they have already been menacing the human population for weeks.
Behavioral ecologist Darryl Jones of Griffith University says that the early swooping is probably because the magpies were tricked into nesting early by recent warmer winters and erratic weather. Authorities warn not to make eye contact with the birds, to carry umbrellas and to walk, not run, in areas where magpies are nesting.



Poisonous shock

Wildlife experts say it could take decades for the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius to recover from the 1,000 metric tons of oil that spilled into its pristine waters from a grounded and off-course Japanese tanker. The vessel rammed into a reef and begin spilling oil faster than local volunteers and crews, some wading without protective gear, could halt its spread. But it was a losing battle for a country where tourism and fishing drive the economy. Its reefs, endangered animals and plants, mangrove forests and lagoons have already suffered a massive poisonous shock, according to Mauritian environmental scientist Adam Moolna.


• Extreme Temperatures: -106°F Vostok Station, Antarctica; 130°F Death Valley, California

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August 17, 2020 (for the week ending Aug 14)



Earthquakes

• North Carolina’s most powerful temblor since 1916, [a magnitude 5.1 quake], damaged more than 100 buildings as it rattled the eastern U.S.
• A strong [magnitude 4.9] quake caused some buildings to collapse in northeastern Algeria.
• Earth movements were also felt in southeastern Turkey [magnitude 4.6], western Iran [4.9], eastern India [3.8], central New Zealand [4.7] and Hawaii [4.2].



Tropical Cyclones

• Typhoon Mekkhala buffeted China’s Fujian Province after strengthening to Category-1 force while moving ashore from the South China Sea.
• Flash floods triggered by passing Tropical Storm Jangmi left at least 42 people dead and 7,000 people displaced in South Korea.
• Hurricane Elida churned the Pacific well off the coast of Mexico.



Sumatran eruption

Crops and villages surrounding Indonesia’s Sinabung volcano were blanketed by thick ash after the mountain spewed a column of debris more than 16,000 feet above Sumatra. The restive volcano produced two powerful blasts within three days, resulting in some cross losses in the fertile region. Sinabung had been inactive for centuries before it roared back to live in 2010. It has since produced several notable eruptions.”



Arctic losses

Arctic Canada’s last fully intact ice shelf lost more than 40 percent of its entire area on Ellesmere Island during just two days in late July, shocking officials. A chunk measuring about 100 square miles, larger than the island of Manhattan, broke off between July 30 and July 31. “Above-normal air temperatures, offshore winds and open water in front of the ice shelf are all part of the recipe for ice shelf breakup,” the Canadian Ice Service announced on Twitter. The intense heat around the North Pole this summer has also melted sea ice around the Arctic Ocean to its lowest extent on record.



Weakening current

The strength of the Florida Current, which marks the beginning of the Gulf Stream, has weakened in force to the lowest level of the past 110 years, according to new research. The current flows between Florida and Cuba before becoming the Gulf Stream near the Bahamas. While precise measurements of the current go back to only the early 1980s, scientists say they were able to determine its past strength by how it affected coastal sea levels in the region. The study confirms earlier findings that show the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation is slowing down due to climate change.
That complex of currents wields a key warming influence across the Atlantic to much of northern Europe.



Squatters' rights

The growing number of beavers that have been making England’s River Otter their home since they began returning a few years ago have been told by officials that they can stay. It’s the first time a mammal extinct in England has been given government backing to be reintroduced. Environment minister Rebecca Pow said that going forward, the dam-builders will be considered a “public good” and that farmers and landowners would be paid to have them on their land. There are now 15 beaver families living in the waterway, building complex homes known as lodges.



Name that heat

A leading expert in heat-related deaths is calling on officials to begin naming the increased number of heat waves to draw attention to the deepening climate crisis. “People do not understand this risk and we need to change that,” said Kathy Baughman McLeod, director of the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center. The proposal is backed by the Extreme Heat Resilience Alliance, a new coalition of dozens of mayors in major cities and insurance officials, as well as health, global heating and policy experts worldwide. The coalition says assigning heat waves names like hurricanes, along with their level of risk, could demonstrate the scale of the threat that climate change poses.


• Extreme Temperatures: -108°F Vostok Station, Antarctica; 121°F Death Valley, California

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August 10, 2020 (for the week ending Aug 07)



Earthquakes

• Scattered damage was reported following the stronger of two temblors that shook southeastern Turkey’s Malatya province. [The quake had a magnitude 5.6.]
• Earth movements were also felt in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao [magnitude 6.4], Trinidad and neighboring parts of Venezuela [5.0], north-central Oklahoma [3.4] and greater Los Angeles [3.5].



Tropical Cyclones

• Rapidly movingHurricane Isaias raked a long stretch from the Greater Antilles to the Bahamas and parts of the eastern U.S. The storm spawned numerous destructive tornadoes and left at least eight people dead in the U.S. and two fatalities in the Dominican Republic.
• Typhoon Hagupit drenched eastern China, including metropolitan Shanghai, after roaring ashore in Zhejiang province. Hagupit later lost force over the Yellow Sea between China and the Korean Peninsula.



Auroral tremors

Alaskan researchers say they have found that brilliant displays of the northern lights during solar storms show up as distinctive signals on seismographs, giving them yet another way to document auroral activity. Writing in Seismological Research Letters, Carl Tape and colleagues at the University of Alaska Fairbanks say they made the connection by comparing seismograph records with all-sky camera recordings and readings from magnetometers. “People have been making these connections for 250 years,” Tape said. “This shows that we can still make discoveries, in this case with seismometers, to understand the aurora.”



Penguin discovery

There are now 20 percent more known colonies of emperor penguins around Antarctica, thanks to satellite images that revealed more of the imperiled birds to scientists. Emperors are the only penguin species that breed on sea ice instead of on land, making them highly vulnerable to climate change. “Whilst this is good news, the colonies are small and so only take the overall population count up to ... just over half a million penguins,” said lead researcher Peter Fretwell at the British Antarctic Survey. He made the discovery by examining images from Europe’s Sentinel-2 spacecraft. Fretwell says there still may be one or two other very small colonies yet to be discovered.



what doesn't kill you

Australian researchers say they now know why dingoes that survive efforts to control their population with baited poisons have grown larger during the last 80 years of the practice.
Dingoes living in baited areas have gotten between 6 percent and 9 percent larger, depending upon their gender, compared to those living in areas where the 1080 poison was not used. “The most likely theory is that dingoes who survive baiting campaigns have less competition for food,” says researcher Mathew Crowther of the University of Sydney. He adds that there are more of the dingoes’ main prey of kangaroos near where the dingoes have been poisoned.



Heat hazard

A largely undocumented and growing human death toll from rising global temperatures will soon surpass the number of fatalities from all infectious diseases around the world if carbon emissions are not curbed, according to a new study.
University of Chicago researcher Amir Jina, writing for the National Bureau of Economic Research, says both rich and poor countries will eventually suffer unbearable heat from the mounting climate crisis unless action is soon taken.



'Heat refugees

The growing number of heat waves in the world’s oceans due to the climate crisis is causing species such as sea turtles, whales and other marine life to move tens to thousands of miles to escape the freakish warmth. Scientists from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have dubbed the ecological migration “thermal displacement.” The intensity of the heat waves isn’t the biggest factor in the displacement, but rather the gradient or rate at which the temperature changes across the ocean.


• Extreme Temperatures: -101°F South Pole, Antarctica; 122°F Al Ahsa, Saudi Arabia

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August 03, 2020 (for the week ending Jul 31)



Earthquakes

• [With a magnitude 3.8,] one of the strongest of 23 earthquakes to hit far eastern India’s Mizoram state in five weeks triggered landslides and damaged a water supply pipeline.
• Earth movements were also felt in northeastern Taiwan [magnitude 6.1] and the southern Philippine island of Mindanao [5.8].



Tropical Cyclones

• Hurricane Hanna left a trail of destruction across far southern Texas and northeastern Mexico.
• The Hawaiian Islands were skirted by record-breaking Hurricane Douglas, which took a more northerly path than any other such storm.
• Tropical Storm Isaias brought heavy rain to islands from the eastern Caribbean to the Greater Antilles.



Fiery eruption

• Fountains of lava erupted from the summit of Guatemala’s Pacaya in a colorful display that was clearly visible from the country’s capital 12 miles to the north.
  The eruption is expected to last for at least a few months as magma rises from beneath the conical volcano. No populated areas have so far been threatened.
  A decade ago, Pacaya produced a much stronger eruption that disrupted life around Guatemala City and resulted in the death of a television journalist who was exposed to toxic gases from the volcano.



Global quieting

The plunge in human activities worldwide in recent months due to the pandemic has brought the longest and most pronounced quiet period of seismic noise in recorded history.
An international team of scientists write in the journal Science that the relative quiet has allowed them to detect previously concealed earthquake signals, which could help us more accurately tell the difference in the future between man-made and natural seismic noise.
The typically quiet periods around Christmas, New Year’s and the Chinese New Year have been eclipsed by the decline of industrial production, transport and service industries brought on by COVID-19.



Expecting again

An orca mother that made global headlines in August 2018 by carrying her dead calf on the ocean surface for 17 days is pregnant again, scientists say.
“Tahlequah” and a community of 71 other killer whales live and breed in the Pacific off of Vancouver Island and Washington State.
And while females of the species have been known to carry their dead calves for up to a week, Tahlequah’s epic mourning two years ago broke the record.
Researchers say she and another female in the group are now pregnant. Orcas typically give birth after 17 to 18 months.



Cooling dilemma

While air conditioners will undoubtedly become more and more necessary as the planet warms further in the decades ahead, U.N. officials say the devices need to become more efficient and use different coolants to help combat global heating.
Two U.N. agencies report that cutting the use of climate-warming refrigerants, such as hydrofluorocarbons, could prevent 0.7 degrees Fahrenheit of warming by 2100.
They add that doubling the energy efficiency of air conditioners by 2050 would eliminate the equivalent of the emissions of all coal-fueled power plants in operation during 2018 across China and India.



'Tropical' Siberia

The second unprecedented hot summer in a row across the Arctic has brought temperatures warmer in Siberia than in some parts of Florida. Norway’s Arctic archipelago of Svalbard also just recorded its hottest temperature on record with a reading of 71 degrees F.
The U.N. weather agency blames the northward swing of the jet stream under global heating for blowing warmer air into the polar region.
Russian scientists say they are now looking at the possibility of planting soybeans in areas where the thawing permafrost is turning the Siberian landscape into fertile soil.


• Extreme Temperatures: -106°F Vostok, Antarctica; 123°F Al Qaysumah, Saudi Arabia

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July 27, 2020 (for the week ending Jul 24)



Earthquakes

• Coastal residents across southern Alaska scrambled for higher ground after a magnitude 7.8 offshore temblor triggered a brief tsunami alert.
• Earth movements were also felt in southwestern Iceland [magnitude 5.0], the northern Netherlands [2.8], the Italy-Slovenia border area [4.0], western India [3.5] and eastern Papua New Guinea [7.0].



Tropical Cyclones

• Tropical Storm Gonzalo formed over the central Atlantic Ocean and was expected to pass over the Windward Islands and into the Caribbean after becoming the season’s first Atlantic hurricane.
• Hurricane Douglas gained strength between Mexico and Hawaii.



Italian eruption

• A volcano on the southern Italian island of Stromboli erupted with lava bombs that spewed violently from its crater. The loud eruption occurred for about five minutes in the middle of the night, but did not threaten any island residents other than causing them to lose some sleep. A sudden eruption on Stromboli last July killed one hiker and forced some of the island’s residents to rush into the Mediterranean Sea in fear of their lives.



Polar peril

Climate change is likely to wipe out polar bears across the Arctic unless efforts to curb global heating are not accelerated soon, wildlife biologists warn. Writing in the journal Nature Climate Change, researchers say dwindling sea ice is removing the surface bears use to hunt seals. “Polar bears are already sitting at the top of the world. If the ice goes, they have no place to go,” Peter Molnar of the University of Toronto told BBC News. Experts warn that cubs will be the first to go because their mothers won’t have enough body fat to produce milk to feed them through the ice-free summer season.



Chipmunk antics

A bumper crop of acorns last fall in New England has led to a population explosion of chipmunks, which are pestering homeowners and generally making a nuisance of themselves. With plenty of food to fuel their high jinks after emerging this spring, the rodents have been digging up people’s gardens and tunneling beneath lawns. But some say they can also be entertaining. “They’re cute. They’re fun to watch in the forest as they duck in and out of the holes and play peekaboo,” small mammal biologist Shevenell Webb, with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, told The Associated Press. The plentiful acorns also fueled a population boom of squirrels, rabbits and various types of mice in the region.



Shark 'extinction'

New research reveals that sharks are disappearing at an alarming rate in a trend that is upsetting the ecological balance across many marine ecosystems. Writing in the journal Nature, scientists say that habitat destruction and overfishing have caused shark numbers to crash in many of the world’s coral reefs. Underwater cameras used in the study revealed that one in five of the 371 reefs studied during a four-year period had shark numbers so low that the species there could be considered “functionally extinct.” This is causing further stress on reefs that are also under threat from global heating and the ocean acidification brought on by a changing climate.



Heat hazard

Global warming has already created such intense heat in some areas of the world that workers are being exposed to conditions that could threaten their lives, especially among those now battling the pandemic. From the medics caring for patients outdoors in the necessary but sweltering layers of personal protective equipment to farm workers and those laboring in steel mills, nearly every year brings conditions closer to the point they and others cannot cope, experts warn. “If this happens day-in, day-out, people become dehydrated, there are cardiovascular issues, kidney stones, heat exhaustion,” said researcher Vidhya Venugopal of the Global Heat Health Information Network.


• Extreme Temperatures: -90°F Vostok, Antarctica; 123°F Death Valley, California

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July 20, 2020 (for the week ending Jul 17)



Earthquakes

• China’s Hebei province was jolted by a [magnitude 5.1] earthquake that struck near where, in 1976, the country’s deadliest temblor in modern times killed about 240,000 people.
• Earth movements were also felt in the far southern Philippines [magnitude 5.2], Indonesia’s Flores Sea [5.7], Java [5.1], northwestern Sumatra [5.5], the Republic of Georgia [4.5] and the northern Netherlands [2.7].



Tropical Cyclones

• Tropical Storm Fay spun up off the North Carolina Outer Banks as the earliest sixth-named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season on record. It later drenched New Jersey, New York and New England.



Volcanic Activity (from Smithsonian Institution's Global Volcanism Program)

• Costa Rica's Turrialba volcano continued to produce occasional small ash eruptions.
• Ash plumes rose from Japan's Nishinoshima volcano to an altitude of 3.7-6.1 km above sea level.
• Costa Rican scientists reported a significant landslide inside the crater of Irazu volcano. The slide was detected through seismic activity that the slide produced. Due to weather conditions, visual confirmation is still pending.



Greenhouse Earth

Scientists predict that Earth’s atmosphere will soon contain the same high level of carbon dioxide that existed at the peak of the Pliocene Epoch warmth 3 million years ago, when temperatures were 5 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit warmer and sea levels were 65 feet higher. A report published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports says that given the level of emissions present at the start of the study, prior to the coronavirus lockdowns, CO₂ levels could surpass 427 parts per million within five years.
The authors say that the comparison with the Pliocene shows what is likely to happen in the future as the Earth responds to the buildup of greenhouse gas emissions.



Brutal heat

A punishing heat wave blanketing the southwestern U.S. produced the hottest temperature anywhere on the planet since 2017. The thermometer at Death Valley reached 128 degrees Fahrenheit on July 12, only one degree lower than what experts believe was the hottest temperature ever recorded on Earth. That reading was 129 degrees, also in Death Valley during the scorching summer of 2013. The temperature dropped to only 100 degrees at dawn following last week’s scorcher.



Asian inundations

Unprecedented heavy rainfall has inflicted disastrous flooding from Japan to mainland China since mid-June in a trend many experts say was predicted by climate change models for parts of the planet. Chinese officials say as many as 33 rivers in the country have risen to their highest levels ever recorded due to the deluges. The Chinese inundations have left more than 140 people dead or missing, with experts warning even worse conditions are probably yet to come this summer. Some of the worst floods in decades have also killed at least 58 people in Japan.



Disco defense

Farmers in northern Botswana may soon be protected from elephant raids on their crops by a novel technique that also keeps humans dancing around the world. Researchers near Chobe National Park installed lines of solar-powered, multi-colored strobe lights around crops and found they repelled elephant incursions by 75 percent compared to areas without the lights. The disco-themed LEDs were placed on poles every 33 feet and constantly flashed a different color — red, green, amber, white, blue or yellow. The patterns were changed weekly to prevent the pachyderms from getting used to them.



On thin ice

One of the largest-ever scientific expeditions to the Arctic has encountered polar sea ice so thin it could soon threaten future efforts to study the dwindling ice cap. A team of 90 researchers and crew aboard the icebreaker Polarstern found the ice was so thin in places that they couldn’t transport heavy gear across it. Writing in the journal The Cryosphere, MOSAiC team members said the ice off Russia’s Arctic coastal shelf was only about 20 inches thick, compared to the average of about 60 to 63 inches measured during the 1990s. They blame the lack of solid ice on the record warmth that has lingered since last summer.


• Extreme Temperatures: -100°F Vostok, Antarctica; 128°F Death Valley, California

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July 13, 2020 (for the week ending Jul 10)



Earthquakes

• The Indian capital of New Delhi was jolted by another in a series of temblors that began weeks ago. [The most recent quake had a magnitude 4.7].
• Earth movements were also felt in the Afghan capital of Kabul [magnitude 4.6], Java [6.6], New Zealand’s Canterbury region [3.8], southwestern Puerto Rico [4.9] and northern parts of the San Francisco Bay Area [4.0].



Tropical Cyclones

• Tropical Storm Edouard became the earliest fifth-named storm on record when it spun up north of Bermuda.
• Hurricane Cristina passed over the Pacific between Mexico and Hawaii.



Volcanic Growth

• A young Japanese volcanic island about 600 miles south of Tokyo has recently undergone a dramatic growth spurt. Nishinoshima emerged from the Pacific in the 1970s and later merged with another underwater volcano that surfaced about 1,600 feet away in 2013. While it has since grown steadily, strong explosive activity and lava flows between mid-June and early July have caused the island to expand by almost 500 feet. Volcanologists say there is a lot more magma rising beneath the volcano, meaning it is likely to grow larger.



Hotter longer

Almost every part of the planet, down to the local level, is now experiencing longer and more frequent heat waves than during the 1950s, new research reveals. A team of global scientists writes in the journal Nature Communications that the amount of excess heat is increasing globally on average by 1 to 4.5 degrees Celsius each decade. But in some places, such as the Middle East and parts of Africa and South America, the trend is increasing by up to 10 degrees per decade.
The central United States is the only inhabited region where this trend has not been observed.



Watermelon snow

Scientists are documenting the growth of a pink-colored algae in the glacial ice of the Italian Alps, which has been melting rapidly under global heating. The tiny plant responsible for the expanding warm hue, Ancylonema nordenskioeldii, has also been found in Switzerland’s Morteratsch glacier and Greenland’s so-called Dark Zone, which are also melting quickly. Scientists warn that the darkening of these glaciers by the algae makes them absorb more sunlight, quickening the melt. Sometimes called watermelon snow, the algae-laced ice has recently been fairly common in the Alps during spring and summer. But researchers say it has been more widespread this year.



Migration blazes

The famed wildebeest migration in parts of East Africa was brought to a halt by huge wildfires that raged along the route. More than 2 million of the migratory grazers cross from Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park to Kenya’s Maasai Mara Game Reserve each year at this time. But rangers set fire to some of the overgrown grasslands in their path to help what they describe as pasture regeneration. The smoke and fires have spooked the wildebeest, causing them to stop short of the Sand River, along the Kenya and Tanzania border.



Lingering layer

Japan’s 2011 Fukushima nuclear power plant meltdowns blanketed snow and ice around the Northern Hemisphere with a thin layer of light radioactivity dubbed the Fukushima Layer. The nuclear disaster was triggered by a massive thrust earthquake that spawned a devastating tsunami, which knocked out the nuclear plant’s main cooling system.
The resulting meltdowns contaminated groundwater around the plant and spewed radioactive particles into the atmosphere. It was thought that the airborne radiation would have faded by now. But scientists writing in Environmental Research Letters say the thawing and melting of glaciers around the hemisphere has made the radioactivity more concentrated, creating a lingering layer of contamination.


• Extreme Temperatures: -102°F Vostok, Antarctica; 122°F Al Ahsa, Saudi Arabia

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July 06, 2020 (for the week ending Jul 03)



Earthquakes

• Five people were injured and dozens of homes were damaged when a [magnitude 5.4] temblor rocked eastern Turkey’s Van province.
• Earth movements were also felt in the Greek island of Rhodes [magnitude 5.3], southeastern Spain [3.1], northern Iceland [5.8], the central India-Pakistan border region [5.1], India’s Jammu and Kashmir state [4.1], Taiwan [5.2] and Anchorage, Alaska [3.6].



Volcanic Activity (from Smithsonian Institution's Global Volcanism Program)

• Makushin volcano in the Fox Islands continue to experience increased seismic activity though no surficial activity was visible in satellite or webcam images. Earthquakes reached magnitude 3.8.
• Japan's Mount Asama inflated in the west flank and the number of shallow earthquakes has increased. The alert level was raised to 2 (on a 1-5 scale) even though emission from the summit crater remain steady and white in color.
• Costa Rica's Turrialba volcano produced occasional small ash eruptions that reached 100 m above the active crater.



Bee Recovery

Beekeepers across the U.S. report that their colonies have rebounded from the losses suffered last year. While the deadly 2018-2019 winter season saw a record 37.7 percent of the colonies die off, there was only a 22.2 percent loss last winter, the smallest in the last 14 years. But losses had continued through the summer of 2019, when beekeepers reported a 32 percent death rate — much higher than the average for summer losses. Honeybees are threatened by mites, diseases, pesticides and climate change, which experts say are part of the new normal the bee industry must cope with.



Polar warming

The South Pole and surrounding areas of Antarctica have warmed at three times the global average since the 1990s in a trend comparable to the record warming around the North Pole.
Writing in the journal Nature Climate Change, researchers say the Antarctic warming is driven by rising surface temperatures across the western tropical Pacific Ocean, which are at least partially linked to a natural cycle that occurs there over decades. This has resulted in the ocean warmth being propelled into Antarctica by cyclones swirling across the Southern Ocean.
The scientists add that while carbon emissions have played some part in the warming, the strong naturally occurring cycle is masking much of their effect.



Elephant die-off

Wildlife experts in Botswana say they are baffled by the mysterious deaths of more than 350 elephants during the past two months in the northwest of the country, describing the losses as a “conservation disaster.” All of the carcasses have been found intact, leading officials to believe the animals were not poached for their ivory. No evidence of poisoning by anthrax or humans has been found so far. Some elephants have been seen walking around in circles and falling down on their faces as they died.



Fresh swarms

Swarms of desert locusts have invaded a suburb of New Delhi for the first time in recorded history, prompting residents to bang pots and pans to ward off the insects. Neighboring Pakistan has battled infestations for weeks. But since the insects arrived between the last harvest and the next planting season, there have so far not been any reports of significant crop losses. A new generation of the ravenous insects is now devastating crops that are emerging in East Africa.



Radiation mystery

Russia has denied it is responsible for a cloud of radioactive particles detected at monitoring stations across northern Europe. Officials in Finland, Norway and Sweden say that one of the isotopes, Iodine 131, does not occur in nature and is created by nuclear fission. Cobalt, ruthenium and cesium were also detected in Finland. While the amount of the radiation is considered tiny and not dangerous, its presence has led some experts to believe it may be from the testing of Russia’s new cruise missiles, which are said to be propelled by onboard nuclear power plants.



Russian leaks

Satellite data have detected massive plumes of methane gas leaking from Russia’s Yamal pipeline, which carries natural gas from Siberia to Europe. The Paris-based Kayrros energy consultancy said one leak was gushing 93 metric tons of methane each hour, with the same greenhouse gas effect as the exhaust of 15,000 cars in the United States during a full year.


• Extreme Temperatures: -96°F Vostok, Antarctica; 122°F Death Valley, California

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June 29, 2020 (for the week ending Jun 26)



Earthquakes

• At least 10 people were killed when a magnitude 7.4 temblor rocked the Mexico state of Oaxaca.
• Earth movements were also felt in central and southern parts of California [magnitude 5.8], northern Iceland [5.8], northeastern India [5.6], eastern Japan [6.2] and New Zealand’s lower South Island [5.5].



Tropical cyclones

• An area of disturbed weather off the Canadian Maritime Provinces spun up briefly into Tropical Storm Dolly.
• Tropical Storm Boris was predicted to form late in the week over the eastern Pacific between Mexico and Hawaii.



Java Eruption

• Indonesia’s most restive volcano spewed a column of ash and hot vapor 20,000 feet into the sky above the island of Java. Two separate eruptions of Mount Merapi prompted officials to warn nearby residents to be on the alert for possible lava flows. The volcano has rumbled and produced frequent dark clouds over the landscape since last year. Merapi’s last major eruption occurred in 2010 and killed 353 people.



Six-Month Deadline

The Paris-based International Energy Agency has warned that world leaders have only six months to take measures to control carbon emissions, before a post-lockdown recovery brings a surge in the greenhouse gases that may be impossible to curb. The organization cautions that without immediate action, reaching the targets to address global warming will not be possible.
“This year is the last time we have, if we are not to see a carbon rebound,” said Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency. He told The Guardian governments must design economic recovery packages that promote shifts away from carbon-based fuels.



Antarctic Plastic

Scientists have found for the first time evidence that plastic has entered the food chain in the Antarctic. Researchers write in the journal Biology Letters that bits of polystyrene were discovered in the guts of tiny organisms known as springtails, living in the soil not covered by ice on King George Island, off the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. Extensive scientific research, along with an airport, military facilities and visiting tourists, make it what the researchers call one of the most contaminated regions of the Antarctic. The authors of the report said they believe the springtails inadvertently consumed the plastic fragments while grazing on their usual food.



COVID Sanctuary

Migratory birds are enjoying their historic summer habitats across the wetlands of southern Pakistan without threats from poachers because coronavirus lockdown measures have kept the criminals away. The Sindh Wildlife Department counted 741,042 migratory birds this season, up from the 248,105 birds counted in 2019. “The birds have stayed longer this year, maybe due to meager disturbances by humans due to the lockdown everywhere,” wildlife photographer Ahmer Ali Rizvi told Reuters. There have been no reports of trapping, hunting or illegal trading since the lockdown was imposed.



Arctic Heat Wave

A persistent heat wave north of the Arctic Circle has resulted in one Siberian town reaching an all-time Arctic record high temperature of just above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. While yet to be confirmed by the World Meteorological Organization, the reading of 100.4 degrees at Verkhoyansk, combined with unseasonable heat of 18 degrees above normal in parts of Siberia during March, April and May, have climate scientists concerned about what it means for global warming across the rest of the planet. The warmth is melting the permafrost, releasing the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane previously stored in the ground.


• Extreme Temperatures: -86°F Vostok, Antarctica; 120°F Death Valley, California

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June 22, 2020 (for the week ending Jun 19)



Earthquakes

• One person was killed and nine others were injured when a magnitude 5.4 temblor struck eastern Turkey’s Bingol province. Dozens of homes and other buildings were damaged.
• Earth movements were also felt in the northern Red Sea region [magnitude 5.4], southern Iran [5.1], western India’s Gujarat state [5.1] and northern Jamaica [4.0].



Seabed rumblings

• The seabed near the southeastern Caribbean island of Grenada was jolted by more than 1,000 small tremors from what officials say is increased unrest at the underwater volcano Kick’em Jenny.



Mini forests

A patchwork of small but dense forests is emerging across Europe thanks to a Japanese botanist who has also planted tiny forests in Japan and Malaysia. Akira Miyawaki’s projects use saplings of native varieties, adapted to local conditions, to cover sites as small as a tennis court and in patches of roadside. The method typically uses 30 or more species at a time and is said to grow forests 10 times faster, 30 times denser and 100 times more biodiverse than those planted in conventional ways. Besides the ability to capture carbon from the atmosphere to combat global warming, the mini forests provide better food and shelter for a diversity of creatures, such as insects, snails and amphibians.



Giant success

A group of aging giant tortoises that helped save their species from the brink of extinction in the Galapagos Islands was released into the wild after four decades of tireless breeding. The number of giant tortoises plummeted to just 15 individuals in the 1970s as the captive breeding program was launched. There are now more than 2,000 living on Española Island, meaning the species’ survival is assured and the breeding program can end. One tortoise named Diego, famous for his virility, sired some 800 offspring. He and 14 other breeding veterans have been relocated to an area of the island where their favorite snack of cactus is abundant. Wildlife experts say this setting should make their transition to life in the wild easier.



Hydrogen future?

A group of six European countries is calling on the European Union (EU) to increase funding to support hydrogen fuel, which has the potential to power vehicles with little or no carbon footprint in the future. The energy ministers of Germany, Austria, France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg said in a joint statement that the funding must be backed by new legislation linked to the EU’s coronavirus recovery fund. The move comes as the California Energy Commission predicted that hydrogen fuel could become as cheap as gasoline within five years, thanks to new technology.



Locust feed

Farmers in Pakistan’s Okara district are earning money by trapping some of this year’s hordes of invading locusts so the insects can be turned into high-protein chicken feed in local mills. The scheme works because locusts cluster on vegetation and on the ground from dusk until dawn. This is when the farmers have been able to haul in about 7 tons of them nightly, earning each farmer up to $125 per night. But the practice is only allowed in areas that have not been sprayed with pesticides to control the swarms.



Island building

An international team of scientists says rising sea levels don’t necessarily mean all the world’s coral reef islands will become submerged over the next century. New modeling suggests that as rising tides bring waves crashing on the islands’ shores, the wave action will send the coral material surrounding the beaches into the interior, building the reef higher. “It is important to realize that these coral reef islands have developed over hundreds to thousands of years as a result of energetic wave conditions removing material from the reef structure and depositing the material towards the back of reef platforms, thereby creating islands,” said researcher Gerd Masselink.


• Extreme Temperatures: -100°F Vostok, Antarctica; 124°F Jacobabad, Pakistan

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June 15, 2020 (for the week ending Jun 12)



Earthquakes

• Late reports from Indonesia’s North Maluku province say a strong June 4 temblor damaged hundreds of homes. [The quake had magnitude 6.8].
• Earth movements were also felt in Papua New Guinea’s New Britain Island [magnitude 5.9], Fiji [5.0], eastern Taiwan [5.2], southeastern Kazakhstan [4.5], India’s Jammu and Kashmir territory [3.9] and southeastern Turkey [4.5].



Record cyclone

• Tropical Storm Cristobal battered the Gulf Coast as it made landfall near New Orleans. Remnants of the storm brought heavy rain and squalls to a long stretch of the Mississippi Valley, northward to Ontario. That made it the westernmost-tracking tropical cyclone on record in North America.



Andean eruption

• sudden burst of activity at Ecuador’s active Sangay volcano spewed a column of ash high above the Andes that later rained down on several towns. Sangay is near a remote region of the Amazon basin and is one of the country’s most active volcanos. It has remained active since its first recorded eruption was noted by Spanish explorers in 1628.



Greenhouse rises

The level of atmospheric carbon dioxide reached a new record high last month even as lockdowns and economic slowdowns during the coronavirus pandemic caused a sharp decline in greenhouse gas emissions. Researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography say they measured a monthly average high of 417 parts per million (ppm) during May at Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Observatory, up from 414.8 ppm a year earlier. While global emissions dropped by 17 percent in April, Scripps scientists say much larger drops of 20 percent would be needed for an entire year to slow the growth of CO₂ concentrations in the atmosphere.



COVID sniffers

French researchers say Belgian Malinois shepherd dogs can sniff out humans exposed to the novel coronavirus from the distinct odor in armpits resulting from the infection. Using dogs trained to work in search and rescue missions, detecting explosives or sniffing out colon cancer, scientists from the National Veterinary School of Alfort say that four of the dogs had a 100 percent success rate in detecting the virus among 360 human subjects. Four more of the canines had an accuracy rate of between 83 percent and 94 percent. More dogs are now being trained as COVID sniffers.



Pink power

Bright pink flamingos have been found to be more forceful than their paler rivals when it comes to fighting for food, bucking the human conception that the color pink represents more gentle characteristics. Researchers from Britain’s University of Exeter and colleagues say that a flush of color derived from the algae Africa’s lesser flamingos filter from the water is a sign that they are ready to breed. This seems to cause the pinkest birds, both male and female, to push others around. “A healthy flamingo that is an efficient feeder — demonstrated by its colorful feathers — will have more time and energy to be aggressive and dominant when feeding,” said researcher Paul Rose.



Warmest May

Last month was the warmest May on record worldwide, with temperatures soaring to 18 degrees F above normal in Siberia. The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service calculated that the average global temperature was 1.13 degrees F above the 1981-2010 average. The service says the unusual warmth that began during January persisted. This ongoing warmth is of particular concern in Siberia and Alaska, where unprecedented firestorms blackened large swaths of permafrost landscape during last summer’s extreme warmth.



Antarctic buffer

New Zealand announced that it will help keep Antarctica coronavirus-free by temporarily cutting many of its scientific projects there. Only essential operations and planned maintenance will be allowed during the Antarctic summer season.
The government says the number of projects on the frozen continent will be slashed from 36 to 13 between October and March.


• Extreme Temperatures: -96°F Vostok, Antarctica; 120°F Al Ain, UAE

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June 08, 2020 (for the week ending Jun 05)



Earthquakes

• A desert mining region in northern Chile was rocked by a magnitude 6.8 temblor.
• Earth movements were also felt in California’s Mojave Desert [magnitude 5.5], western Texas [3.2], Guam [4.7], northeastern Japan [5.3], New Zealand’s lower North Island [4.7], Indonesia’s North Sulawesi province [6.4], central Nepal [4.8] and southwestern Iran [5.1].



Tropical cyclones

• The Indian financial hub of Mumbai was raked by Cyclone Nisarga, its first tropical cyclone since 1891. The city escaped significant damage, but the storm killed at least three people as it also lashed areas of Maharashtra state to the south.
• At least 20 people were killed when Tropical Storm Amanda drenched a swath of central America from El Salvador to Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula.
• Tropical Storm Cristobal formed in Amanda’s wake and was taking aim on parts of the U.S. Gulf Coast late in the week.



Volcanic tsunami

• An Indonesian sulfur miner was killed on the shore of a volcanic lake at East Java’s Mount Ijen when a tremor triggered a 10-foot wave, or seiche.



Earth's cleanest

A team of researchers from Colorado State University say they have found an area of the world where the atmosphere is pristine and free of pollution. In the air just above the surface of the Southern Ocean south of 40 degrees south latitude, they found no evidence of particles, or aerosols, produced by human activities and transported around the planet in weather patterns. What microbes they did find were determined through DNA analysis to have been tossed up by the seething ocean, meaning that pollution and soil particles caused by land use far away were not traveling south into the air around Antarctica.



Wildebeest move

Officials in the southern African nation of Botswana say they are relocating about 1,000 wildebeests from an area where they are coming into contact with livestock and infecting them with a deadly disease. There is currently no treatment for malignant catarrhal fever spread by the migratory animals, and there have been 74 deaths from it in cattle since March. Helicopters and a team of 40 on the ground will help move the wildebeests to a conservation area away from the affected farms by late July.



Verge of extinction

More than 500 species of land animals could be lost within 20 years as Earth’s sixth mass extinction of wildlife accelerates, scientists warn. They say that such losses could pass the tipping point for the collapse of civilization as we know it. “When humanity exterminates other creatures, it is sawing off the limb on which it is sitting, destroying working parts of our own life-support system,” said Stanford University’s Paul Ehrlich. An international research team writes in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: “Extinction breeds extinctions.” They say that wildlife trade and other activities have already wiped out hundreds of species.



Hydrogen time

Governments from Europe to Japan have scaled up efforts during the pandemic to develop hydrogen as a clean alternative to fossil fuels, with some using their economic stimulus programs to fund the research. While hydrogen has long been touted as the way to rid the world of a large portion of its carbon emissions, it has proven to be very difficult and expensive to generate with renewable energy sources, such as sunlight. But scientists at Japan’s Shinshu University say they have successfully split water into hydrogen and oxygen using light and newly developed catalysts that achieve almost 100 percent efficiency with no undesired side reactions. They say their findings open the door to scalable and economically viable solar hydrogen production.


• Extreme Temperatures: -89°F Vostok, Antarctica; 118°F Sibi, Pakistan

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June 01, 2020 (for the week ending May 29)



Earthquakes

• The New Zealand capital of Wellington was rocked by a [magnitude 5.6] quake that lasted for 30 seconds.
• Earth movements were also felt in the far northern Philippines [magnitude 5.1], Beijing [3.6], the India-Myanmar border region [5.5], northwestern Mexico [6.1] and western Nevada [3.5].



Tropical cyclones

• Tropical Storm Bertha became the second preseason storm to form over the western Atlantic just hours before it struck the coast of South Carolina.
• Remnants of tropical storm-force Cyclone Mangga brought parts of Western Australia some of the state's most severe weather conditions in a decade.



Volcanic activity (added from Smithsonian GVP website)

• Karymsky volcano in eastern Kamchatka produced an ash plume that was visible in satellite images. The plume drifted in south-easterly direction for 30 km. Subsequent explosive activity generated ash plumes that rose to 5 km above sea level. Officials raised the aviation color code to orange (second highest on a 4-level scale).
• Eruptions continued on Eastern Java's Semeru volcano though sometimes foggy conditions prevented visual confirmation. Ash plumes rose 200-500 m above the crater and drifted south and north. The alert level remained at 2 (on a scale pf 1-4). The public is advised to stay outside of the general 1-km danger zone around the summit.
• Costa Rica's Rincón de la Vieja continued activity during the week of May 20-26. Several small ash eruptions produced 1 km tall plumes though they contained less water vapor than previous recent plumes. Some of the events were not visually confirmed due to darkness.



Narwhal noise

The first detailed acoustic study of the "unicorns of the sea" has found that narwhals use distinctive noises to hunt and navigate. Researchers writing in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans say they rode with Inuit hunters along a Greenland fjord to record the unique whale species. They found that the closer narwhals get to their food, the faster they click, until it becomes a buzz that sounds like a chainsaw. "This terminal buzz helps the narwhals pinpoint the location of their prey," said author Evgeny Podolskiy. The team found that the marine mammals have a "daredevil streak" as they hunt near glaciers that are releasing icebergs.



Magnetic mystery

Scientists are struggling to understand new weakening of Earth's magnetic field in a region that stretches from South America to Africa and is causing technical disturbances in some of the satellites orbiting the planet. "The new eastern minimum of the South Atlantic Anomaly has appeared over the last decade and in recent years is developing vigorously," said Jürgen Matzka, from the German Research Center for Geosciences. The anomaly is allowing the inner Van Allen radiation belt to dip down to an altitude of about 120 miles, sometimes exposing satellites to several minutes of higher-than-usual radiation.
Astronauts have reported disturbances in their eyesight, known as cosmic ray visual phenomena, when passing through the anomaly.



Locust plagues

Fresh swarms of desert locusts are ravaging crops from East Africa to India, threatening food shortages at the same time as the coronavirus pandemic. Heavy rains from last year's unprecedented tropical cyclones in the Arabian Sea created excellent conditions for the pests to breed and spread. The ravenous insects have arrived in Pakistan and parts of India just before the monsoon season will allow farmers to plant rice, cane, corn and cotton. Experts say these summer crops will quickly be devoured if the worst infestations in decades are not eradicated soon.



Elephant homecoming

Thousands of tame elephants in parts of Thailand are facing starvation because the COVID-19 pandemic has kept away the tourists they once toiled to entertain, leaving their owners unable to feed them. More than 100 of the lumbering animals have traveled on foot up to 100 miles to areas where they can now feed themselves in their home habitats. The Save Elephant Foundation in the northern province of Chiang Mai helped bring the unemployed elephants to where they can live alongside villagers in a sustainable manner. One owner said the elephants made happy noises upon their first return home in 20 years.



'Zombie' fires

Wildfires that erupted in Siberia during the later half of May appear to have been smoldering through the Arctic winter and have reignited as “zombie” fires. The region experienced its warmest winter on record, with more record-breaking heat reported during the spring as well. Satellite images suggest the fires have emerged after the limited snowpack melted in some of the same areas ravaged by last summer’s unprecedented firestorms. Fire experts say the zombie fires have burned slowly since then in the layers of vegetation beneath the snowpack.


• Extreme Temperatures: -93°F Vostok, Antarctica; 123°F Nawabshah, Pakistan

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May 25, 2020 (for the week ending May 22)



Earthquakes

• Four people died and 23 others were injured by a sharp [magnitude 5.2] quake in China’s Yunnan province.
• Hundreds of aftershocks of Nevada’s strongest quake in 66 years on May 15 jolted the area around the city of Tonopah. That [magnitude 6.5] temblor damaged a main U.S. highway.
• Earth movements were also felt in the eastern Mediterranean [magnitude 5.6], far northern India [3.5], the southern Philippines [5.0] and northeastern Japan’s Fukushima coast [5.1].



Tropical cyclones

• Cyclone Amphan , the strongest to strike eastern India and Bangladesh in decades, flattened homes and ravaged India’s major city of Kolkata. It killed [at least 100 people] and forced 3 million others to evacuate.



Volcanic activity (added from Smithsonian GVP website)

• Costa Rica's Rincón de la Vieja continued activity during the week of May 13 - May 19. Two events on May 14 produced steam plumes that rose 500 m above the crater rim. A day later, a bigger eruption produced a 1-km-high gas-and-steam plume, followed by smaller eruptions producing ash. Some of the events were not visually confirmed by webcams because of unfavorable weather condition or darkness.
• Peru's Sabancaya volcano experienced frequent eruptions between May 11 and 17, with 12 explosions daily, on average. Gas-and-ash plumes rose up the 2.5 km above the summit. The Alert Level remained at Orange (second highest on a 4-level scale).
• Eruptions continued on Eastern Java's Semeru volcano though sometimes foggy conditions prevented visual confirmation. Incandescent material from the ends of lava flows reached a maximum distance of 1.2 km from the crater. The alert level remained at 2 (on a scale pf 1-4). The public is advised to stay outside of the general 1-km danger zone around the summit.



17-year return

The drone of untold millions of singing insects will soon echo across parts of the eastern United States from a group of cicadas that emerges from the ground only once every 17 years.
The mating songs of brood IX are among the noisiest of their kind. Their habitat stretches from North Carolina to West Virginia, where as many as 1.5 million can surface per acre. Cicadas are large, clear-winged insects with bulbous eyes that emerge every year or in cycles of 13 or 17 years. They then shed and leave their brown husks behind on trees and other objects. After breeding, their nymphs crawl into the ground for a 17-year slumber.



La nada

The U.S. weather agency predicts a 65 percent chance that neither an El Niño nor a La Niña will form this Northern Hemisphere summer. The National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center says that such neutral conditions typically bring more average wind, rainfall and temperature patterns than the weather disruptions brought on by unusually warmer or cooler waters across the tropical Pacific. The last El Niño warming developed in 2018 and was linked to disastrous firestorms, flash floods and crop damage in various areas of the planet.



Antarctic greening

Some of Antarctica’s fringes are being warmed so much under climate change that a new “green snow” can be seen by at least one spacecraft monitoring the planet. Europe’s Sentinel 2 satellite has detected an increase in green color because of fresh algae blooms on the Antarctic Peninsula coast. Researchers have mapped 1,679 of the green blooms, with an estimated potential to capture about the same amount of carbon dioxide emitted during 875,000 average gasoline-powered car journeys in Britain.



Ice-free Arctic

The Arctic Ocean is likely to become ice-free before 2050, at least temporarily in summer, according to new research from 21 institutions around the world. Basing their conclusion on results from 40 different climate models, the scientists wrote in the journal Geophysical Research Letters that even if carbon emissions are rapidly reduced and global warming is kept below 2 degrees C, Arctic sea ice will still occasionally disappear in summer within 30 years. With higher emissions, the study finds, the Arctic will be free of ice during most summers by then.



Carbon comeback

While overall global CO₂ emissions have been expected to fall by about 7 percent this year due to the pandemic, scientists fear that the manmade pollution will rebound as the world’s population returns to work and industrial production surges.
Daily global emissions of the greenhouse gas fell by 17 percent at the height of the COVID-19 shutdown. But levels of transportation and economic activity are able to return to pre-pandemic levels by mid-June, researchers estimate the annual fall in CO₂ emissions this year will be only 4 percent.


• Extreme Temperatures: -96°F Vostok, Antarctica; 117°F Nawabshah, Pakistan

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May 18, 2020 (for the week ending May 15)



Earthquakes

• Two people were killed and 38 others were injured when Tehran was jolted by a sharp [magnitude 4.6] quake, centered just east of the Iranian capital, that sent residents fleeing their homes in panic.
• Earth movements were also felt in greater Rome [magnitude 3.3], eastern Nepal [5.3], western India [4.0], North Korea [3.8], metropolitan Tokyo [5.8] and interior Southern California [4.5].



Tropical cyclones

• Typhoon Vongfong roared into the central Philippines, forcing officials to launch a complicated coastal evacuation effort made more challenging by the coronavirus pandemic. Vongfong packed winds of 100 mph when it made landfall.



Volcanic activity (added from Smithsonian GVP website)

• Costa Rica's Rincón de la Vieja continued activity during the week of May 7 - May 12. A phreatic explosion occurred on May 8 though inclement weather conditions hindered visual confirmation. Two smaller eruptions followed. On May 9, a gas-and-steam plume rose almost 2 km into the atmosphere.
• Ecuador's Sangay volcano experienced a high level of activity. Weather clouds often prevented visual observations. Ash plumes rose over 1000 m above the crater rim and incandescent blocks were seen descending on three days. Signals indicating lahars were recorded by the seismic network May 7 and 9.
• Eruptions continued on Eastern Java's Semeru volcano. Eruptions produced dense white-gray ash plumes that rose 200-500 m above the summit. Incandescent material from the ends of lava flows descended 500-1000 m reaching a maximum distance of 2 km from the crater. The Alert Level remained a 2 (on a 1-4 scale) and the public was reminded to stay outside a 1-km zone from the summit, and a 4 km zone in the lava flow region.



Amazon losses

Satellite observations by Brazil’s space agency, INPE, confirm that deforestation in the Amazon rainforest rose sharply as the coronavirus crisis deepened in the country during April. The health emergency has prevented many officials in charge of preventing the practice from being in the field to thwart illegal logging and land clearing. INPE says that losses in Brazil’s portion of the Amazon soared by 64% during the month, with 465 square miles lost. Despite supporting policies that have encouraged farmers, ranchers and loggers to clear Amazon land to help the economy, President Jair Bolsonaro has authorized the deployment of the armed forces to deter the practices.



The body electric

Israeli researchers say they have found a link between the extremely low frequencies of electrical activity in most living creatures and the electrical fields that prevail in the atmosphere. Tel Aviv University scientists say their findings challenge beliefs about electrical activity in living organisms and could lead to new treatments for ailments such as Parkinson’s and epilepsy. Lead researcher Colin Price says it is difficult to tell the difference between cellular electrical activity in some animals and the background electrical field produced by lightning.



Speedy voyagers

Birding enthusiasts used GPS to track a pair of common cuckoos as the faster one made an epic 4,500-mile journey from East Africa to China in just seven days. Banyan reached China’s Yunnan province on May 8 while Onon paused briefly in northeastern India to rest. Both, and others of their species, are in a race to reach their summer breeding grounds in eastern Mongolia, where they will compete with others for the best spots to raise their young.
NB: the common cuckoo is known as a brood parasite. They lay their eggs in the nests of other birds so that they raised their young, not the cuckoos themselves.



COVID heat

The World Health Organization (WHO) warns that the unusually hot and dry conditions predicted to bake many European cities this summer will be especially dangerous because of the coronavirus lockdowns. It warns both the general population of Europe and its health professionals to be prepared for the prospect of heat stroke and other heat-related ailments that may occur this summer. WHO says people should avoid doing strenuous activity during the hottest times of the day. Vulnerable individuals, like seniors and those with compromised immune systems, should take advantage of shopping times in the cool of morning established especially for them.


• Extreme Temperatures: -100°F Vostok, Antarctica; 119°F Matam, Senegal

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May 11, 2020 (for the week ending May 08)



Earthquakes

• The latest in a series of aftershocks to jolt southern Puerto Rico, [a magnitude 5.4 temblor] caused a balcony to crash onto a street in Ponce.
• Earth movements were also felt in Bosnia-Herzegovina [magnitude 3.3], southeastern Turkey [4.1], western Iran [4.8], northwestern Kenya [4.9], Indonesia’s Banda Sea region [6.8], southeastern Taiwan [5.9] and Tokyo [5.0].



Tropical cyclones - Altered formation

• Researchers say that climate change over the past 40 years has altered where hurricanes and the other tropical cyclones around the world are forming. NOAA scientists say that while the average number of such storms spinning up each year remains relatively stable, more are forming in the North Atlantic and Central Pacific. At the same time, those in the western Pacific and southern Indian oceans are now less frequent.



Volcanic activity

• An eruption on Apr 29 at Japan's Mount Io generated a volcanic plume that rose 1 km above the crater. This was the first eruption recorded since 2 Nov 2019. The alert level remained at 2 (on a 5-level scale). Mount Io on the island of Iojima is a volcanic island around the Kikai caldera.
• Volcanologists reported two phreatic explosions at Costa Rica's Rincón de la Vieja during Apr 30 - May 5 and continuing fluctuations in tremor levels. On Apr 30, a gas-and-steam plume rose 1.5 km above the crater rim, another one on May 5 rose 200 m.



Killer hornets

A giant and invasive bee-killing wasp, dubbed the world’s most venomous and intimidating insect, has arrived in Washington state, threatening agriculture. The Asian giant hornet is up to 2 inches in length and was first reported last fall along the Canadian border. Its venom is seven times stronger than that of honeybees, and its stingers can even penetrate protective clothing. A few dozen of them can kill an entire colony of honeybees within a few hours. It’s believed the wasp arrived in a container ship from Japan or South Korea. It killed 50 people last year in Japan alone.



Canine detection

Veterinary researchers at the University of Pennsylvania are about to begin testing to see if dogs can sniff out people who are infected with the novel coronavirus. Professor Cynthia Otto said in a statement that dogs have the ability to accurately detect very low levels of volatile organic compounds, which are found in the blood, saliva, urine and breath of patients suffering from various ailments. If dogs can harness this ability to detect the coronavirus, especially in those without symptoms, the researchers believe they could become vital tools for the kind of massive and rapid screening many feel is necessary to help bring the global health crisis under control.



Hothouse Earth

Earth’s soaring population coupled with global heating could result in about 10 billion people living in extreme heat zones by 2070, enduring temperatures not suitable for human survival, according to a new study. Author Timothy A. Kohler of Washington State University writes that some will be forced to move to cooler locations, causing economic and social disruptions. The conclusion is based on carbon emissions continuing to increase substantially in the future. But if emissions decline and warming slows, only about 1 billion would live in places with extreme heat.



Seagull survival

Starving seagulls in Italy have begun hunting rats, pigeons and other small birds since the coronavirus crisis began depriving them of their usual diet of scraps from tourists, according to a zoologist from Tor Vergata University of Rome. “They are going back to being predators,” Bruno Cignini told the Corriere della Sera daily. “It mainly hunts pigeons, which are slaughtered, and all the other birds that come within range. Luckily, it even eats rats.” Cignini added that the hungry birds have also been seen going after fish in the Tiber River.



Flamingo bounty

Some of the more colorful examples of how wildlife is reclaiming habitat during the global coronavirus lockdowns are the nearly 150,000 flamingos that have gathered in the wetlands around Mumbai, India. Smaller numbers of the birds typically migrate to areas near the city from November until May. The Bombay Natural History Society believes there are around 25 percent more of the pink-winged visitors this year. It says they are now roosting in areas where they have never been seen.


• Extreme Temperatures: -91°F Vostok, Antarctica; 118°F Tillaberi, Niger

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May 04, 2020 (for the week ending May 01)



Earthquakes

• Buildings across metropolitan Tokyo were shaken by a magnitude 4.9 quake centered just to the north in Ibaraki prefecture.
• Earth movements were also felt in New Zealand’s lower South Island [magnitude 5.6], far northern India [4.0], eastern Afghanistan and neighboring parts of Pakistan[4.8], and in eastern Romania [4.9].



Kyushu eruption

Lava bombs were tossed high above southern Japan’s Sakurajima volcano during an eruption that was accompanied by a steady stream of ash and small fragments of rock. Sakurajima is Japan’s most active volcano, located on the island of Kyushu.



Ozone hole north

NASA says the rare ozone hole that formed in the stratosphere over the Arctic this spring became the largest on record during March, but has since closed up. While the ozone depletion could have increased UV exposure for humans living at the surface had it expanded down to the populated areas of Europe and North America, it began to shrink rapidly as the Arctic winter waned. Scientists say the record ozone hole was created by the polar vortex and was linked to Europe’s warmest winter ever measured. It also had nothing to do with the ozone-destroying chemicals now banned under the Montreal Protocol.



Storm fuel

Atmospheric scientists are expressing alarm at the record high temperatures that occurred during March in parts of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans. They fear the excess warmth will radiate to the air above and generate chaotic weather worldwide during the months to come. Of particular concern are the future of the Atlantic hurricane season, increased wildfire potential from Australia and North America to the Amazon and possible severe thunderstorms with accompanying tornadoes. “And there is a global warming component to that. It is really amazing when you look at all the tropical oceans and see how warm they are,” Michelle L’Heureux of the United States Climate Prediction Centre told Bloomberg News.



Ocean quiescence

Researchers say whales are probably among the creatures benefiting from the more quiet Earth, thanks to the reduction in worldwide human activities. A consistent drop in underwater noise at frequencies known to affect marine mammals has been measured since January. This is mainly the result of sharp and ongoing declines in ocean shipping. Whales are known to alter their calling behavior and suffer chronic stress when exposed to ship noise, and scientists want to know how they are now responding to the diminished din.



Insect diversity

New research shows that the “insect Armageddon” reported widely over the past three years is far more complex than thought, with not all species suffering declines and some growing in numbers. In the journal Science, German scientists say detailed habitat studies reveal many insects that live in and emerge from water, such as mosquitoes, midges and mayflies, have become more plentiful by about 1 percent each year. This is in contrast to the slightly less than 1 percent annual decline suffered by land-based species such as bees, butterflies and ants.



Emissions drop

The United Nations weather agency said that while global carbon emissions are likely to see the biggest yearly fall since World War II due to the COVID-19 crisis, governments should still use some of the new stimulus packages to encourage a move to a greener economy. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) cautioned that past economic recoveries have been accompanied by higher emission growth than before the downturns. “We need to show the same determination and unity against climate change as against COVID-19,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.


• Extreme Temperatures: -92°F Vostok, Antarctica; 116°F Bilma, Niger

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April 27, 2020 (for the week ending Apr 24)



Earthquakes

• Southern California residents locked down in their homes were jolted awake by a late-night [magnitude 3.3] quake near Santa Barbara.
• [With a magnitude 3.7, another mild quake struck near midnight in the Los Angeles Basin. No damage was reported.]
• Earth movements were also felt in southeastern Arizona [magnitude 3.5], far western Texas [3.1], central Iceland [4.8], northeastern Japan [6.1] and far southern Japan’s Bonin Islands [6.6].



Etna eruption

A sudden blast from Mount Etna spewed ash high above eastern Sicily and sent lava flowing down the volcano’s flanks. A sharp increase in seismic tremors preceded the eruption, which lasted for hours.



Megadrought

Scientists say an ongoing drought that began in 2000 across the western U.S. has become nearly the worst on record, mainly due to human-caused climate change. It has resulted in sharp drops in the levels of Lake Powell and Lake Mead. Because the protracted dry spell has lasted for decades, it is officially known as a “megadrought,” of which there have been only four in the past 1,200 years, revealed in tree rings and other natural records. The most severe was from 1575 to 1603 and was only slightly worse than the current one. This ongoing modern drought is said to be due in large part to the more frequent La Niña episodes.



Confounding CO2

Rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations due to man-made carbon emissions threaten to expose those living and working indoors to CO₂ levels as high as 1,400 parts per million later this century. That is more than three times what we are exposed to outdoors today and well beyond what we have regularly breathed. A study by University of Colorado Boulder concludes that the exposure may impair people’s complex strategic thinking by about 50 percent and curb our basic decision-making in the classroom, at work and at home by 25 percent. Co-author Shelly Miller says ventilation systems can’t always keep up with CO₂ levels that rise over time, such as when people sleep or when there are many people in a room.



Ravaged vintage

A violent hailstorm destroyed as much as 2,000 acres of prime vineyards in the famed Bordeaux region of France, especially near Saint-Emilion. It was the latest blow to French winemakers already suffering a drop in consumption because of shuttered restaurants and bars, and by the U.S. tariffs on French wine since last year. The chamber of agriculture said the hail was most destructive from the center of the Entre-Deux-Mers area to the Dordogne region.



Beeless pollination

Israeli farmers are experimenting with an artificial method of pollinating crops because of fears that disappearing bees could threaten the future of some agriculture. The method involves tractors pulling a mast equipped with small cannons that shoot out pollen into individual almond trees. The pollen is first extracted from budding trees with a mechanical harvester. Eylam Ran, CEO of Edete Precision Technologies for Agriculture, says the process can initially help out pollinating bees, then eventually replace them.



Chernobyl smog

Smoke from wildfires raging near and around Ukraine’s crippled Chernobyl nuclear power plant blanketed the capital of Kyiv with the most polluted air measured anywhere in cities around the world. While the smog gave the capital’s 3.7 million residents yet another reason to remain indoors during the coronavirus lockdown, officials said it did not constitute a radiation threat. “It does not carry a chemical or radiological threat; the radiation background is within normal limits,” Ukraine’s health ministry said in a statement. But the ministry did warn that the smoke could cause headaches, coughs, breathing difficulty and eye irritation, among other ailments.


• Extreme Temperatures: -88°F Vostok, Antarctica; 114°F Dori, Burkina Faso

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April 20, 2020 (for the week ending Apr 17)



Earthquakes

• A mild but rare [magnitude 3.5] earthquake centered beneath New Delhi’s northern suburbs sent residents across the Indian capital rushing from their homes.
• Earth movements were also felt in Istanbul [magnitude 3.8], western Syria [4.7], northern Italy [4.5], the far southern Philippines [5.2], Salt Lake City [4.2] and along the California-Nevada border [5.3].



Tropical cyclones

• Tropical Storm Jeruto spun up from an area of disturbed weather over the central Indian Ocean, far from any land areas.
  Jeruto was a threat only to shipping lanes.



Sunda eruption

Indonesia’s Anak Krakatau, or Child of Krakatau, produced its strongest and longest eruption since its crater collapsed violently in 2018. The latest blasts sent ash soaring 50,000 feet above the Sunda Strait, between Java and Sumatra. But it was mild compared to the violent 2018 collapse, which triggered a deadly tsunami that killed 439 people. Anak Krakatau emerged from the caldera of the notorious Mount Krakatoa, which produced a cataclysmic eruption in 1883 that triggered a period of global cooling.



Rodent hunger

Desperate rats, deprived of their usual food sources outside shuttered restaurants and other sources of snacks, have begun to invade nearby rodent colonies, eating the flesh of their own species. While food supplies have pretty much remained the same for vermin living near human households, rodentologist Bobby Corrigan told NBC News that those living near eateries, malls and airports have resorted to cannibalism, rat battles and infanticide to cope with their starvation diets. The crazed rats are also threatening the homeless population, according to New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell. A viral video posted in March showed areas in the French Quarter overrun by rats taking to the streets in search of food.



When pigs fly

China began to repopulate the country’s swine farms, decimated by a rampant African swine fever outbreak that reached its peak last year, by flying in more than 4,000 high-quality breeding pigs from France aboard six jet aircraft. Tens of millions of hogs, including 60 percent of China’s sow herd, were either put down to halt the spread of the disease or died. Pork is exceedingly popular on Asian dinner tables, and the shortage has caused prices for the commodity to soar. The pigs being imported must undergo a month of health checks before leaving France, along with another 30 days in quarantine under Chinese supervision. Once they arrive in China, they spend another 45 days in quarantine to guarantee they are free of disease.



Avian tragedy

Thousands of migrating swallows and swifts were found dead across parts of Greece during the first week of April after they were killed by freak high winds and downpours. Others were found gravely injured. The country’s ornithologist association blamed currents that blew the birds from northern Africa into the strong winds from the north of the Aegean Sea, especially around the Greek Islands. The association warned residents to take care not to drive or walk over exhausted birds that may have landed after flying for many hundreds or thousands of miles.



Pets or food?

Dogs are no longer officially classified as livestock in China and are instead considered merely pets in new guidelines issued by Beijing due to the global coronavirus crisis. Dog meat has long been a delicacy in China, but the fear of new cross-species diseases emerging in the wake of COVID-19 is prompting bans on the sale of flesh from wild animals. And as dogs have become more common as companion animals, eating them has grown increasingly unpopular. The Humane Society calls China’s canine reclassification a potential “game changer” in animal welfare.


• Extreme Temperatures: -94°F Vostok, Antarctica; 114°F Podor, Senegal

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April 13, 2020 (for the week ending Apr 10)



Earthquakes

• Residents across northern Lebanon and northwestern Syria were jolted by a magnitude 4.8 quake.
• Earth movements were also felt in the northern Red Sea resort of Eilat [magnitude 4.3], eastern Turkey [4.7], India’s Assam state [4.7], islands of the southeastern Caribbean [5.2] and San Diego County [4.9].



Tropical cyclones

• Category 5 Cyclone Harold ravaged the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu after killing at least 27 people two days earlier in the Solomon Islands. Harold later caused extensive damage when it raked parts of Fiji and Tonga as the equivalent of a Category 4 hurricane.
• Tropical Cyclone Irondro churned the waters of the central Indian Ocean, far from any land areas.



Snake trade

China’s ban on the sale of wild animals because of the coronavirus crisis has nearly wiped out the local economy of an area known for breeding snakes for food. While experts say the disease probably didn’t emerge directly from snakes, Reuters reports factory and backyard snake farms around Zisiqiao village in Zhejiang province are no longer in business. They had been a key source of the reptiles for restaurants and traditional medicine. Intensive snake farming has resulted in an increase in the transmission of parasites and various infectious diseases, according to a recent Wuhan University study.



Chernobyl blazes

Wildfires raging around Ukraine’s crippled Chernobyl nuclear power plant caused a local spike in radiation but did not affect levels in the capital of Kyiv or other nearby areas, according to Yegor Firsov, Ukraine’s ecological inspection service chief. Firefighters battled blazes across 50 acres inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, which may have been deliberately ignited. That area of Ukraine is currently experiencing an extended period of dry weather.



Great bleaching

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is currently experiencing its most widespread coral bleaching event on record due to climate change, which scientists say poses a grave threat to the reef’s survival. “For the first time, severe bleaching has struck all three regions of the Great Barrier Reef,” said Terry Hughes of James Cook University. February had the highest monthly temperatures ever recorded on the Great Barrier Reef, triggering the third bleaching in five years. Severe bleaching often kills coral, but some species can recover from mild episodes.



The quiet Earth

Seismologists say the sharp reduction in human activity such as transport, manufacturing, drilling and construction due to the global pandemic has left Earth a much quieter planet, allowing them to better study its natural movements. Ambient man-made noise at the surface has been silenced by as much as 50 percent in some areas, resulting in much clearer seismic measurements. But the plunge in worldwide jet flights during the crisis and the silencing of the weather instruments many of them carry along their routes is also reducing the accuracy of the initial state of the computer models used to project Earth’s future weather patterns.



Vanishing buffer

The heating of the surface waters of the western North Atlantic under climate change has caused that important layer to shrink, which an international team of researchers says has crippled the water’s ability to absorb the atmosphere’s excess carbon dioxide and heat. The North Atlantic Subtropical Mode Water has historically been about 800 feet thick. But more than 90 percent of that layer has been lost due to the warming of the past decade, according to a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change. The loss is said to also threaten the region’s phytoplankton, the base of the marine food chain near the ocean’s surface.


• Extreme Temperatures: -83°F Vostok, Antarctica; 114°F Matam, Senegal

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April 06, 2020 (for the week ending Apr 03)



Earthquakes

• A wide area of the northern Rockies was jolted by an rare and powerful [magnitude 6.5] temblor in western Idaho.
• Earth movements were also felt in West Texas [magnitude 5.0], metropolitan Montreal [3.1], western Nicaragua [4.7], the top of New Zealand’s South Island [4.8] and northern India [4.4].



Java eruption

Indonesia’s most active volcano spewed ash to 16,000 feet above Java, prompting authorities to ban air traffic from around Mount Merapi. The ash and other volcanic debris fell over fields and homes miles away, but there were no reports of major damage or injuries.
NB:not to be confused with Mount Marapi which also is a volcano in Indonesia, but on the island of Sumatra.



Ozone healing

The ozone hole is healing and some weather patterns are returning to historic positions, thanks to the success of the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which banned ozone-killing chemicals. A report published in the journal Nature notes that the amount of man-made substances behind the ozone hole has paused or reversed. The recent healing of the ozone hole is allowing the Southern Hemisphere jet stream to return to a normal position and state. Until about 2000, its southern shift had altered rainfall patterns over South America, eastern Africa and Australia.



Methane leaks

The powerful greenhouse gas methane is leaking into the atmosphere from industrial sites around the planet at a rate comparable to carbon emissions generated in Germany and France annually, a French data analysis firm notes. A report by Kayrros points to data from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-5P satellite that reveal more than “100 high-volume emission events.” They are said to release about 22 million tons of methane from gas storage and transmissions facilities each year.
While relatively short-lived in the atmosphere, methane is dozens of times more potent in causing global warming than CO2.



Early warning

With some health experts cautioning that COVID-19 could surge again worldwide later this year, researchers in England say they are working on a way to detect the deadly virus in sewage systems before the pandemic has a chance to rebound. By picking up biomarkers in the feces and urine of disease carriers, Cranfield University scientists say potential rapid testing kits, using cheap paper-based devices, could help trace sources of the virus and determine if there are carriers in an area. “If COVID-19 can be monitored in a community at an early stage ... effective intervention can be taken as early as possible to restrict the movements of that local population, working to minimize the pathogen spread,” said Cranfield researcher Zhugen Yang.



Urban return

Streets and other urban landscapes emptied out around the world in recent weeks because of the coronavirus pandemic are becoming repopulated by wildlife that had historically roamed the areas. Rafters of turkeys are rambling through Oakland, California, while pumas stalk the streets of Santiago, Chile, returning to habitats once taken from them. Foxes “change their behavior very quickly. When a place becomes quiet, they’re straight in there,” Romain Julliard, of the French Natural History Museum, told AFP. Lawns left unmowed are also providing conditions for bees and butterflies to thrive, Julliard added.



Ocean restoration

Humankind’s rampant overfishing, pollution and other assaults on the world’s oceans can be reversed within a generation, according to a new scientific review. The international team of researchers that issued the review says that while the effort would cost billions of dollars a year through 2050, it would eventually pay off with benefits of 10 times that amount. “If you stop killing sea life and protect it, then it does come back,” said team member Callum Roberts of Britain’s University of York. The review also says climate change must be curbed because of the ocean acidification, loss of oxygen and coral destruction it brings.


• Extreme Temperatures: -87°F Vostok, Antarctica; 116°F Matam, Senegal

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March 30, 2020 (for the week ending Mar 27)



Earthquakes

• The strongest quake to strike Croatia in 140 years [, a magnitude 5.4 temblor, ] wrecked buildings in the capital of Zagreb, killing one teenager.
• A powerful [magnitude 5.6] quake damaged buildings and roads in southwestern Greece.
• A [magnitude 7.5] Kuril Islands quake sparked a brief tsunami alert.
• Earth movements were also felt in Zimbabwe [magnitude 3.8], eastern India [4.2], southern Tibet [5.7], central New Zealand [4.4], the Cayman Islands [4.6], western Nevada [4.6] and the Northern California wine country [4.1].



Arctic aperture

NASA satellites have just detected one of the largest holes ever observed in the ozone layer over the Arctic. Although the holes above Antarctica are much larger and more dramatic, allowing dangerous ultraviolet light to reach the surface, those over the Arctic are usually much smaller, and often called “gaps” rather than holes due to their sizes. But experts say the hole that opened from northern Canada to Siberia in March exceeds the record sizes set in 2011 and 1997.



Monarch decline

Even though the number of monarch butterflies that reached their wintering grounds in Mexico decreased by more than half this season, experts said the plunge is not alarming. The Mexico director of the World Wildlife Fund told reporters that the previous winter’s numbers were unusually high because the first generation of the migrating insects in the spring of 2018 had encountered favorable breeding conditions as they headed northward toward the eastern U.S. and Canada. But those fluttering northward in 2019 encountered colder conditions in Texas, which made them less able to reproduce. Early reports from Texas this spring say the monarchs have arrived at least three weeks earlier than expected, thanks to unseasonably warm weather in Mexico.



Urban survivors

A new study finds why some birds thrive in cities while others go extinct due to human activities — they can either grow large brains or produce more offspring. “On the one hand, species with large brains, like crows or gulls, are common in cities because large brain size helps them deal with the challenges of a novel environment,” said lead author Ferran Sayol of Sweden’s University of Gothenburg. “On the other hand, we also found that small-brained species, like pigeons, can be highly successful if they have a high number of breeding attempts over their lifetimes.”



Coronavirus risk

A refuge that is home to many of East Africa’s mountain gorillas has been closed to protect the endangered primates from exposure to the novel coronavirus. Officials at Congo’s Virunga National Park say they will bar visitors until at least June 1 after experts warned that the gorillas are likely susceptible to complications from the coronavirus. Similar actions have been taken in neighboring Rwanda to protect that country’s gorillas and chimpanzees.



Venetian revival

Fish and even dolphins have returned to the now-calmed waters of Venice’s famed canals due to the shutdown of tourism and daily life during Italy’s coronavirus health crisis. The hundreds of speeding motorboat taxis and tourist boats that used to churn La Serenissima’s canals are now docked in silence. The huge cruise ships are also gone and most of the gondolas are moored. The city’s typically turbid canals are now clear enough to see the native seaweed and returning schools of fish.



Coral peril

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is suffering its third mass coral bleaching event in five years, with some reefs that had survived earlier episodes being affected again. A new survey reveals that 80 reefs between Tully and Townsville have been badly bleached. “We could see that some of those corals were big enough that they must have survived the 2017 bleaching and now they re-bleached,” said reef expert Terry Hughes.


• Extreme Temperatures: -104°F Vostok, Antarctica; 112°F Diffa, Niger

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March 23, 2020 (for the week ending Mar 20)



Earthquakes

• Minor damage was reported after a strong [magnitude 5.7] quake rocked northern Utah from an epicenter just west of Salt Lake City.
• Earth movements were also felt in central Chile [magnitude 5.6], the southern Iran-United Arab Emirates region [5.3], central Nepal [4.3], Bali [6.2], New Zealand’s Canterbury region [4.6] and from Samoa to Tonga [5.8].



Tropical cyclones

• Northern Madagascar was drenched as Cyclone Herold spun up just offshore. The storm later knocked out power on remote Rodriguez Island.
• Tropical Storm Gretel formed near New Caledonia.



Alarming melt

Melting glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica are sending six times more water into the ocean than during the 1990s, increasing sea level rise more than many models had predicted.
“If Antarctica and Greenland continue to track the worst-case climate warming scenario, they will cause an extra 17 centimeters (6.7 inches) of sea level rise by the end of the century,” said University of Leeds professor Andrew Shepherd.
Most of the melting in Antarctica, and half from Greenland, has been brought on by warmer ocean currents that are accelerating the rate at which glaciers flow into the sea. The rest of Greenland’s melting is caused by much warmer air temperatures, especially during last summer’s record Arctic heat.



Plastic damage

Microplastic pollution in the world’s waters may cause serious damage to fish gills and increase egg production in female fish. “Past field studies have shown that many fish eat large quantities of the fibers every day but have protective mechanisms within the gut that seem to be preventing damage,” said David E. Hinton of Duke University. But he found that exposure to high levels of plastic microfibers for three weeks can cause gill membranes to fuse and trigger an increase in gill mucus production. Millions of tons of synthetic fibers have accumulated in the environment, posing an increased health risk to creatures living in the sea and on land, scientists warn.



Nuclear highway

Workers near Moscow began building a highway over a Soviet-era dump of radioactive material despite protests by environmental advocates who warn the activity will release toxic particles into the air. Moscow’s mayor insists that there are only “insignificant traces of contamination” over the site. The road is the initial phase of a project to redevelop the former industrial zone in the south of the Russian capital. But Greenpeace says a state report shows that there are at least 66,000 tons of radioactive waste from a plant there that produced thorium for nuclear reactors.



Natural pathogen

A new study finds that the coronavirus responsible for the current worldwide health crisis is a product of natural evolution and was not created in a lab as some rumors have claimed. The evidence for natural evolution came from comparing the genome sequences of previously known coronavirus strains with that causing COVID-19. If a new coronavirus had been engineered as a pathogen, it would have been constructed from the backbone of a virus known to cause illness, according to lead researcher Kristian Andersen of Scripps Research. But writing in the journal Nature Medicine, Andersen and his team say they instead found that the backbone of the virus responsible for COVID-19 differs substantially from previously known coronaviruses, and mostly resembles viruses already found in bats and pangolins.
Coronaviruses can cause illnesses ranging widely in severity. The first known severe illness caused by a coronavirus emerged during the 2003 SARS epidemic in China. A second outbreak of severe illness began during 2012 in Saudi Arabia with a disease known as MERS .



Permafrost herds

A German researcher says that sending large herds of horses and other grazing animals to roam across regions where global heating is thawing the permafrost could help preserve about 80 percent of those soils in a frozen state until 2100. Christian Beer points to Siberian studies where scientists resettled herds of bison, reindeer and horses more than 20 years ago. They found that when the snow cover is scattered and compressed by the grazing animals’ stomping hooves, its insulating effect is dramatically reduced, intensifying the freezing of the permafrost in winter.


• Extreme Temperatures: -96°F Concordia, Antarctica; 112°F Rivadavia, Argentina

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March 16, 2020 (for the week ending Mar 13)



Earthquakes

• Indonesia’s West Java province was rocked by a sharp [magnitude 4.9] temblor that injured at least three people and damaged more than 200 houses. The Kalapanunggal district was the most affected region, where 48 houses were destroyed or severely damaged.
• Earth movements were also felt in central Tibet [magnitude 5.3], northwestern Italy [2.6], Portugal’s Madeira Islands [5.2], southwestern Iceland [4.6], Montreal [3.3], eastern New York and parts of New England [3.1], Costa Rica [5.4], the Baja California-U.S. border region [5.5] and the Sierra Nevada mountains and foothills of Northern California [3.7].



Tropical cyclones

Tropical Storm 21 formed over the far eastern Indian Ocean, then dissipated before reaching the tip of northwestern Australia.



Javan lava

Indonesia’s Mount Semeru volcano showed renewed signs of life in East Java with flows of lava that streamed as far as 3,000 feet down its slopes.



Ice-free future

The Arctic may become “ice free” in as few as 15 years due to accelerating global heating, according to a team of U.S. scientists.
While areas of the thickest ice that surround islands near the North Pole are likely to survive until later this century, the region will be considered ice-free when the summer coverage is less than 386,000 square miles. Writing in the journal Climate, the researchers say statistical models point to the first ice-free summer arriving during the 2030s, with 2034 the most likely year. “The extent of Arctic ice is important to Arctic peoples, whose lands are being affected by increased coastal erosion,” NOAA said in a statement. “Conversely, the disappearance of ice creates economic opportunities, including the opening of oil fields and new shipping routes.”



Climate dithering

The U.N. head warns that the world is “way off track” in combating the deepening climate crisis and is rapidly running out of time. Secretary-General António Guterres gave warnings at the release of the U.N.’s grim assessment of the global climate in 2019. It says last year was marked by record-breaking atmospheric heat and marine heat waves that affected at least 84 percent of the world’s oceans. There was also unprecedented severe weather. "Climate change is the defining challenge of our time. We are currently way off track to meeting either the 1.5 degree C or 2 degree targets that the Paris agreement calls for,” said Guterres. Scientists urged world leaders not to let the current coronavirus crisis distract from the long-term fight against climate change.



Towering loss

The world’s last female white giraffe and one of its calves have been killed by armed poachers in Kenya, leaving only one of the slain female’s white offspring still alive. The mother was first spotted in eastern Kenya’s Ishaqbini Hirola Community Conservancy in 2017. Their alabaster coats were caused by leucism, which is different from albinism, as dark pigments continue to grow in the animals’ soft tissues, giving them dark eyes.



Wild food ban

Chinese officials are debating a proposed bill that would outlaw all trade and consumption of wild animals — practices blamed for the coronavirus crisis as well as earlier outbreaks. There was no word from the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress on when the proposed bans could take effect. But the move is likely to face strong opposition from a population that has become accustomed to eating exotic animals and using them for traditional therapies not verified by science. A similar ban was imposed after an animal-to-human pathogen led to the deadly SARS outbreak in 2002-03. But international observers say the wildlife trade was soon booming again.


• Extreme Temperatures: -83°F Vostok, Antarctica; 115°F Bougouni, Mali

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March 09, 2020 (for the week ending Mar 06)



Earthquakes

• The central Philippines’ Leyte Island was jolted by a 5.5 magnitude temblor that caused scattered damage.
• Two moderate temblors were felt in Trinidad and nearby areas of northeastern Venezuela [magnitude 4.6].



Java eruption

A sudden eruption of one of Indonesia’s most active volcanoes sent columns of ash soaring high above Java. The eruption of Mount Merapi caused sand and superheated material to cascade down the mountain. A 2010 eruption killed more than 300 people.



Vanishing beaches

The effects of global heating will erode approximately half of the world’s existing beaches by the end of this century if efforts to cut carbon emissions fail, according to a study by the Joint Research Center of the European Commission. It says more than 22,400 miles of sandy coastline will be eroded by rising tides and stormier seas during the next 30 years before conditions worsen and far more beaches disappear during the latter half of the century. Writing in the journal Nature Climate Change, study author Michalis Vousdoukas says that even modest efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions could prevent about 17 percent of the shoreline retreat by 2050 and 40 percent by 2100.



Failing lungs

A new study finds that the forests in the heart of Africa and across the Amazon will stop absorbing carbon dioxide emissions as a whole in as little as 15 years, forcing scientists and politicians to rethink their strategies on combating the global climate crisis. In what researcher Simon Lewis at the University of Leeds describes as the most worrying paper he’s ever written, he describes how CO₂ absorption in the Amazon has already plunged. Fortunately, the amount of emissions being absorbed by forests around the world has actually increased due to higher temperatures and more tree growth in temperate regions.



Ebola's end

Health officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo say they are optimistic that the country’s protracted Ebola outbreak is finally coming to an end. The World Health Organization says the last surviving patient was just released from a clinic in the northeastern town of Beni. A 42-day waiting period has just begun, and if no more people are found to be infected during that time, the outbreak can be declared officially over. The second-worst outbreak on record has killed 2,264 of the 3,444 people believed infected since it began in August 2018.



Eastern swarms

Farmers in parts of Pakistan are battling the worst locust plague in nearly 30 years after heavy rains from earlier tropical cyclones provided perfect conditions for unprecedented breeding and explosive population growth of the insects. While most recent headlines have highlighted the damage the vast desert locust crisis has inflected on eastern Africa, other swarms have spread eastward from around the Red Sea to Iran, Pakistan and into parts of India.



Viral cleansing

Air quality across China’s typically polluted industrial zones has improved dramatically in recent weeks since the coronavirus crisis forced the country to shut down much of its industrial production. Observations by satellites operated by NASA and the European Space Agency show how dramatically toxic nitrogen dioxide levels in China have plunged. “This is the first time I have seen such a dramatic drop-off over such a wide area for a specific event,” said air quality researcher Fei Liu at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Smog levels also fell to a smaller extent during the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the global financial crisis.


• Extreme Temperatures: -76°F Concordia, Antarctica; 110°F Diourbel, Senegal

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March 02, 2020 (for the week ending Feb 28)



Earthquakes

• At least nine people perished along the northwestern Iran-Turkey border when a magnitude 6.0 temblor struck the region. A strong aftershock occurred about 10 hours later, keeping residents on edge.
• Earth movements were also felt in northeastern Taiwan [magnitude 5.0] and southern Maine [2.2].



Tropical cyclones

• Tropical Storm Esther brought locally heavy rain to parts of Australia's Northern Territory and neighboring Queensland.
• Cyclone Ferdinand churned the far eastern Indian Ocean, between Australia and Indonesia.
• Short-lived tropical storms Vicky and Wasi spun up in quick succession near Samoa before dissipating near the South Pacific island country of Niue.



AI antibiotic

Scientists at MIT say they have found one of the most powerful antibiotics ever discovered by using machine learning for the first time in such a quest. The researchers say the new drug is able to wipe out a range of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria in a different way than existing treatments. Found thanks to artificial intelligence and named after the HAL 9000 computer in the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey," the antibiotic compound halicin works by altering a bacteria's electrochemical characteristics. While tested successfully in mice, there is no word on when human trials of halicin will begin.



Early birds

One of the most comprehensive studies of North American bird observations shows that at least one winged species has conducted its spring migration earlier and earlier over the past 50 years. The black-throated blue warbler was chosen for the study because its movements have been the most accurately documented. Writing in the journal Auk: Ornithological Advances, researcher Kristen Covino and colleagues from Loyola Marymount University found that the species passed by key monitoring locations one day earlier each decade than they did 50 years ago. And while the timing of the fall migration peak hasn't changed, Covino says the autumnal migration southward now takes longer than it did five decades ago.



Sandy shutdown

A wind pattern off the coast of Africa known as a Calima transported so much red Saharan sand into the skies above Spain's Canary Islands that air traffic was halted there for the better part of two days. Aviation experts don't remember ever experiencing a Calima episode quite as bad.



Antarctic melt

Images from NASA satellites reveal that the record-breaking heat across parts of Antarctica in early February caused an unprecedented melting of the ice cap. Ice covering Eagle Island, off the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, shrank dramatically as temperatures at times became as warm as those in Los Angeles. It was the third major melting event of the 2019-2020 southern summer. Scientists say such phenomena have become more and more frequent this century.



Historic firestorms

Bushfires across eastern Australia from last September to January burned a fifth of Australia's forest, blackening an area of unprecedented size anywhere in the world, researchers say. Matthias Boer at Western Sydney University, along with an international team, found that the blazes had charred about 14.3 million acres, or about 21% of the region's forest cover by early January. A separate study found that the New South Wales blazes were far more intense than any climate models had predicted, even in a much warmer future.


• Extreme Temperatures: -69°F Vostok, Antarctica; 109°F Kayes, Mali

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February 24, 2020 (for the week ending Feb 21)



Earthquakes

• A sharp [magnitude 5.8] quake in far southern Iran was felt widely across the Persian Gulf in the United Arab Emirates. Minor damage occurred near the epicenter.
• Earth movements were also felt in Papua New Guinea’s New Britain region [magnitude 6.2], Indonesia’s Maluku Islands [5.6], Fiji [5.2] and eastern Taiwan [4.9].



Tropical cyclones

• Former Cyclone Uesi brought heavy rain and strong winds to New Zealand’s western coast after passing directly over Australia’s Lord Howe Island. There, the storm downed trees and caused minor damage on the World Heritage-listed island.



Ice volcanoes

A phenomenon that might seem more likely on an alien world was captured by a photographer from the National Weather Service in Grand Rapids, Mich. A pair of ice “volcanoes” were spouting through the expanding ice shelf of Lake Michigan during a frigid blast from the north. The formations spewed water as waves on the lake passed under the ice shelf, forcing the water up through the cracks in the previously formed cones. The spewing water froze almost instantly in the bitter chill, causing the ice volcanoes to grow even larger. Lake-goers were warned not to venture near the dangerous hollow structures.



Burp control

A European Union-funded project has developed the technology to capture cows’ methane-filled burps, which contribute nearly 15 percent of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions. England-based ZELP, or Zero Emissions Livestock Project, developed masks that turn methane-filled burps into water and carbon dioxide. While CO₂ is also a greenhouse gas, the methane in cow burps traps 28 times more heat in the atmosphere. The masks could start selling as early as next year. “I’m making sure that people understand that this is viable, that this is scalable and that this is an efficient solution to the problem,” said ZELP CEO Francisco Norris.



Insect invaders

Researchers say they have found different types of insects that have managed to get a foothold in Antarctica, apparently able to survive on and around the frozen continent. It is not known if Eretmoptera murphyi arrived by boat or plane, in the clothing of scientists or from larvae in a container of water.
But scientists say it presents a potential danger to the delicate ecosystem and can’t be eradicated with insecticide.
Uruguayan polar scientists found an invasive crane fly, Trichocera maculipennis, which also threatens to expand its territory.



Seafood soup

Freakishly warm water off the northern tip of New Zealand during early February cooked up to 500,000 wild mussels alive in an event linked to climate change. Auckland resident Brandon Ferguson discovered the dead mollusks as he waded through water choked with mussel shells. Similar die-offs have been observed in New Zealand during recent years involving clams and cockles.
“The common denominators seem to be really hot conditions with lots of sunlight and unusually calm waters for an extended period,” Waikato University marine ecologist Chris Battershill told AFP.



Warming culprits

The oil and gas industry has underestimated its methane gas emissions by 40 percent, according to a new study into the sources of the potent greenhouse gas. The amount of methane in Earth’s atmosphere has more than doubled during the past two centuries, and scientists have been uncertain how much has come from agriculture, livestock and the burning of fossil fuels.
It’s believed methane is responsible for at least 25 percent of all global heating. Oil refineries regularly vent the colorless and odorless gas directly into the atmosphere. Methane also seeps into the air during the extraction of natural gas.


• Extreme Temperatures: -67°F Vostok, Antarctica; 113°F Vredendal, South Africa

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February 17, 2020 (for the week ending Feb 14)



Earthquakes

• Southern Croatia was jolted by its third significant earthquake so far this year. The [magnitude 4.0] temblor was also felt in neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina.
• Other earth movements were felt in far eastern India’s Assam state [magnitude 5.0] and far northeastern Japan [6.9].



Tropical storms

• High winds from powerful Cyclone Damien pummeled parts of northwestern Australia’s iron-producing Pilbara region as heavy downpours from the storm washed out roads.
• Heavy rains from the outer bands of Cyclone Uesi threatened flash flooding in southern Queensland.



Eruption

A volcano on the French overseas territory of Réunion spewed lava onto the surrounding landscape and sent plumes of vapor soaring high into the western Indian Ocean sky. Cracks in Piton de la Fournaise’s crater that opened up during a 2019 eruption appear to be releasing lava from the new eruption, according to officials. The volcano is one of the world’s most active, but doesn’t threaten any inhabited areas of the island.
It has erupted 20 times during the last 10 years, drawing tourists from around the world to view its vivid lava flows.



Rising seas

The rate that sea level is rising along many stretches of U.S. coastline from the Atlantic to Alaska accelerated during 2019 in a trend that started seven years ago. Researchers at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science say sea levels at 25 of the 32 official tide-gauge stations rose more quickly in 2019 than in 2018. Experts say the worldwide ocean rise is driven by the melting of large glaciers and the thermal expansion of ocean waters caused by global heating. The highest rate increases last year were recorded along the Gulf Coast, with Grand Isle, La., experiencing nearly a third of an inch increase, more than double the global average.



Radiation eaters

Scientists say they have begun to experiment with a type of fungus that feeds on radiation around Ukraine’s crippled Chernobyl nuclear power plant and shows promise of protecting humans and equipment from radiation. While Cryptococcus neoformans has been known to science for more than a century, it was only recently found to have properties that can block radiation. The fungus contains melanin that absorbs radiation and turns it into chemical energy. It can also decompose radioactive materials such as the hot graphite debris from the Chernobyl blasts. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station recently received samples of the melanin derived from C.neoformans and are testing to see if it can protect against radiation in space.



Airborne defense

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is poised to dispatch a fleet of drones across East Africa to battle the region’s worst locust infestation in at least a quarter of a century. The hybrid remote aircraft would use atomizers to spray pesticides into the swarms. “Nobody’s ever done this with desert locusts before. So we have no proven methodology for using drones for spraying on locusts,” said FAO senior locust forecasting officer Keith Cressman. He adds that it will take trial and error to find the best speed and height to kill the pests.



Climate confusion

As one research station on the Antarctic Peninsula experienced its hottest temperature on record with a high of 64.9 degrees Fahrenheit, freak warmth in Siberia awakened badgers early from hibernation. The animals typically remain in slumber until late February. But above-freezing temperatures 46 degrees warmer than a year ago have caused them to stir. An unusually warm December caused similar hibernation confusion among bears in Russia and Ukraine. Last winter, hundreds of brown bears in a southern Russian reserve didn’t hibernate at all due to the unusual warmth.


• Extreme Temperatures: -62°F Verkhoyansk,Siberia; 109°F Vredendal, South Africa

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February 10, 2020 (for the week ending Feb 07)



Earthquakes

• China’s quake-prone Sichuan province was soundly jolted by a magnitude 5.2 quake.
• Earth movements were also felt in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao [magnitude 5.2], eastern Romania [4.8], eastern Turkey [4.7], northern Israel [3.8], Puerto Rico [5.0] and the Big Island of Hawaii [4.2].



Tropical storms

• Cyclone Damien brought destructive winds and torrential rainfall to Australia’s remote northwestern coast before being downgraded late in the week.
• Tropical Storm Francisco became the second such weak cyclone to form near the Mascarene Islands within the past two weeks.



Volcanic detour

Dense ash from an eruption ofMount Shindake, on a small, sparsely populated island in far southern Japan, forced an Air New Zealand flight from Auckland to Tokyo to divert to Guam for a refueling stop. Two other flights between Japan and New Zealand were either rescheduled or canceled due to the ash. The approximately 100 residents of Kuchinoerabu Island were unaffected by the superheated volcanic debris cast out by the eruption. The entire population was briefly evacuated to Yakushima Island, about 7 miles to the east, after a series of explosive eruptions in May 2015.



Wild food ban

A network of environmental groups from 74 countries has urged China to make permanent its new ban on the sale of wildlife for food in public markets to help prevent future animal-borne pathogens from infecting people. It is believed the Wuhan coronavirus made the leap from wildlife to humans in that city’s market, where the flesh from dogs, turtles, bats, snakes, giant salamanders, crocodiles, hedgehogs and marmots was sold. Experts believe the outbreak originated from human exposure to an infected snake or bat from the market. The Friends of the Earth and Friend of the Sea also point to the overall environmental damage that the public markets are causing through exploitation of wildlife.



Hot start

The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service says January 2020 was Europe’s warmest January on record, topping January 2007 by two-thirds of a degree. The month was also the hottest for the entire planet by a tiny fraction of a degree above the previous record set in January 2016. Last month’s warmth was especially noticeable in Scandinavia, where the capitals of Helsinki, Oslo, Stockholm and Copenhagen were virtually snow-free as freakishly warm daytime temperatures rose to above freezing every day.



Forever toxins

It is becoming nearly impossible to avoid exposure to a class of “forever chemicals” used in manufacturing that are causing a growing public health crisis.
The synthetic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) used in fabrics, Teflon, Scotchgard, dental floss, eyeliner, carpeting and even food packaging accumulate without breaking down, especially in water. Exposure to them has been linked to such ailments as cancer, cardiovascular disease, autoimmune disorders and kidney disease. The Guardian reports PFAS are frequently found in rainfall, foods and the sludge that farmers spread on their crops as fertilizer. It’s estimated that they can be found in the blood of almost all Americans. Many popular countertop filters don’t remove all of the PFAS from tap water.



Arctic greening

Scientists have found through the latest drone and satellite technologies how extensively the Arctic landscape is changing under the influence of accelerated global warming. Their new study reveals that snow is melting earlier and plants are bursting into leaf much sooner in spring than in the historical record.
The warming is also allowing tundra vegetation to spread into new areas and grow taller in places where it had already existed. The international team of 40 scientists from 36 institutions has found the greening at high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere is far more complex and varied than previously thought.


• Extreme Temperatures: -63°F Verkhoyansk,Siberia; 116°F Badgerys Creek, New South Wales, Australia

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February 03, 2020 (for the week ending Jan 31)



Earthquakes

• At least 41 people perished and more than 1,200 were injured when a [magnitude 6.7] temblor wrecked buildings in southeastern Turkey.
• Buildings from Jamaica to Miami rocked when a magnitude 7.7 quake struck beneath the Caribbean.
• Earth movements were also felt in Puerto Rico [magnitude 5.0], southwestern Iran [5.2], southern Taiwan 4.1], the Solomon Islands [6.3], central New Zealand [5.4] and Puget Sound [4.5].



Tropical storms

• Mauritius was soaked as Tropical Storm Diane spun up almost directly over the western Indian Ocean island.



Icelandic alert

Iceland’s meteorological agency cautioned that lava was rising beneath a part of the island that has experienced swarms of tremors for more than a week. It raised a yellow alert for the Reykjanes Peninsula, including the famed steaming waters of the Blue Lagoon, located southwest of the capital of Reykjavik.
The agency said that the landscape of the peninsula has risen almost an inch on average during January due to magma accumulating thousands of feet below. This could possibly lead to a low-intensity eruption or more powerful earthquakes.



Missing monarchs

The number of wintering monarch butterflies along the coast of California has not recovered significantly from last year’s record low. While about 4.5 million of the colorful monarchs fluttered through forest groves there in the 1980s, that number had plunged to about 27,000 last year and has risen by only 2,000 since. The disappearance is being blamed on destruction of the milkweed they feed on along their migratory route, as well as agricultural use of pesticides and herbicides. The western monarchs migrate from areas west of the Rockies to winter at more than 200 sites in coastal California each year. Their eastern counterparts migrate to Mexico from summer habitats in eastern Canada and the northeastern United States.



Desert survivors

Scientists are scrambling to save a species of critically endangered frog that lives in a tiny oasis of water and reeds in Chile’s otherwise parched Atacama Desert, the world’s driest.
Because pollution, habitat loss and an expanding nearby mining city threaten what few of the tiny, dark-spotted amphibians that have survived, 14 of the last remaining Lao River water frogs were airlifted to Santiago’s Metropolitan Zoo. Only one failed to survive the move. Osvaldo Cabeza, the zoo’s herpetology supervisor, says a team will work to encourage the survivors to feed and reproduce in captivity as the species’ only chance of survival. The range of Telmatobius dankoi is limited to just 4 square miles of dried-up riverbed outside the city of Calama.



Climatic swarms

Vast swarms of desert locusts, ravaging crops and threatening a hunger crisis from the Horn of Africa to Kenya, appear to be amplified by a changing climate, according to a forecaster at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. Keith Cressman points to a sharp increase in the number of tropical cyclones over the northern Arabian Sea during the past decade, with rains that created perfect breeding conditions for this season’s swarms. While cyclones were once rare in the region, meteorologists say higher Arabian Sea temperatures are increasing their frequency.



Carbon pollution

Smoke from the massive Australia bushfires of recent months will contribute to an anticipated record annual rise in atmospheric carbon emissions this year, according to Britain’s Met Office. The CO₂ concentration is predicted to peak above 417 parts per million (ppm) in May, while the 2020 average should be around 414 ppm. That would be nearly 3 ppm above the 2019 average, according to the agency. Smoke from the protracted bushfire crisis will contribute up to one-fifth of the CO₂ increase caused by global warming’s altered weather patterns and the resulting effects on the landscape, the British experts say.


• Extreme Temperatures: -71°F Verkhoyansk,Siberia; 119°F Linguére, Senegal

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January 27, 2020 (for the week ending Jan 24)



Earthquakes

• At least one person was killed when a magnitude 6.0 temblor toppled buildings, walls and utility poles in China’s Xinjiang Uygur region.
• Earth movements were also felt in New Zealand’s Canterbury region [magnitude 4.1], the northern Red Sea [4.3], Puerto Rico [4.6], eastern Tennessee [3.8], south-central Kansas [4.4] and the northern Los Angeles Basin [3.6].



Tropical storms

• Cyclone Tino left two people missing as it caused scattered damage as it raked eastern parts of Fiji and neighboring Tonga as a Category-1 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
• Tropical storm-force Cyclone Nine formed briefly over the open waters of the central Indian Ocean.



Smoke clouds

Smoke from Australia’s massive firestorms is being transported high into the atmosphere to near the edge of space by intense thunderstorms created by the bushfires. Meteorologists call the thunderstorm clouds rising above the fires pyrocumulonimbus, which inject smoke into the stratosphere. David Peterson of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory told a meeting of the American Meteorological Society that while much is known about how volcanic debris can have a cooling effect on the planet, scientists are still learning how the high-altitude smoke affects temperatures.



Human footprint

Around 85 percent of Earth’s wildlife is being trampled by intense human pressure, which researchers say is putting some of those species into an extinction crisis. Scientists from the University of Queensland, the Wildlife Conservation Society and other groups point to land species with small ranges as being disproportionately exposed to human competition from factors such as grazing livestock, agriculture and urban sprawl. The study’s “Human Footprint” report also lists other influences, such as population density, transportation networks and mining and utility corridors, for their impacts on wildlife.



Record pressure

London experienced what was likely the U.K. capital’s highest barometric pressure since records began in 1692 as a massive area of high pressure blanketed the United Kingdom and much of northern Europe. Instruments at London’s Heathrow Airport recorded a pressure of 1,049.6 millibars (30.99 inches of mercury) on Jan. 19. The all-time British record of 1,053.6 millibars (31.11 inches of mercury) was set in Aberdeen, Scotland, on Jan. 31, 1902. The development of such a powerful high pressure system helped spawn Spain’s worst winter storm in decades to the south. A deep low pressure area, dubbed storm Gloria, killed at least 11 people and caused widespread destruction and heavy snowfall across the Iberian Peninsula.



Everest melt

The glaciers atop Mount Everest in the Himalayas have been shrinking for decades due to climate change, according to satellite images, some declassified from the height of the Cold War. Researcher Tobias Bolch, of Britain’s University of St. Andrews, and colleagues compared thousands of images from U.S. spy satellites taken in the 1960s with more recent observations of the world’s most lofty mountain. They found that glaciers began to recede at an average rate of 8 inches per year between 1962 and 1969. Imja glacier has lost more than 300 feet during the past 60 years.



'Commoonication'

A study of vocalizations made by cows has led an Australian ruminant researcher to believe the animals communicate to each other about how they feel, expressing their individual identities to grazing companions throughout their lives. University of Sydney cow researcher Alexandra Green collected recordings from 13 Holstein-Friesian heifers in various settings and activities. She found that the cows “gossip” to each other about such things as the weather and food. “They have all got very distinct voices. Even without looking at them in the herd, I can tell which one is making a noise just based on her voice,” said Green.


• Extreme Temperatures: -62°F Oimyakon, Siberia; 112°F Rivadavia, Argentina

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January 20, 2020 (for the week ending Jan 17)



Earthquakes

• A [magnitude 5.9] aftershock of Puerto Rico’s destructive magnitude 6.4 temblor on Jan. 7 caused millions of dollars more in additional damage.
• Earth movements were also felt in islands of the eastern Caribbean [magnitude 5.1], Istanbul [4.7], Pakistan-controlled Kashmir [5.1], Tokyo [5.0] and the New York-Canada border area [4.0].



Tropical storms

• Tropical Cyclone Claudia passed well off the coast of northwestern Australia.
• Fiji was on alert late in the week for Tropical Storm Tino, spinning up to the northwest of the South Pacific island nation.



Philippine blasts

Strong eruptions of the Philippines’ Taal volcano destroyed homes and crops, and sent ash falling as far away as Manila, 60 miles to the north. The volcanic debris brought the capital to a near standstill and briefly shut down air traffic at the main international airport. A half a million people whose homes are in the danger zone around Taal were ordered to evacuate, but many were refusing to leave despite ongoing rumblings. While able to produce powerful and dangerous eruptions, Taal is one of the smallest active volcanoes on the planet.



Circumnavigating smoke

NASA satellite images show the thick pall of smoke from Australia’s firestorms, which reached South America last week, has blown entirely around the Southern Hemisphere, approaching Australia from the west. Besides choking most of southeastern Australia, the smoke has also created an air pollution crisis downwind in New Zealand and darkened that country’s glaciers after falling on them as soot.



Greenhouse Earth

Weather agencies of the United States and United Nations calculate that 2019 was the second-hottest year on record, with the global warming threatening to unleash even more severe weather events in the future. Worldwide, last year’s heat across the planet’s land surface was second only to that recorded in 2016. A new study also found that Earth’s oceans have warmed to a level not seen before in modern history. Researchers say this is because most of the accumulating heat from the greenhouse effect has so far been absorbed by the oceans. The past decade was also the hottest on record.



Prolific father

A species of Galapagos giant tortoise once on the brink of extinction has been saved with the help of a half-century of tireless breeding from one of only three surviving males. Since 1976, “Diego” has fathered 800 of the now 2,000 Chelonoidis hoodensis of Española Island. But since the species is no longer in danger and the successful captive breeding project is ending, the pressure is now off for the approximately 130-year-old Diego. Experts say the playboy has a “big personality” and is aggressive, active and vocal while mating. Diego will be allowed to live out his golden years in leisure after finally being released back into the wild on his native Española Island, where he was captured by scientists 80 years ago.



Radioactive habitat

Wildlife is thriving in the most contaminated areas around Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant, which suffered meltdowns after a devastating 2011 offshore quake and subsequent tsunami. Photos from automatic cameras set up by the University of Georgia showed that more than 20 species are flourishing in various areas of the irradiated landscape. They found almost three times as many species such as wild boar, hares, macaques, pheasants and fox living there than in the slightly contaminated areas where people are able to live. The research does not address the health and welfare of the animals in the presence of such radiation.


• Extreme Temperatures: -64°F Delyankir, Siberia; 116°F Augrabies Falls, S. Africa

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January 13, 2020 (for the week ending Jan 10)



Earthquakes

• The strongest in a swarm of rare quakes that rocked southwestern Puerto Rico killed at least one person, toppled buildings and knocked out power to the entire U.S. commonwealth.
  A magnitude 6.4 temblor that caused extensive damage during the swarm was the strongest on the island in 102 years.
• Earth movements were also felt in southern Mexico [magnitude 5.8], metropolitan Tokyo [5.9], southwestern Taiwan [4.7], northern Sumatra [6.2] and southwestern Iran [4.9].



Tropical storms

• Parts of the South Pacific island nation of Fiji suffered wind damage and floods from passing Cyclone Sarai, which briefly attained Category-1 force.
• Floods from Tropical Storm Blake cut off communities along northwest Australia’s remote Pilbara and Kimberley regions.



Alaskan eruption

Alaska’s towering Shishaldin volcano spewed two columns of ash up to 5 miles into the sky about 680 miles southwest of Anchorage during two blasts, prompting aviation officials to issue alerts for air traffic in the region. The mountain has produced a string of low-level eruptions that began last July at the tip of the Alaska Peninsula, accompanied by streams of lava.



Tumbleweed trap

Motorists and truck drivers on a remote part of Washington State Highway 240 spent the closing hours of 2019 and the first few hours of 2020 trapped by a massive number of tumbleweeds that blew onto the roadway, halting traffic for a 20-mile stretch. The western weeds piled up 20 to 30 feet high in places until road crews managed to remove them by hand and with snowplows. Experts blame the wind-blown Armageddon on last winter’s heavy snowfall, which nourished the thistle’s growth during summer.



African swarms

Kenyan officials began aerial spraying for hordes of arriving desert locusts that have ravaged vegetation across parts of Ethiopia and Somalia in recent weeks. The worst infestation in 70 years has already destroyed 175,000 acres of crops across the Horn of Africa and parts of northeastern Kenya, threatening famine in a region that had already suffered devastating flooding last year. “We have seen drought and torrential rains kill our people and animals, and now we have locusts,” Kenyan legislator Adan Keynan told reporters at the country’s parliament in Nairobi.



Australian conflagration

The ongoing Australian firestorms that have caused such misery and death to the human population may have also killed billions of animals in recent weeks. Beyond the scorched koalas and kangaroos, scientists also fear the long-footed potoroo marsupial may be extinct in the wild due to the southeastern bushfires.
Experts fear the ecosystems there will never recover, with several other animal and plant species left critically endangered or extinct. Snipers were dispatched in helicopters to cull up to 10,000 feral camels that were nearing remote aboriginal towns in search of water.



Emerging disease

A new SARS-like outbreak that has sickened scores of people in China seems to have originated around a market that sells seafood, meat and the flesh of wild animals in the central city of Wuhan. Some who passed through the city have become ill after returning home to cities as far away as Hong Kong. Many victims have been hospitalized in critical condition.
But Chinese officials say the symptoms of fever and breathing difficulties are less severe than from SARS, which killed hundreds of people 17 years ago. The entire genome sequence of the new coronavirus has been identified.


• Extreme Temperatures: -61°F Thomsen River, Northwest Territories, Canada; 120°F Penrith, New South Wales, Australia

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January 06, 2020 (2019 year in review)



Earthquakes

• Albania’s strongest earthquake in almost 40 years, [a magnitude 6.4 temblor,] and the world’s most deadly during 2019, killed 51 people and caused extensive damage on Nov. 26.
• A magnitude 5.9 temblor killed seven people, injured 300 others and wrecked three villages in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province on Nov. 7.
• Thirty people perished in three strong quakes [with magnitudes up to 6.6] that rocked the same area of the southern Philippine island of Mindanao during the latter half of October.
• A magnitude 5.6 quake in Pakistan’s Punjab province killed 40 people and wrecked thousands of homes on Sept. 24.
• Forty people died as 6,000 buildings were wrecked and giant landslides were unleashed on Sept. 26 by a magnitude 6.5 temblor in Indonesia’s Maluku province.
• China’s Sichuan province was rocked by a sharp [magnitude 5.8] temblor that killed 13 people on June 17.
• Southern California’s strongest series of quakes in 20 years[, including a magnitude 7.1 temblor,] sparked fires during early July. The shaking was felt across a vast area from Las Vegas to Los Angeles.



Tropical storms

• Tropical Cyclone Idai’s floods killed 1,300 people during March across Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe as one of the worst such storms to ever strike the region.
• Hurricane Dorian inflicted catastrophic damage to the Bahamas on Sept. 1-2, while killing more than 60 in the country’s worst-ever natural disaster.
• Cyclone Fani killed nearly 90 people in eastern India and Bangladesh during early May, inflicting $8.1 billion in damage.
• Typhoon Lekima became China’s second-most costly storm after it left 90 people dead along the east coast during early August.
• Tropical Storm Iba became the third known tropical storm to form in the South Atlantic as it spun up off Brazil on March 24.



Record lightning

A new report said that U.S. weather satellites detected the longest lightning ever observed — a 300-mile bolt from Texas to Kansas. Other researchers measured the most powerful thunderstorm on record, with an electric potential of 1.3 billion volts in India.



Plastic homes

A Mexican engineer has developed a process to recycle plastic into houses that may last for up to 150 years. Ramón Espinosa’s Eco Plastico Ambiental company converts the ubiquitous debris into strong sheets of “plastic wood” that can be used to build homes, furniture and other objects. Plastic is one of the world’s most pervasive environmental pollutants.



Magnetic shift

Earth’s magnetic North Pole has drifted so much since 2014 that navigation aids were updated in January and December to reflect the shifting position. The pole is racing toward Siberia from the Canadian Arctic.



Seaweed bloom

A huge belt of Sargassum seaweed, stretching 5,500 miles from Africa to the Yucatán Peninsula, became the largest such algae bloom ever observed. Climate change and runoff from agriculture are being blamed for the vast mats of seaweed that clog many resort beaches, especially along Mexico’s Caribbean coast.



Swine deaths

A quarter of the world’s domestic pigs have died or been put down this year due to outbreaks of African swine fever, with China losing nearly half of its pigs. There is no vaccine for the disease, making such outbreaks hard to prevent.



Climate emergency

More than 11,000 scientists from 153 countries warned that “untold human suffering” is unavoidable unless we make large and lasting lifestyle changes to curb global warming. The call to cut activities that contribute to climate change came as it became clear that the effects of global warming are worsening more rapidly than predicted. The U.N. later cautioned that the world can avoid catastrophic effects of climate change only by cutting carbon emissions by 7.6 percent each year until 2030.



Oceanic heat

A new study found that marine heat waves are more frequently disrupting the ocean’s ecosystems and the lives of those humans who depend upon them for food and livelihood. A report in Nature Climate Change said the soaring numbers of ocean heat waves are killing marine species like “wildfires that take out huge areas of forest.” It said the number of oceanic heat waves has tripled in recent years.


• Extreme Temperatures: -116°F Vostok, Antarctica; 125°F Death Valley, CA

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