SIO15/ERTH15: Natural Disasters

EARTH WATCH 2005

December 07 (for week ending Dec. 02); Earthwatch #14:
• Earthquakes:
  • The most powerful quake to strike central China's Jiangxi province in 60 years killed at least 16 people and sent half a million others huddling in the streets in fear of aftershocks. The magnitude 5.7 shaking destroyed about 150,000 homes and injured nearly 8,000 people.
  • A sharp magnitude 6.1 temblor centered near the Iranian port of Banda Abas killed 10 people and injured 70 others.
  • Earth movements also were felt in northern and central New Zealand (3.3, 4.2), the Northern Mariana Islands (5.7), the southern Philippines (5.6), Taiwan (5.7), northwest Sumatra (5.0), Russia's Buryatia republic (5.1), southwest Pakistan (4.7), southeastern Turkey (5.3) and south-central Alaska (4.0).
• Tropical cyclones:
  • The record-breaking 2005 hurricane season in the North Atlantic came to an end as tropical storm Delta wreaked unprecedented damage to Spain's Canary Islands. The first such storm to ever strike the popular tourist destination killed at least seven people and knocked out power to thousands of homes.
  • Tropical Storm Epsilon formed in the mid-Atlantic.
  • India's southern coast near Madras was on alert as Cyclone Baaz approached from the Bay of Bengal.
• Eruptions:
  
  • An eruption of Mount Karthala in the Comoros Indian Ocean archipelago spewed toxic ash over the island of Grand Comore, leaving 120,000 people without safe drinking water. The ash infiltrated homes, shops and offices as well as contaminating water in cisterns during the peak of the dry season.
  • The British Antarctic Survey reported that satellite images show an eruption in the remote South Sandwich Islands has extended the shoreline of Montagu Island by 50 acres.
• Greenhouse gas archive:
  Samples from the world's deepest ice core reveal that levels of carbon dioxide, the main gas responsible for global warming, are now 27% higher than at any other point in the last 650,000 years. "We have added another piece of information showing that the time scales on which humans have changed the composition of the atmosphere are extremely short compared to the natural time cycles of the climate system", lead author Thomas Stocker of the University of Bern's Physics Institute wrote in the journal Science. Analysis of the CO₂, trapped in tiny bubbles in the ancient Antarctic ice, showed that at no point did levels get anywhere close to today's CO₂ concentrations of around 380 ppm. Greenhouse gas levels began to rise during the coal-burning Industrial Revolution, and surgedrecently as more countries became industrialized and placed more cars on the road.
• Chinese toxic disaster:
  Four million residents of the northeast Chinese city of Harbin were without drinking water as a highly toxic slick arrived down the waterway referred to as their "mother river". Explosions at a PetroChina plant upstream on Nov. 13 sent massive amounts of benzene into the Songhua River, which carried the carcinogenic chemical to the industrial city and eventually into neighboring Far East Russia. Chinese officials dispatched 1,000 tons of activated carbon to be used in Harbin's water treatment facilities, and to be dumped directly into the spill as it passed. The river was rapidly freezing over, and Russian environmentalists said the full effects of the spill on wildlife might not be known until after the spring thaw.
• Wild bird warnings:
  The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned that killing wild birds around cities in countries affected by bird flu is useless and may actually distract attention from the campaign to contain the disease among poultry. The warning followed reports that wild birds in Vietnam were being killed in Ho Chi Minh City as a precautionary measure. FAO spokesman Juan Lubroth said wild bird species found in and around cities are different from the wetland waterfowl that have been identified as carriers of the avian influenza virus.
• Singing iceberg:
  German scientists monitoring seismic events in Antarctica say their equipment has uncovered what they term a "singing iceberg". The German Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and marine Reserach, pulbishing the discovery in the journal Science, says the sounds from iceberg B-09A are far too low in pitch to be heard by human ears. But they resemble a swarm of bees or an orchestra wearming up when played at a higher speed. The sounds led the reserachers to the 31-by-19-mile iceberg, which had become stuck on the seabed. They said water rushing through its crevasses and tunnels at high pressure caused the iceberg to sing.
• Extreme temperatures: -56 deg F at Toko, Siberia; 109 deg F in Dampier, W. Autstralia

November 30 (for week ending Nov. 25); Earthwatch #13:
• Earthquakes:
  • A powerful magnitude 5.1 quake centered beneath ndonesia's Banda Sea rocked buildings as far away as the northern Australian city of Darwin. No damage was reported from the shaking.
  • Earth movements also were felt in Japan's Kyushu island (6.0), northwest Sumatra (6.2), the India-Myanmar border (5.1), the northern Pakistan aftershock zone (5.5), southern ran (4.1), the Aleutian Islands (6.0) and near St. Louis, Mo (2.5).
• Tropical cyclones:
  • Tropical storm Gamma left at least 34 people dead and a dozen missing across Honduras and neighboring Belize. t was the 27th storm of the Atlantic season - a number never before reached in recorded history. The storm washed out several national roads and caused heavy damage to other infrastructure.
  • Tropical Cyclone Bertie strengthened to a category 4 storm as it threatened shipping lanes in the eastern Indian Ocean.
• Butterfly bounty:
  The annual arrival of monarch butterflies peaked in the forests of central Mexico, where environmental officials said favorable weather may produce a tenfold increase in their number this season. Jose Bernal, director of inspection for Mexico's environmental protection agency, said bitterly cold weather during the 2000-2001 Mexican winter reduced the butterfly population to 28 million. But that number recovered to 93 million the following year, and as many as 200 million of the colorful insects may winter this season in the fir forests of Mexico's Michoacan state. After leaving Mexico in the spring, it takes three or four generations of monarch butterflies to reach eastern Canada and parts of the United States. The last generation has a longer life span, making the entire 3,400-mile flight back to Mexico.
• Deadly noise:
  A report by the Natural Resources Defense Council warned that increasing levels of ocean noise generated by military sonar, shipping and oil and gas exploration are threatening the survival of marine life. The report said that whales and dolphins, which rely on sound for finding food, mating and avoiding predators, were in particular danger. Researchers believe that sonar either causes whales to panic and surface too quickly or forces them deeper before they can expel nitrogen, leading to the same type of compression sickness known as "the bends" in humans. Noise from oil and gas exploration also has affected fish. "It's been shown that some species of fish suffer severe injury to their inner ears, which can seriously compromise their ability to "survive", said author Michael Jasny.
• Wildlife drought:
  Ongoing drought and lack of fuel to operate well pumps in Zimbabwe's largest national park have caused about 100 animals to die from dehydration, according to a wildlife official. "More than 40 elephants, 53 buffaloes, a giraffe, three zebras and two impala succumbed to thirst and blackleg, a disease that affects animals when the ground is too dry", said national Parks and Wildlife Management Authority spokesman Edward Mbewe. The government in Harare announced plans last month to move elephants from the country's "overburdened" national parks to Namibia after at least 50 pachyderms starved to death.
• Hail crop disaster:
  The most severe hailstorm in living memory to strike a key apple- and cherry-growing region of Australia's New South Whales state wiped out more than 90% of crops in some orchards. Hail the size of large marbles fell for 15 minutes around Orange and parts of Mudgee and Lithgow, ripping the fruit and leaves off trees. The storm struck just as growers were about to pick cherries for the holiday season.
• Sri Lankan downpours:
  A tropical depression along Sri Lanka's northeastern coast unleashed flash floods that killed two people and marooned thousands across the island nation. State radio reported that more than 8,500 families were moved to higher ground after the storm left several districts under feet of water.
• Vulture diners:
  Officials in India's northeastern Assam state announced a plan to open "restaurants" for vultures in order to save them from extinction. The Hindustan Times reports the first open-air feeding station will allow the winged scavengers to gorge on healthy carcasses near the state capital of Guwahati. Forestry officials initiated the scheme after becoming alarmed at a recent drop in the number of vultures in the region. Since 2001, at least 200 vultures have died after feeding on carcasses of cows treated with the anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac. An additional 300 died of avian malaria during the same period.
• Extreme temperatures: -59 deg F at Vostok, Antarctica; 110 deg F in Curtin, W. Autstralia

November 23 (for week ending Nov. 18); Earthwatch #12:
• Earthquakes:
  • A powerful and shallow magnitude 7.0 earthquake off northern Japan caused tsunami waves up to 20 in in height to rush onto parts of the Japanese coast.
  • Earth movements also were felt Taiwan (5.8), Indonesia's Seram Island (5.9), central New Zealand (3.9), southwest Pakistan (4.0) and islands of the Aegean Sea (4.9).
• Tropical cyclones:
  • An area of disturbed weather churning off the eastern coast of the Philippines quickly strengthened into Typhoon Bolaven.
• Eruption warning:
  
  • About 9,400 people living on the sloped of a volcano in southwest Colombia were ordered to evacuate their homes as the mountain showed signs of an imminent eruption. Colombia's Geology and Mines Institute warned that the Galeras Volcano is likely to erupt "within days or weeks". The last eruptions of Galeras in 1993 killed nine people [who where a group of scientists visiting the volcano].
• Tornado outbreaks:
  Four days of severe weather across the American Midwest produced a string of tornadoes that left fatalities and destruction across several states. The worst tornado outbreak occurred in Iowa, where the whirlwinds ripped up farms and destroyed dozens of homes in several towns. Three days later, a string of at least 32 twisters tore through parts of Kentucky and Tennessee southward to the Gulf Coast.
• Orca protection:
  A group of killer whales that spends the summer months off the coast of Washington state is in danger of extinction and will become protected as an endangered species, according to U.S. officials. The number of Southern Resident killer whales dropped by 20% during the 1990s, with many of the marine mammals being captures for use in commercial aquariums, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It reports there are only 89 of the whales left, with one male loner from the group taking refuge in a small inlet in British Columbia. The agency says the orcas are also threatened by ship traffic, toxic chemicals and the scarcity of food such as salmon. The new protected status will require federal agencies to make certain their actions are not likely to harm the whales.
• Galapagos blazes:
  Forest fires ignited by a volcanic eruption in the Galapagos Islands have threatened a rare tree species found only on the remote archipelago. The Sierra Negra Volcano on Isabela Island began erupting on Oct. 22, sending flows of hot lava down the mountain's slopes and setting fire to vegetation. Firefighters cut a trench in an attempt to keep the flames from destroying the Scalesia-Cordata trees, of which only 400 remain, according to Ecuador's El Comercia newspaper.
• Scandinavian strom:
  The first autumn storm of the season left three people dead across northern Europe and knocked out power to tens of thousands of homes across Norway, Sweden and Finland. Residents were evacuated as landslides destroyed several homes near Norway's western city of Bergen, while hundreds of students were forced to abandon schools threatened by flooding. A mudslide briefly trapped about 50 cars inside a tunnel.
• Acid rain healing:
  A switch to cleaner-burning fuels in Great Britain over the past few decades has allowed some of the nation's most sensitive lakes and streams to recover from the ravages of acid rain. The BBC reports that the conversion to natural gas from coal for power generation since 1970 has resulted in an 84% decline in emissions of sulphur and a 37% decline in nitrogen oxide. Those gases are largely to blame for acid rain. Fish such as brown trout have begun to return to rivers and streams, and native algae and insects are also showing signs of recovery. Pressure in Europe to tackle acid rain mounted in the 1980s after fish were wiped out in Scandinavian lakes and trees died in Germany's Black Forest.
• Extreme temperatures: -48 deg F at Vostok, Antarctica; 107 deg F in Curtin, W. Autstralia

November 16 (for week ending Nov. 11); Earthwatch #11:
• Earthquakes:
  • Pakistan army troops rescued seven people buried under the rubble of their homes in northern Pakistan following a magnitude 6.0 aftershock of the disastrous Oct. 8 temblor. That quake killed more than 86,000 people in the region.
  • A magnitude 5.5 quake centered off southern Vietnam killed one man when the shaking caused a wooden plank to drop on his head.
  • Earth movements also were felt in Taiwan (5.8), northwest Sumatra (5.6) and southern Turkey (4.1).
• Tropical cyclones:
  • The northern Philippines was drenched by the passage of Tropical Storm Tembin, which was predicted to move ashore again in South China late in the week.
  • Weak Tropical Cyclone 02S threatened shipping over the open waters of the Indian Ocean.
• Indian eruption:
  
  • Activity at Barren Island Volcano, in India's Nicobar and Andaman island chain, increased sharply, with the mountain sending a flow of lava into the Bay of Bengal. Seismologist Chaandrasekharam told the Press Trust of India that the activity was much more intense than the initial eruptions following the deadly earthquake and tsunami in the region Dec. 26. The volcano had been dormant for more than a century before the massive seismic slip triggered eruptions earlier this year.
• Hurricane aftermath:
  
  • A Mexican wildlife official believes it will take at least 100 years for a coral reef off the Yucatan Peninsula to recover from Hurricane Wilma's fury last month. Alfredo Arellano, head of Mexico's Protected Natural Areas Commission, told reporters that Wilma tore apart a prime coral reef near Cozumel and tossed it "into the abyss."
  • Satellite data shows that storm surges from hurricanes Katrina and Rita submerged 100 square miles of coastal marshes in southeastern Louisiana. The U.S. Geological Survey says it does not know how much of the marshland will re-emerge from the inundation.
• Encroaching desert:
  A large swath of China's breadbasket may soon be covered in sand due to a rapidly expanding desert, state media reported. The greatest threat is to the Chengdu plain in Sichuan province - a source of grain since ancient times, the China Daily reported, quoting the Sichua forestry department. Spreading desertification from the Ruo'ergai grassland, about 190 miles from Sichuan's key growing areas, threatens to engulf vast tracts of grain fields with sand. the upwind grasslands were covered in green pastures until a few decades ago when cows and goats there suddenly started to multiply in number and overgraze.
• Torando outbreaks:
  
  • Indiana's most deadly tornado in 30 years ripped through neighborhoods south and sutheast of Evansville, killing at least 22 people and wrecking approximately 400 homes. Further damage was observed along the tornado's 30-mile-long path.
  • A separate twister ripped the roof off a school in Hamilton, Ontario, injuring 18 people.
• Global fireballs:
  Brilliant fireballs streaking across the night skies from Australia to North America and Europe were probably due to the Earth encountering a trail of space debris during the Taurid meteor shower, according to astronomers. The meteors are lingering pieces left by the passage of comet Encke that appear to shoot out of the constellation Taurus. Their sightings peak at the end of October or early November. [NB for ERTH15: A meteor is strictly speaking the light phenomenon that we see. The piece itself is called a meteoroid. The part that survived the passage through the atmosphere and made it to the Earth's ground is a meteorite.]
• Climate changes:
  
  • Many different species in Australia have undergone significant behavioral changes during the past two decades due to climate change, according to a leading researcher. Lynda Chambers has helped establish a database of wildlife changes at Melbourne's Bureau of Meteorology Research Center. She says that one of the more "astounding" chenges has been among the blue-tongued lizard population, which is now mating weeks earlier due to warmer and drier winters. She added that lorikeets are now arriving along the coastline of Western Australia more than a month earlier then in the 1980s.
  • In Japan, global warming appears to be causing some grapes not to turn red, and the interior of peaches to develop an abnormal brown color. Researchers say Satsuma oranges are dropping from trees while still green due to warmer conditions. The Bio-Oriented Research Organization says its surveys show global warming is influencing fruit crops in all of the country's 47 prefectures.
• Extreme temperatures: -75 deg F at Vostok, Antarctica; 112 deg F in Curtin, W. Autstralia

November 09 (for week ending Nov. 04); Earthwatch #10:
• Earthquakes:
  • An elderly man was killed and another person was injured when a moderate magnitude 4.4 earthquake struck southern China's Guangxi Zhuang region. The shaking also caused walls to crack near the epicenter.
  • Twenty homes were damaged by a magnitude 5.4 quake that struck northern Peru's Bagua Province.
  • Earth movements also were felt in central New Zealand (4.6), southeast Australia's Blue Mountains (3.1), western Japan (4.5), Indonesia's Maluku province (5.7), the northern Pakistan-India aftershock zone (5.5), islands of the eastern Aegean Sea (4.8), islands of the southeast Caribbean Sea (5.4), the Montana-Idaho border area (4.6) and near Rochester, NY (2.6).
• Tropical cyclones:
  • More than 80% of the buildings along Nicaragua's central Caribbean coast were damaged when Hurricane Beta roared ashore. Heavy rain bands from the late-season storm also drenched neighboring Honduras.
  • At least 15 people in central and northern Vietnam were killed when Typhoon Kai-Tak lashed a 200-mile stretch of the country's coastline. Heavy rains and high winds knocked down hundreds of trees, causing blackouts and blocking roads in Da Nang.
  • Torrential rainfall from Cyclone 04B unleashed further flooding over parts of southern India that had already suffered from rainstorms during the preceding two weeks.
• Etna rumblings:
  
  • Frightenend villagers near Sicily's Mount Etna fled their homes as the famed volcano produced a series of strong tremors. The rumblings were the latest in several weeks of seismic activity that has shaken the slopes of the 10,990-foot volcano. Similar activity preceded eruptions of Etna in 2001 and 2002.
• Nucleal testing legacy:
  Radiation from France's nuclear testing in the South Pacific is lingering at unexpectedly high levels, according to territorial officials. They advise that up to five people a day from the region are being sent to hospitals in new Zealand for diagnosis and treatment for what may be radiation-related illnesses. French Polynesia's president Oscar Temaru accuses the French government of an ongoing cover-up of the environmental and health consequences of the testing. France conducted 41 atmospheric nuclear explosions over the Tuamotu atolls of Mururoa and Fangataufa between 1966 and 1974. A total of 142 underground nuclear blasts were detonated at the same sites between 1975 and 1996.
• Whaling season ends:
  High fuel costs prevented Norway's whaling fleet from catching the full quota of 796 minke whales over the summer and fall months. The fisheries and coastal affairs ministry announced that the 30 boats "culled" only 639 of the marine mammals. Ministry Deputy Director General Halvard Johansen told the French news agency, "The weather has not been good, and since oil prices have increased significantly, the whalers haven't wanted to travel so far for such an unpredictable result."
• Deadly wasp attacks:
  Attacks by wasps have killed at least 10 farmers and frightened so many others in China's Shaanxi province that crops remain unharvested in the fields. The South China Morning Post reports many more may have died without seeking medical help because the cost of treatment for their numerous stings is out of reach for most poor farmers. The newspaper says it is not clear what has led to the increase in wasp attacks, but some elderly villagers say that since the reforestation of the country in the 1990s, there have been more trees for the wasps to build their nests.
• Wildlife crisis:
  The failed economic policies of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe have led to a crisis in Africa's most densely populated wildlife sanctuaries. For the first time since Hwange National Park was established 76 years ago, pumps that provide water to wild game during the country's hottest and driest months are silent due to neglect. ample water lies hust neneath the ground, but Johnny Rodgrigues, chairman of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, warns that up to half the animals at the park are in danger because the government has no foreign currency to import parts and fuel for the pumps. Rodrigues warned that animal carcasses had started showing up near dry water pans in the last week or so. South Africa's Getaway travel magazine announced it has launched a plan to rescue the pumps and supply fuel to them.
• South African blazes:
  Large parts of South Africa's Easterns Cape province were evacuated due to wildfires raging out of control in the south of the country.
• Extreme temperatures: -77 deg F at Vostok, Antarctica; 109 deg F in Curtin, W. Autstralia

November 02 (for week ending Oct. 29); Earthwatch #9:
• Earthquakes:
  • Two moderate earthquakes (mag 5.0) in southern Iran's Khuzestan province killed two people and caused some damage to buildings..
  • Earth movements also were felt in the northern Pakistan-India aftershock zone (5.9), Taiwan (5.3), northeastern Japan (5.5), Portugal (2.9) the Czech Republic (2.3), and coastal areas of metropolitan Los Angeles (3.1).
• Tropical storms:
  • Hurricane Wilma left a trail of fatalities and widespread destruction from Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and eastern Cuba to South Florida. The storm wrecked the popular Mexican resorts of Cancun and Cozumel before sending chest-deep strom surges into the streets of Havana. High winds knocked out power to approximately 5.5 million people in southern parts of Florida.
  • Flash flooding from Tropical Storm Alpha killed 26 people in haiti and the Dominican Republic.
  • Tropical Storm Beta was expected to attain hurricane force before striking Nicaragua.
• Bengal downpours:
  Heavy late-monsoon storms over parts of southern India triggered floods that killed 76 people and disrupted transportation due to submerged rail lines and roadways.
• Galapagos Eruption:
  
  • Sierra Negra Volcano, on the largest of the Galapagos Islands, erupted for several days but posed no threat to Isabela Island's human population or its famed toroises. Oscar Carvajal, chief technician of the Galapagos National Park, told reporters that the tortoises and land iguanas were not threatened because lava was flowing down the northeastern slope of the mountain, which has no animal population. Sierra Negra last erupted in 1979, but La Cumbre Volcano on the nearby unpopulated island of Fernandina produced a brief eruption in May.
• Rat famine:
  Spain's worst drought on record was broken by the heaviest rainfall in over 30 years. Several rivers overflowed their banks, submerging entire villages. The rains began when remnants of Hurricane Vince became the first tropical cyclone to ever strike the country. Subsequent surges of moisture from the Atlantic created additional deluges.
• Rat famine:
  A plague of rats has devoured vast tracts of farmland in parts of Nicaragua, leaving about 50,000 indigenous people without food and four people dead of starvation. Weeks of heavy rainfall from passing tropical cyclones have brought out the hungry rats, which wiped out rice, corn and bean fields in 129 rural villages.
• Winter species:
  Changes in migration patters among some European blackcaps is splitting the bird into two distinct groups that spend the winter in separate locations. The development may mean an entirely new species of bird could develop, according to a report in the journal Science. Blackcaps have long left their central European breeding territory to winter in Spain or Portugal. But more and more of the birds are now flying northwest to Britain as the winter climate there becomes increasingly more temperate. Back at their summer breeding grounds in Germany and Autria, blackcaps tend to mate with others that have wintered in the same place. This split into two breeding groups could increase the likelihood of the birds forming separate species, according to the researchers from Queen's University in Belfast.
• Bird flu flies on:
  The deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza spread farther across parts of Eastern Europe as African states braced for possible outbreaks with the impending arrival of migratory birds from Asia and Europe. Wild birds are thought to have carried the virus from Southeast Asia, across Siberia and Kazakhstan, to as far west as Romania. Iranian officials say that scores of migrating birds have recently started to drop dead in the northwest of the country on a daily basis. Fresh outbreaks of bird flu have also been reported in eastern Russia and parts of China. Professor Roger Morris, a New Zealand epidemologist and consultant to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, said Europe and the U.S. are to blame for the threat of a bird flu pandemic because they virtually ignored calls for help from Asia when the virus first emerged there. The first human case of the H5N1 strain was detected in northern Vietnam in January 2004, and at least 60 people in several Asian nations have since died from the disease.
• Extreme temperatures: -73 deg F at Vostok, Antarctica; 108 deg F in Kummunurra, W. Autstralia

October 26 (for week ending Oct. 21); Earthwatch #8:
• Earthquakes:
  • Strong aftershocks continued to rock northern parts of India and Pakistan, where at least 80,000 people perished as a result of the initial magnitude 7.6 temblor on Oct. 8 and subsequent strong aftershocks.
  • Two sharp magnitude 5.9 earthquakes left several people injured after they rocked far western Turkey and the nearby Greek islands of Chios and Samos.
  • Earth movements also were felt in western Greece (5.1), far southern New Zealand (5.7), Taiwan (6.5),, northeastern Japan (6.2), southern Peru (5.8), the desert resorts of Southern California (4.4) and San Diego (4.6).
• Tropical cyclones:
  • Hurricane Wilma became the 21st named storm this season in the Atlantic basin, then strengthened to the most intense on record. The only other time that many storms have formed since record-keeing began 154 years ago was in 1933. Wilma was threatening South Florida late in the week.
  • Typhoon Kirogi passed to the east of Japan's main Honshu Island, skirting the country's remote Izu island chain.
  • Weak Cyclone 01S formed in the central Indian Ocean.
• A century of warming:
  High-resolution data from the most comprehensive computer climate model to date predicts more extreme temperatures and rainfall will occur across the United States during the next 100 years. The model takes into account many factors not previously considered, and required five months to run on a cluster of computers at Purdue University. Team leader Noah Diffenbaugh says the results show the entire continental U.S. will experience more intense heat waves, especially in the desert Southwest, where they are predicted to increase by 500%. The Gulf Coast will be hotter and will receive precipitation in greater volumes over shorter time periods. Diffenbaugh says the Northeast wil lexperience what are now the region's hottest summertime conditions for up to two months at a time.
• Eruption:
  
  • Experts from the Rabaul Volcano Obsrevatory in papua New Guinea rushed to West New Britain province to assess a sudden eruption of previously dormant Mount Garbuna. The Natuonal newspaper reported ash fron the mountain fell on Garu village and its surroundings, contaminating water sources. Mounta Garbuna last erupted 1,700 years ago.
• Drought-breaking rain:
  Spain's worst drought on record was broken by the heaviest rainfall in over 30 years. Several rivers overflowed their banks, submerging entire villages. The rains began when remnants of Hurricane Vince became the first tropical cyclone to ever strike the country. Subsequent surges of moisture from the Atlantic created additional deluges.
• Amazon drought:
  Ongoing dry conditions across the Amazon Basin have created the region's worst drought in 60 years, isolating remote rain forest communities. Officials in Amazonas, Brazil's largest state, say over 1,200 communities are without drinking water and food supplies because they are by rivers and lakes, which have dried up. Brazilian TV networks have bradcast shocking images of riverbeds turned into dusty roads that vehicles now use to transport essential supplies to isolated communities. Millions of dead fish, which succumbed from lack of oxygen in depleted waterways, have polluted the few remaining water sources.
• Ozone hole:
  The hole in the protective layer of stratospheric ozone over Antarctica grew to the third-largest on record before filling in during the past few weeks, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). "Because of uncertainties linked to climate change, we don't know if we reached the biggest ozone hole ever in 2003 or if it will be bigger sometime in the future", said WMO ozone expert Geir Braathen. The global ban on ozone-depleting chemicals is expected to produce a gradual improvement in the ozone layer over the next several decades.
• Extreme temperatures: -80 deg F at Vostok, Antarctica; 109 deg F in Linguere, Senegal

October 19 (for week ending Oct. 14); Earthwatch #7:
• Earthquakes:
  • A massive seismic slip along the Hindu Kush fault created a magnitude 7.6 temblor that killed tens of thousands of people in northern parts of India and Pakistan. Approximately 2.5 million people were left homeless across the disaster zone. The quake was preceded by unusual animal behavior, including the screeching of birds in Islamabad.
  • Earth movements also were felt in southern pakistan (5.0), the Andaman and Nicobar island chain (5.5), northwest Sumatra (6.0), Java (5.7), the eastern Philippines (4.8), northeastern Japan (4.3), the Greek islands of Rhodes and Karpathos (4.8) and parts of El Salvador and Guatemala (6.2).
• Tropical cyclones:
  • Days of torrential rainfall from remnants of Hurricane Stan left more than 2000 people dead in southern Mexico and parts of Central America. Nearly 1000 of the victims were buried alive by mudslides in two Guatemalan towns.
  • The development of Hurricane Vince in the eastern Atlantic made this the second most active hurricane season since records began 150 years ago. vince also became the first known tropical cyclone to move ashore in Spain, as its remnants produced much-needed rainfall across the parched Iberian Peninsula.
  • Typhoon Kirogi churned the open waters of the western Pacific.
• Warming victims:
  British researchers announced that global warming could have devastating effects on migratory species, and could possibly cause the disappearance of male sea turtles. A team from the British Trust for Ornithology said climate change could result in exclusively female turtles being born because the gender of hatchlings is affected by water temperatures.
• Volcanoes:
  
  • Ethiopia's Mt. Erta Ale (Arteale) erupted for the second time in a month, accompanied by ongoing swarms of tremors. An eruption on Sept. 26 displaced about 40,000 nomads.
  • Three volcanoes in southern Alaska are showing signs of unrest - with Mt. Spurr producing bursts of ash and steam visible in Anchorage, 75 miles to the east. Cleveland Volcano and Tanaga volcano in the Aleutian Islands also are rumbling.
• Colombian Slide:
  A cascade of mud, stones and water killed at least 26 people and left 30 missing when a river broke its banks and washed away mountainside homes near the Colombian town of Bello. Survivors, some clutching small children, were taken to a nearby schoolhouse being used as an emergency shelter. Mudslides occur frequently in Colombia at this time of year, when the wet season brings heavy rain.
• Faded yellow:
  A study commissioned by Greenpeace warns that global warming is leading to widespread ecological decline along the headwaters of China's yellow River, threatening the water supplies of 120 million people. The study, "Yellow River at Risk", was written by an institute within that Chinese Academy of Sciences and describes several environmental impacts driven by increased temperatures on the Tibetan Plateau. That region is known as the "roof of the world" and is the source of both the Yangtze and Yellow rivers - China's two longest. The report says temperatures there have risen almost 2 deg F during the past 30 years, causing the region's glaciers to shrink 10 times faster than during the previous 300 years.
• Wildfire victims:
  Eleven elephants perished after being caught in a bush fire in South Africa's Pilanesberg National Park. The elephants fled the flames only to become trapped in the mountainous ravine. Survivors were anesthetized and taken by truck to a nearby reserve. Park manager Peter Leitner said it was the saddest thing he'd ever seen in his 20 years of conservation work. "The little ones obviously are closer to the ground, so they got burned on the soft skin of their bellies, under their legs and on their faces and around their eyes" he said.
• Extreme temperatures: -99 deg F at Vostok, Antarctica; 108 deg F in Karima, Sudan

October 12 (for week ending Oct. 7); Earthwatch #6:
• Earthquakes:
  • Two moderate earthquakes (magn. 5.0) that struck southern Peru in rapid succession injured at least 10 people as 300 adobe houses collapsed in the Andean region of Moquegua.
  • Earth movements also were felt in northwest Colombia (5.2), Tonga (6.1), Taiwan (5.6), northern Japan's Hokkaido Island (4.5), northwest Sumatra (5.6), Jordan (4.3), northern Argentina (5,7), northern Colorado (4.1), central California (4.4) and metropolitan Los Angeles (3.0).
• Tropical cyclones:
  • Typhoon Longwang killed two people and injured 53 others on Taiwan before inflicting further death and destruction on mainland China. The storm later destroyed 5,400 houses and crops on more than 64,000 acres of farmland in China's Fujian province. Nearly 60 Chinese police trainees were missing after mountain rivers, swollen by the strom, swept away two academy buildings.
  • Tropical Cyclone 03B drenched Calcutta and other areas of India's West Bengal state.
  • Mudslides, flooding and torrential rains from Hurricane Stan killed at least 130 people in central America and Mexico.
  • A long stretch of Baja California received rainfall and gusty winds from passing Hurricane Otis.
  • The southeastern U.S. was drenched by Tropical Storm Tammy.
• Warmer warming:
  One of the world's foremost research centers for climate prediction warned that global warming will change the Earth's climate more rapidly than ever before in recent history. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany, predict the global temperature could rise by up to 7 deg F by the end of the century, causing sea levels to rise by almost a foot. The new model used to create the latest projections included new findings about the effects of aerosols and the influence of Earth's carbon cycle. The center says the results confirm decades of speculations that humans are fueling global warming through their unprecedented influence on the environment.
• Eruptions:
  
  • El Salvador's Ilamatepec volcano roared back to life for the first time in more than a century, killing two people and forcing more than 2,000 others to flee their homes. The volcano first belched thick plumes of ash, then began casting hot rocks and ash from its crater. Police said at least seven people were injured by the falling incandescent stones.
  • Late reports from Ethiopia's Afar region say that about 50,000 nomads were displaced by the Sept. 26 eruption of Mount Erta Ale (Arteale). Large areas of land used for grazing are now covered by lava.
• Parched Amazon:
  Vast stretches of the Amazon rain forest are at their driest in living memory, and Brazilian scientists say it is the direct result of the severe hurricane season in North America. "There is no rain here because the air is descending, which prevents the formation of clouds", said Ricardo Dellarosa, of the Amazon Protection Organization in Manaus. He added that the air over his country is descending because air is rising with great intensity in the North Atlantic basin, creating the recent stroms and hurricanes. Rivers and lakes across the Amazon basin are drying up, isolating many communities that are accessible only by boat.
• Tourist threat:
  The WWF conservation group accused Greece of pushing a unique marine turtle toward extinction by allowing uncontrolled tourist development on the island of Zakynthos. In a statement from its Geneva headquarters, WWF said there had been "irreparable damage" to the turtle's habitat in the Zakynthos National Marine Park over the past summer due to the tourist flow. It cited local businesses setting up illega bars, restuarants, parking areas and umbrellas on key turtle nesting sites. WWF said that tourists had been allowed to interfere with nesting turtles at night and nests were often trampled. The Marine Park typically hosts between 800 and 1100 loggerhead turtle nests from May to the end of July. The August peak of the tourist season coincides with the hatching period for the turtles, of which only one in 1000 survives to adulthood.
• Wildfire victims:
  Eleven elephants perished after being caught in a bush fire in South Africa's Pilanesberg National Park. The elephants fled the flames only to become trapped in the mountainous ravine. Survivors were anesthetized and taken by truck to a nearby reserve. Park manager Peter Leitner said it was the saddest thing he'd ever seen in his 20 years of conservation work. "The little ones obviously are closer to the ground, so they got burned on the soft skin of their bellies, under their legs and on their faces and around their eyes" he said.
• Extreme temperatures: -99 deg F at Vostok, Antarctica; 110 deg F in Dongola, Sudan

October 05 (for week ending Sep. 30); Earthwatch #5:
• Earthquakes:
  • Four people were killed and thousands made homeless when a magnitude 7.5 tremblor struck northern Peru's San Martin region.
  • Earth movements also were felt in Indonesia's Sulawesi Island (5.6), Taiwan (4.9), southern Tajikistan (5.3), northwest nad southern Iran (5.4, 3.6), the Bosnia-Croatia border region (5.2), the Maine-New Brunswick coast (3.4), western Idaho (3.5), the San Francisco Bay Area (3.2) and southern Yukon (5.0).
• Tropical cyclones:
  • Typhoon Damrey killed at least 96 people across four Southeast Asia nations during a week-long sweep. The death toll reached 16 in the Philippines, 16 in southern China's Hainan province, 57 in northern Vietnam and 7 in far northern Thailand. Damrey alsi inflicted significant damage to agriculture and infrastructure in China and Vietnam.
  • Hurricane Rita swamped parts of the Texas and Louisiana coasts as it roared ashore from the Gulf of Mexico. While the storm weakened before making landfall, it still submerged several coastal communities and caused another breach in one of the levees protecting New Orleans.
  • Typhoon Saola narrowly missed striking the coast of eastern Japan.
  • Tropical storms Jova, Kenneth and Norma moved westward between Mexico and the Hawaiian Islands.
• Ethiopian eruption:
  A swarm of strong earthquakes in northeastern Ethiopia's Afar region accompanied a fiery eruption of Mount Arteale - the country's only active volcano. The mountain had been mainly dormant for about 60 years. Seismologist Gezahegn Yirga from Addis Ababa University said molten lava spewed from the volcano, covering large portions of its slopes and surrounding areas, while thick blankets of ash and plumes of smoke were reported in the remote region. The sharp quakes opened large fissures and triggered landslides, killing approximately 200 goats and 59 camels.
• Wildfires:
  
  • A massive wildfire in northern Bolivia's Amazon forest region destroyed 370,000 acres of woodland and sent a pall of smoke over much of the country. Drought and high winds sparked the blazes which officials say can only be extinguished by rainfall.
  • Dry springtime weather, combined with high winds and lightning in South Africa, ignited bush fires in four provinces. KwaZulu-Natal in the east was the worst hit, with a 6-year-old girl perishing inside a burning house in which she had taken shelter.
• Overfishing:
  The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) warned that the world's oceans soon will be nearly empty of fish if present fishing practices continue. Group spokesman Thomas Kaissl stated that 80 million tons of fish and other marine animals are caught throughout the world each year, four times more than half a century ago. The WWF called on consumers to buy only fish that are known to have come from secure and replaceable stocks.
  The director of the Pew Institute for Ocean Science at the University of Miami announced that sturgeon are threatened with extinction almost everywhere in the world. Ellen K. Pikitch made the warning in the journal Fish and Fisheries. Sturgeon are the source of black caviar, and a combination of overfishing, pollution and loss of habitat is causing the decline.
• Extreme temperatures: -104 deg F at Vostok, Antarctica; 115 deg F in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

September 28 (for week ending Sep. 23); Earthwatch #4:
• Earthquakes:
  • A sharp earthquake centered along the India-Myanmar border caused panic and rocked buildings in India's Assam state and parts of Bangladesh. It was felt as far away as Chiang Mai in Thailand.
  • Hundresds of people slept outdoors on the mid-Atlantic Azores island of Sao Miguel after a swarm of more that 200 light-to-moderate earthquakes cracked buildings.
  • Earth movements also were felt on islands in the Greek Ionian Sea (4.9), in northwestern Iran (4.2), eastern Ethiopia (5.3), the Andaman Islands (5.4), northwestern Sumatra (4.8), Java (5.5), northern Japan (5.9), far northern Chile (5.2), western Nevada (4.2) and southern parts of the San Francisco Bay Area (3.1).
• Tropical cyclones:
  • Tidal surges and flash flooding from an unnamed tropical storm killed at least 55 people in Bangladesh and India.
  • Typhoon Damrey unleashed flash flooding that killed two people in the northern Philippines. The storm was taking aim on far southern China late in the week.
  • Eight people, including three children, were killed when Tropical Storm Vicente battered Vietnam's northern and central provinces.
  • Typhoon Saola skirted Okinawa, and was predicted to brush southern Japan's Kyushu Island.
  • After drenching the Florida Keys and Cuba's northern coast, Hurricane Rita was bearing down on Texas.
  • Hurricanes Philippe churned the North Atlantic. Hurricane Jova and tropical storms Kenneth, Lidia and Max passed over the open waters of the eastern Pacific.
• Ozone hole grows:
  The U.N. reported that the hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica has grown to near-record size this year, suggesting that 20 years of pollution controls have had little effect on the annual phenomenon. Geir Braathen, the World Meteorological Organization's top ozone expert, told a news briefing that the so-called ozone recovery has yet to be confirmed. Last month, U.S. scientists said that the Antarctic region's ozone layer had stopped shrinking, but recovery could take decades as previously released ozone-depleting chemicals filter out of the atmosphere. Chlorofluorocarbons containing chlorine and bromine have been blamed for thinning of stratospheric ozone because they interact with ozone molecules, causing them to break apart.
• Glacial advance:
  Glaciers in southern New Zealand have begun to gain more ice over the last two years despite the worldwide trend of glacial retreat due t global warming. Heavy precipitation in the Southern Alps is said to be responsible for the reversal of glacial retreat on the South Island. The country's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research used aerial potographs to reveal that some of the 50 newly advancing glaciers are gaining as muc has 3 feet in length per day. But climate scientist Jim Salinger said the rivers of ice are still far from their sparkling glory of a century ago.
• Wildlife drought:
  An extended drought is causing elephants and buffaloes to die of starvation in a key Zimbabwe wildlife region. The state-controlled Herald reports the animals have perished in the Matetsi area near Victoria Falls, a popular tourist destination. A critical fuel shortage due to the country's economic crisis has kept diesel from reaching water pumping stations, which normally provide fresh water to wildlife during times of drought.
• Volcanoes:
  • An explosive eruption of Mexico' s Volcano of Fire was heard in villages up to 10 miles from the crater. No injuries were reported, but emergency workers were provided with face masks as ash rained down on nearby communities.
  • El Salvador's Ilamatepec Volcano showed a further increase in activity. Magma has risen to near the surface, and authorities plan to conduct evacuation simulations in anticipation of an eruption.
• Extreme temperatures: -90 deg F at Vostok, Antarctica; 115 deg F in Berbera, Somalia

September 21 (for week ending Sep. 16); Earthwatch #3:
• Earthquakes:
  • A magnitude 7.3 temblor centered just off Papua New Guinea's New Britain island created a small tsunami that washed into Rabaul Harbor.
  • Earth movements also were felt in northeast Japan (4.8), northwest Sumatra (5.8), Australia's Northern Territory (4.4), northeast Iran (3.8), northwestern Greece (5.0), western Argentina (6.0) and California's Imperial Valley (3.7).
• Tropical cyclones:
  • At least 18 people died when Typhoon Khanun battered China's eastern coast. Officials say Khanun damaged about 7500 homes and affected 5 million people in Zhejiang province.
  • Hurricane Ophelia drifted slowly off the southeastern coast of the United States before lashing eastern parts of the Carolinas.
• A world without trees:
  Scientists from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center say that between one-third and one-half of the planet's land surface has been transformed by human development, with global consequences. Their new study focused on how deforestation in tropical regions affects the global climate. They found that while deforestation has done little to affect global warming, decades of wholesale forest clearing in the Amazon severely reduced rainfall in the Gulf of Mexico, Texas and northern Mexico during the spring and summer growing seasons. Similarly, deforesting in central Africa affects precipitation patterns in the American Midwest.
• Warming disasters:
  The head of Switzerland's environment agency cautioned that Hurricane Katrina, and storms that have recently hit Europe, are clear indications of global lwarming. "These are typically phenomena described by the models for climate change. So the link is for me personally really evident", said Philippe Roch. But he also feels that human development expanding into disaster-prone areas is contributing to the amount of damage and number of fatalities caused by increasingly severe weather.
• Wheat disease:
  A rapidly evolving wheat pathogen that is spreading across parts of East Africa could cause "catastrophic" damage to crops around the world if urgent steps are not taken, according to agricultural scientists meeting in Nairobi. The mutating strain of stem rust fungus, dubbed Ug99, was discovered in Ugandan wheat crops in 1999, and has since spread into Kenya and Ethiopia, where it has damaged crops in virtually all plantations. Its spores can be spread in the wind, on travelers' clothing and in the luggage. "It is only a matter of time until Ug99 reaches across the Saudi Arabian peninsula and into the Middle East, South Asia and the Americcas", warned plant specialist Ronnie Coffman of Cornell University. A stem rust outbreak in 1950 destroyed nearly 70% of North American wheat crops before a resistant wheat was developed.
• Volcanic contamination:
  A discharge of volcanic ash, water and other debris from Alaska's Mount Chiginagak Volcano has caused the disappearance of fish and other wildlife along the King Salmon River this summer. Flyfishing guide Jon kent told the Anochorage Daily News that there are no bears, no birds and no fish along the river's path. "It's like someone dropped a bomb on the place", Kent said. The volcano's crater lake gushed the acidic mix into the river in early summer, probably killing any fish that were in the water at that time, according to state wildlife officials. They added that because the contaminated water no longer smelled or tasted like the stram in which they were born, many fish probably went up other rivers to spawn.
• Solar storm:
  A massive solar flare hurled a stream of highly charged particles toward Earth on Sept. 13. Vivid aurora displays were expected when the particles began interacting with Earth's geomagnetic field. Such solar storms can also affect high-frequency and satellite communications, as well as power grids.
• Extreme temperatures: -86 deg F at South Pole, Antarctica; 114 deg F in Al Ahsa, Saudi Arabia

September 14 (for week ending Sep. 09); Earthwatch #2:
• Earthquakes:
  • Tall buildings in the Taiwanese capital of Taipei were rocked by a magnitude 6.1 tremblor centered just off the island's east coast.
  • Earth movements also were felt in western Japan (4.5), the Indonesian Island of Sulawesi (6.2), islands around the Banda Sea (4.9), northwestern Sumatra (5.1), Israel and the Palestine Territories (3.7), eastern Romania (4.6), the Swiss and Italian Alps (5.1), southern Quebec (3.6), northeastern Kentucky (2.5) and around Nome, Alaska (5.2).
• Tropical cyclones:
  • China announced that at least 124 people were killed when heavy rain from Typhoon Talim unleashed floods and landslides across several eastern provinces.
  • Typhoon Nabi's passage across southern Japan caused 21 deaths and the flooding of about 6000 homes.
  • Taiwan was on alert later in the week as the powerful Typhoon Khanun approached.
  • Hurricanes in the Atlantic: Tropical storm Ophelia approaching the Carolinas, hurricane Nate passed just south of Bermuda and hurricane Maria churned the waters of the North Atlantic.
• Soil warming:
  A team of British scientists says it has found that global warming is causing soil to release huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere - a development that may increase the rate of climate change. Researchers from Britain's National Soil Resources Institute wrote in the journal Nature that the carbon content of soil around England and Wales fell steadily from 1978 to 2003 no matter how the soil was used. They concluded that warmer temperatures during that period must have caused much of it to be released into the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide and methane.
• Enduring drought:
  Spanish authorities began drawing up emergency plans to ship water around the country's parched coast in tanker boats, and warned that the current record drought could last another five years. Parched conditions have sparked an unprecedented number of wildfires this summer.
• Lava collapse:
  A 12-acre bench of hardened lava crashed into the sea near Hawaii's Kilauea Volcano during a spectacular 80-minute collapse witnessed by tourists and local residents. Officials at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park had warned for weeks that the lava bench had become weakened by pounding surf and could break loose at any time. Fresh lava flows from Kilauea were rapidly filling in the area lost to the ocean.
• Hippies of the forest:
  Experts gathering at the Intergovernmental Meeting on Great Apes in the Congolese capital of Kinshasa warned that one of the world's least-hostile primates, and one of man's closest relatives, could die out within 50 years from poaching, logging and disease. The bonobo, a pygmy chimpanzee, often is referred to as the "hippie of the forest" due to its preference for resolving conflict through sex rather than violence. Claudine Andre, founder of the Lola ya Bonobo sanctuary just outside Kinshasa, told Reuters that the peaseful chimp's numbers plummeted from 100,000 in 1980 to only 10,000 in 1990. Andre fears that poaching and two wars since that time may have killed even more. She adds that there are currently about 150 bonobos living in captivity, and there are plans to release 43 back into the wild.
• Extreme temperatures: -110 deg F in Vostok, Antarctica; 117 deg F in Mecca, Saudi Arabia

September 07 (for week ending Sep. 02); Earthwatch #1:
• Earthquakes:
  • A sharp magnitude 5.1 tremblor centered in the remote Hindu Kush mountain range of eastern Afghanistan was felt widely across northern parts of neighboring Pakistan, including the capital Islamabad.
  • Earth movements also were felt in western China's Xinjiang region (5.2), India's Maharashtra state (4.5), nerthwest Sumatra (5.5), the southern Philippines (5.4) Taiwan (5.2), northeastern Japan (6.2) and California's Imperial Valley (4.5).
• Tropical cyclones:
  • Hurricane Katrina unleashed almost unimaginable devastation along the U.S. Gulf Coast. It may take years for residents from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle to rebuild lives in the wake of one of the worst natural disasters to hit the nation. The storm earlier killed seven people across South Florida.
  • Typhoon Talim roared toward mainland China after killing at least three people and injuring 59 others on Taiwan, where it toppled billboards and broke windows.
  • Typhoon Nabi formed near the U.S. Northern Mariana Islands, then took aim at Japan's southernmost islands late in the week.
  • Tropical Storm Irwin formed off Mexico's Pacific coast, while Tropical Storm Lee churned the Atlantic.
• Amazon deforestation:
  The government of Brazil announced that deforestation of the Amazon rain forest is slowing down, attributing the drop to an action plan it launched last year to curb illegal logging. But environmental groups said that much of the reduction could be due to a slump in farming instead of government action. The groups still praised leaders in Brasilia for their efforts, which were launched shortly after the government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced that the Amazon's forest cover was being destroyed at a near-record pace.
• African fireball:
  Villagers in a remote part of northern Zimbabwe were living in fear after a meteorite crashed into a nearby field. Police spokesman Michael Munyikwa said the falling space debris sounded like a helicopter as it streaked in from the east. The 9-pound meteorite threw up a cloud of dust as it carved out a small crater not far from Chaworeka village. The meteorite was taken to the Forensic Scientists Laboratory at the Criminal Investigations Department in Harare, which described it as black in color with white particles inside.
• Eruption:
  
  • Authorities in El Salvador activated emergency plans as Ilamatepec Volcano began to hurl incandescent rocks and columns of gas. Ilamatepec is located in a coffee-growing region of the country, about 40 miles west of San Salvador.
  • Hawaii's Kilauea Volcano continued to produce spectacular lava flows into the sea during what has become the largest eruption on the east rift zone in 500 years.
• Extreme temperatures: -90 deg F in Vostok, Antarctica; 119 deg F in Death Valley, California