SIO15: Natural Disasters

Source: Steve Newman at the San Diego Union Tribune

Earthwatches

November 26, 2018

November 19, 2018

November 12, 2018

November 05, 2018

October 29, 2018

October 22, 2018

October 15, 2018

October 08, 2018

October 01, 2018

September 24, 2018

September 17, 2018

September 10, 2018

September 03, 2018

August 27, 2018

August 20, 2018

August 13, 2018

August 06, 2018

July 30, 2018

July 23, 2018

July 16, 2018

July 09, 2018

July 02, 2018

June 25, 2018

June 18, 2018

June 11, 2018

June 04, 2018

May 28, 2018

May 21, 2018

May 07, 2018

May 14, 2018

May 07, 2018

April 30, 2018

April 23, 2018

April 16, 2018

April 09, 2018

April 02, 2018

March 26, 2018

March 19, 2018

March 12, 2018

March 05, 2018

February 26, 2018

February 19, 2018

February 12, 2018

February 05, 2018

January 29, 2018

January 22, 2018

January 15, 2018

January 08, 2018

January 01, 2018

December 25, 2017

December 18, 2017

December 11, 2017

December 04, 2017

November 26, 2018 (for the week ending November 23)



Earthquakes

• A light [magnitude 4.6] earthquake rattled Italy’s northeastern coast, near Venice.
• Earth movements were also felt along the California-Mexico border [magnitude 4.8] and in northwestern Washington [4.1].



Tropical cyclones

• Late reports from southern India say at least 46 people perished when Cyclone Gaja passed over Tamil Nadu state on Nov. 16.
  Officials said the storm toppled 30,000 electricity poles and uprooted more than 100,000 trees. Nearly 82,000 people took refuge in government-run shelters.



Eruption

The fifth eruption of Guatemala’s Fuego (Fire) volcano this year prompted around 4,000 people to flee lava flows as well as swiftly moving clouds of superheated ash and vapor. An eruption in June obliterated entire villages and left nearly 200 people dead. Activity has also increased recently inside two of Guatemala’s other restive volcanoes, Pacaya and Santiaguito.



Altered evolution

Humankind is wielding so much influence on the natural world that we are reshaping the evolution of many species. Researcher Sarah Otto from the University of British Columbia wrote in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B that the altered evolution includes some fish growing mouths that are smaller and harder to hook by fishermen, and swallows developing smaller, more maneuverable wings to help them navigate through buildings and traffic. “Human impacts on the world are not just local,” she said. “They are changing the course of evolutionary history for all species on the planet, and that’s a remarkable concept to ponder.” She says some mammals are becoming nocturnal to avoid conflict with humans.



Rainiest days

Half of the precipitation that falls each year around the world occurs during just 12 very wet days, according to a new study of satellite and weather station data. Researcher Angeline Pendergrass of the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research found that climate change is causing the rainiest days to get wetter, and she predicts that half of the annual precipitation worldwide will probably fall in just 11 days by the end of this century. “While climate models generally project just a small increase in rain in general, we find this increase comes as a handful of events with much more rain and, therefore, could result in more negative impacts, including flooding,” Pendergrass said.



Horned plebiscite

Swiss citizens were slated to vote on Nov. 25 whether to subsidize farmers who let their cows and goats grow horns to their natural length. The referendum on the “dignity of livestock” aimed to fund extra grazing space that the horned animals need to reduce dehorning. “We must respect cows as they are. Leave them their horns,” referendum advocate and farmer Armin Capaul told Reuters. When you look at them, they always hold their head high and are proud. When you remove the horns, they are sad.” The government opposes the move, saying it will take funding from the agricultural budget.



Earth 'eats' water

Scientists have discovered that the movement of Earth’s tectonic plates is dragging three times more water into the planet’s interior than thought. Writing in the journal Nature, Chen Cai of Washington University in St. Louis and his colleagues describe the process of subduction, in which hot ocean-floor plates grind together and pull water deep into the crust and mantle. By using seismic sensors placed in the Marianas Trench, the team was able to more accurately estimate how much water was being locked up in hydrates and rocks during the process. That stored water is believed to make quakes more likely by lubricating faults.


• Extreme Temperatures: -57°F South Pole, Antarctica; 111°F Dampier, W. Australia

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November 19, 2018 (for the week ending November 16)



Earthquakes

• A pre-dawn [magnitude 5.4] quake in southwestern Australia jolted people out of bed.
• Earth movements were also felt along the India-Myanmar border [magnitude 5.2], western Nepal [4.5], Bali [5.3], a remote Norwegian Arctic island [6.8] and islands of the northeaster Caribbean [4.5].



Tropical cyclones

• Tropical cyclone Gaja drenched southern India and northern Sri Lanka.[It caused extensive damage to the electrical grid of Pudukottai district.]
• Former Category-3 Cyclone Alcide fizzled off the northern tip of Madagascar.



Wildfire causation

California’s hotter and drier climate under global warming, as well as the state’s aggressive policy of suppressing wildfires, are responsible for the increase in the severity and size of its recent catastrophic conflagrations, research has found.
Various aspects of manmade climate change, such as stalled weather patterns from a slower jet stream and longer stretches of extreme weather, have made western wildfires more likely. The new climate is also altering the forest ecology. “As the climate continues to warm, big severe wildfires will be more frequent, and the dry conditions that follow will increasingly favor (more fire-prone) shrubs over conifers,” Harvard ecologist Jonathan Thompson said in a news release.
Many researchers believe a century of efforts to control wildfires quickly have kept forests unnaturally thick and choked with tinder that can explode out of control before ravaging the new neighborhoods being built on the edges of woodlands.



Jumping worms

Expanding populations of invasive earthworms from Asia are altering the soil across parts of America, from the Southeast to the Upper Midwest, in ways that are just now being studied. The jumping earthworms are native to eastern Asia and have been known locally for the past 100 years as crazy worms, Alabama jumpers and snake worms. Researchers from the University of Wisconsin in Madison have found that they leave little balls of soil mixed with their feces that look like coffee grounds. Geoscientist Jenelle Wempner discovered that the excrement mix locks up nutrients and chemically alters the soil. This could deprive trees of those nutrients as well as increase erosion.



Atacama rains

Microbes in the world’s driest desert have been ravaged by recent rains in a region that had previously seen no precipitation for the past 500 years. Chile’s Atacama Desert has received unprecedented rains during the last three years, and Spanish researchers say it has devastated life that had evolved to live in a rain-free environment. “Our group has discovered that ... the never-before-seen rainfall has not triggered a flowering of life in Atacama, but instead the rains have caused enormous devastation in the microbial species,” said astrobiologist Alberto G. Fairén.



Mass drowning

More than 400 buffaloes drowned in southern Africa’s Chobe River, along the Namibia-Botswana border, after apparently being chased to their deaths by a pride of lions. Graphic images released by the nearby Serondela Lodge showed dozens of buffalo carcasses floating in the river, with some revealing people cutting up the animals’ remains for meat. “Unfortunately, during their attempt to escape and when they reached the Namibian side, the bank of the river was steep, so they could not climb out and ended up drowning,” said Namibian environment ministry spokesman Romeo Muyunda.



Relentless warming

New climate analysis by the Chinese Academy of Sciences reveals that while global warming slowed during the first decade of the 21st century, it has never really stopped since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s. Researchers found that the “hiatus” between 2000 and 2014 was due to a combination of cyclical atmospheric and oceanic patterns, the deep oceans soaking in the excess heat and an extremely low number of sunspots.


• Extreme Temperatures: -63°F South Pole, Antarctica; 108°F Twee Riviere, South Africa

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November 12, 2018 (for the week ending November 09)



Earthquakes

• State officials indefinitely shut down a wastewater injection well associated with oil and gas extraction just outside Oklahoma City after a sharp [magnitude 3.7] quake hit near the facility.
• Earth movements were also felt in northern Arizona [magnitude 3.1], southern parts of the San Francisco Bay Area [4.1], the Philippine island of Mindanao [6.0], New Zealand's North Island [4.5] and western Sulawesi [5.1].



Tropical cyclones

• Category-5 Super Typhoon Yutu dissipated off the coast of Hong Kong after a deadly two-week rampage across the Pacific.
• Tropical Storm Xavier formed briefly off Mexico’s Pacific coast.



Eruption

Far East Russia’s Ebeko volcano spewed a large column of ash nearly 3 miles into the sky above Paramushir Island, just off the southern tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula. A light rain of ash fell over the nearby settlement of Severo-Kurilsk, but there were no reports of damage or injuries from the eruption. An orange alert for ash was issued for aviation, though. Ebeko has produced more than a dozen mild to moderate eruptions since 1783 and is one of the most active volcanoes in the Kuril Islands.



Whale song cypher

Chinese scientists say they have found a way to hide secret messages in recordings of sperm whale songs — a breakthrough they say will help China’s military submarines avoid scrutiny. Whale sounds are typically filtered out by underwater intelligence-gathering operations, which focus more on man-made encryption efforts in sonic signals that are obvious and easy to detect. But because whales inhabit most of the world’s oceans, the researchers from Tianjin University say their method would make it nearly impossible for adversaries to detect their new hidden messages. There was no mention of how the encoded whale sounds could affect the whales themselves.



Sunken island

Japanese officials say one of the country’s tiny islands has disappeared and slipped beneath the ocean’s surface after gradually being eroded by the elements. Just off the northern tip of Hokkaido Island and to the south of Russia’s Sakhalin Island, Esanbe Hanakita Kojima had been an important piece of real estate that extended Japan’s exclusive economic zone farther from its mainland territory.



Pharma pollution

Australian researchers say more than 60 common prescription drugs are finding their way through wastewater into rivers and streams, contaminating insects that wind up being eaten by other wildlife up the food chains. The scientists at Monash University found 69 medications in insects collected in waters around Melbourne, including painkillers, antibiotics, antidepressants and blood pressure treatments. They say that while the highest levels of contamination were found near wastewater treatment plants, low levels were also detected in insects from more pristine areas.



Ozone healing

The stratospheric ozone layer is healing at roughly 1 to 3 percent per decade thanks mainly to a 30-year-old international agreement to ban chemicals responsible for its annual formation, a U.N. agency says. The World Meteorological Organization also announced that it believes the Antarctic ozone hole will close by 2060, with the one over the Northern Hemisphere recovering by 2030. Stratospheric ozone protects life on Earth from the hazardous ultraviolet radiation emitted by the sun. Next year, the new Kigali Amendment, designed to cut even further the use of ozone-eroding gases in refrigerators, air conditioners and other products, is expected to be ratified.


• Extreme Temperatures: -69°F South Pole, Antarctica; 108°F Boulia, Queensland, Australia

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November 05, 2018 (for the week ending November 02)



Earthquakes

• A powerful [magnitude 6.2] temblor centered on New Zealand’s North Island was felt across a wide area and even forced the country’s parliament in Wellington to briefly shut down.
• Earth movements were also felt in India's Jammu and Kashmir state [magnitude 5.2], southwestern Greece [5.6], Romania [5.8] and interior Alaska [5.3].



Tropical cyclones

• At least six people died in floods and mudslides that were triggered in the northern Philippines by former Super Typhoon Yutu.
• Hurricane Oscar churned the open waters of the central North Atlantic.



Vanishing glaciers

Canadian scientists say the massive glaciers that blanket parts of the Yukon are shrinking much faster than what would be expected under global warming. The glacial retreat has cut off critical water supplies to Kluane Lake, causing the level of the UNESCO World Heritage Site to drop by more than 6 feet. This has stranded thousands of fish from their traditional spawning rivers. “The region is one of the hot spots for warming, which is something we’ve come to realize over the last 15 years,” said David Hik of Simon Fraser University. “The magnitude of the changes is dramatic.”



Maritime garble

Underwater noise created by shipping and recreational boats is making it more difficult for dolphins to talk to each other, according to a new study. University of Maryland researchers say the complex whistle calls used by the marine mammals are becoming simplified to make sure they can be understood through the din of maritime traffic. “It’s kind of like trying to answer a question in a noisy bar and after repeated attempts to be heard, you just give the shortest answer possible,” said marine biologist Helen Bailey. She and colleagues made the discovery by analyzing recordings from microphones on the bottom of the Atlantic. An earlier Japanese study found that humpback whales stop singing or reduce their songs when near loud noise from passing ships.



Mass extinction

Earth’s wild animal population has plunged 60 percent since 1970, and the rate of extinction is 100 to 1,000 times higher due to pressure from human activities, a new report warns. The World Wildlife Fund’s latest Living Planet Index says the global biodiversity needs “life support,” and called on heads of state to step up and fight for the planet. The group says tackling climate change by advancing renewable energy and boosting environmentally friendly food production would begin taking the pressure off the world’s wildlife.



Ebola wave

The Congo’s 10th outbreak of Ebola since it was first detected 42 years ago in what was then known as Zaire has killed 175 people as the country faces a “second wave” of new cases. The latest infections are being attributed to local resistance to a vaccination and prevention program that began as the hemorrhagic disease re-emerged in August. Health crews sent to collect the bodies of victims for sanitary burial are reportedly coming under increased violent assault by villagers. The mourning families say they want to bury their dead in traditional ways that involve touching the corpse. But officials say that is causing the Ebola virus to inadvertently infect others.



The 'new tobacco'

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that air pollution has become so acute that the simple act of breathing is killing 7 million people annually worldwide while also harming billions of others. “The world has turned the corner on tobacco. Now it must do the same for the ‘new tobacco’ — the toxic air that billions breathe every day,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. The U.N. agency estimates that 91 percent of the world’s population lives in areas with air pollution above WHO limits. It says children and babies are the most vulnerable to the toxic effects of air pollution.


• Extreme Temperatures: -72°F South Pole, Antarctica; 111°F Vredendal, South Africa

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October 29, 2018 (for the week ending October 26)



Earthquakes

• Tall buildings swayed in the Taiwanese capital of Taipei when a magnitude 5.9 quake struck just offshore.
• Earth movements were also felt from Tajikistan to Kashmir [magnitude 5.2], as well as in the southern Windward Islands [5.2] and along the Texas-Oklahoma border [4.0].



Tropical cyclones

• Popular resorts on Mexico’s Pacific coast were raked by Category-3 Hurricane Willa, which had earlier been at Category-5 force.
• Category-5 Super Typhoon Yutu wrecked buildings in the U.S. Pacific territory of the Northern Mariana Islands as the most powerful cyclone to strike anywhere in the world during 2018. The eye of the storm passed directly over Tinian Island, one of three main islands of the U.S. commonwealth. It was one of the most intense hurricane strikes on record for the United States and its territories.



Tornadic shift

Climate change is causing more tornadoes to tear through Midwestern and Southeastern parts of the United States while the traditional “tornado alley” is seeing fewer of them, according to a new study. “It’s not that Texas and Oklahoma do not get tornadoes,” said researcher Victor Gensini of Northern Illinois University. “They’re still the number one location in terms of tornado frequency, but the trend in many locations is down over the past 40 years.” “Dixie Alley” in the Southeast is becoming more prone to destructive twisters that are wider and stay longer on the ground, the study found.



Island vanishes

One of the most powerful Pacific hurricanes on record obliterated a remote Hawaiian island, causing an important turtle nesting site to disappear in early October. Former Category-5 Hurricane Walaka was still packing Category-3 force winds just before it struck the remote French Frigate Shoals, about 400 miles northwest of the main Hawaiian Island of Kauai. Storm surge wiped out East Island, which is a critical habitat for green sea turtles, monk seals and various types of sea birds. University of Hawaii researchers who were studying the wildlife were forced to evacuate the island before Walaka struck.



Plant chemistry

Increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels are lessening the ability of plants to absorb and store that greenhouse gas. A study by the University of Maryland of leaf chemistry in plants around the world between 1980 and 2017 also found that nitrogen is becoming less available to the plants. Nitrogen is essential for the growth and development of plant life, and it is usually released into the soil by microbes when leaves and other organic matter decay on the ground. While trees normally absorb it back from the soil, the process is being hampered by the increased carbon pollution.



False spring

Cherry trees burst into bloom several months ahead of schedule from Japan’s southern island of Kyushu northward to Hokkaido. The iconic trees apparently were “tricked” into early bloom by severe weather from two strong typhoons followed by the recent unusually warm weather. Some experts blamed high winds that blew leaves off the trees, while others say thick, salty sea air blown in by the typhoons confused the trees into a fall bloom.



Climate conflicts

The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross warns that global warming is worsening conflicts around the world, especially when populations are forced to migrate to escape a worsening climate. “It’s very obvious that some of the violence that we are observing ... is directly linked to the impact of climate change and changing rainfall patterns,” Peter Maurer told an Australian audience. He says some people are being forced to leave areas their ancestors have inhabited for centuries.


• Extreme Temperatures: -79°F South Pole, Antarctica; 111°F Matam, Senegal

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October 22, 2018 (for the week ending October 19)



Earthquakes

• A moderate [magnitude 4.5] temblor shook the area around Alaska’s largest city, Anchorage.
• Earth movements were also felt in southwestern Montana [magnitude 3.3] and parts of coastal Southern California [3.4].



Tropical cyclones

• Remnants of Hurricane Leslie triggered flooding, landslides and wind damage by slamming into Portugal and Spain after the storm meandered for three weeks over the Atlantic.
• Yemen was raked by Cyclone Luban, which formed over the western Arabian Sea.
• Short-lived Tropical Storm Tara drenched parts of Mexico’s Pacific coast near Puerto Vallarta.



Eruptions

Guatemala’s Volcan de Fuego roared to life, billowing ash and lava four months after a far more powerful eruption caused dozens of people to be buried alive or scorched beyond recognition. The country’s geophysical agency said hot lava spewed from the volcano’s crater and flowed toward a ravine. Area residents were urged to evacuate and be alert for sudden floods of volcanic debris as they fled.



El Niño emerging?

The U.S. environment agency NOAA says there is a 70 to 75 percent chance that the weather-altering ocean warming in the Pacific known as El Niño will develop during the next several weeks. Observations seem to show an ocean-surface warming emerging in the eastern tropical Pacific during the past few weeks off the coast of Ecuador. The last El Niño triggered crop damage, fires and flash floods in various parts of the world from 2015 to 2016.



Warming victims

Forty years of steadily rising temperatures in Puerto Rico have decimated some of the island’s forest-floor creatures, according to a new report. It says the 2.0-degree Celsius rise in temperatures since the mid-1970s in one rainforest has produced as much as a 60-fold loss of such invertebrates as insects, millipedes and sowbugs. Researcher Brad Lister of upstate New York’s Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute says that the crash in the populations is leaving animals that eat them with insufficient food, decreasing the overall diversity of that part of Puerto Rico.



'Immortal' microbes

Lying deep in the seabed sediment of the South Pacific are tiny organisms that scientists say may be about 75 million years old, making them among the oldest known life forms on the planet. Researcher James Bradley of the University of Southern California and colleagues say they may have solved the mystery of how these microbes have survived starvation on geologic timescales. A model created during their study suggests that the organisms live by staying mostly dead as they burn next to no energy. Bradley concludes that if life is found in the harsh environments of Mars or Jupiter’s moon Europa, it’s probably going to be similarly buried below the surface.



Alpine loss

Some of the hottest summer temperatures on record in Switzerland this year caused the country’s glaciers to lose 2.5 percent of their volume, according to the Swiss Academy of Science. This year’s record heat came after an especially snowy winter that helped replenish some of the Alpine snowcap diminished by three consecutive years of little snow. Climate change has caused Swiss glaciers to lose a fifth of their ice during the past decade.


• Extreme Temperatures: -85°F South Pole, Antarctica; 118°F Matam, Senegal

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October 15, 2018 (for the week ending October 12)



Earthquakes

• At least 17 people perished when a magnitude 5.9 temblor centered in northern Haiti rocked the entire country. More than 300 others were injured.
• A sharp [magnitude 6.0] quake in eastern Java killed at least three people and damaged numerous buildings.
• Earth movements were also felt in northern Japan's Hokkaido Island [magnitude 5.4] and southern parts of the San Francisco Bay Area [3.8].



Tropical cyclones

• Hurricane Michael caused catastrophic damage across the Florida Panhandle as the third-most powerful named storm ever to strike the U.S. mainland.
• Two people died in South Korea in the wake of former Typhoon Kong-Rey.
• Category-2 Cyclone Titli killed eight people as it ravaged India’s central Bay of Bengal coast.
• Remnants of Hurricane Sergio drenched northwestern Mexico
• Tropical Storm Luban formed in the western Arabian Sea.
• Tropical Storm Nadine churned the eastern Atlantic.



Eruptions

India’s only active volcano spewed ash and lava above the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, to the east of the Bay of Bengal. The eruption of the Barren Island volcano was the first since February 2016.



Growth spurt

Three decades of observations revealed that taller shrubs, grasses and other plants are growing in the Arctic as the region warms faster than any other part of the world. A team of 180 researchers who gathered data across Alaska, Canada, Iceland, Scandinavia and Russia found indications that global warming is driving the taller growth. They believe that the height of the plants could eventually double this century and help make Arctic temperatures warm even further.



Monarch gains

The Mexican forest reserve where millions of monarch butterflies spend the winter saw deforestation drop by 57 percent this year compared to 2017, the World Wildlife Fund reported. “The forest’s degradation has dropped due to a decrease in large-scale illegal logging operations, the end of the damages caused by the 2016 storms and the absence of weather events,” said Jorge Rickards, head of WWF Mexico. But small-scale illegal logging in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve saw a slight rise, with about 3.5 acres of forest lost.



Reconciliation

The quality of ultrasonic chatter between California mice after one in a pair has been unfaithful seems to determine how successful the couple will be at producing and nurturing a litter of pups, new research finds. California mice are fierce and pretty much monogamous once bonded in their scrubby woodland habitats of California and northern Mexico. But researchers introduced “cheating” by moving some females to briefly live with a new male before being placed back with the original mate.



Existential threat

A group of the world’s most preeminent climate experts warned that only rapid and large-scale measures to stem the pace of global warming can prevent severe food shortages, submerged coastal areas and catastrophic weather events in as soon as the next 20 to 40 years. The Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change announced at a meeting in South Korea that holding the warming to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels could make a life-or-death difference for many. That level is likely to be surpassed between 2030 and 2052 unless there is an investment to immediately start eliminating most greenhouse gas emissions.


• Extreme Temperatures: -83°F South Pole, Antarctica; 110°F Hyderabad, Sindh, Pakistan(NB: this is NOT Hyderabad in India)

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October 08, 2018 (for the week ending October 5)



Earthquakes

• Well over 1,000 people perished on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi when a magnitude 7.5 temblor caused violent ground motion and a subsequent tsunami that devastated the city of Palu.
• Earth movements were also felt on the Indonesian island of Flores [magnitude 5.0] and in the interior parts of Southern California [1.9].



Tropical cyclones

• Powerful Typhoon Trami killed four people and injured more than 120 others as it raked the heart of Japan.
• Typhoon Kong-Rey approached southern Japan and South Korea.
• Hurricanes Walaka and Sergio churned the eastern Pacific.
• Remnants of Hurricane Rosa unleashed flooding in Mexico and the southwestern U.S. desert.
• Hurricane Leslie formed in the Atlantic.



Fiery eruptions

• Mexico City was dusted by volcanic ash after Popocatepetl volcano produced 183 emissions of ash and vapor during a 24-hour period.
• Mount Soputan spewed ash over Indonesia’s Sulawesi Island following the disastrous magnitude 7.5 quake that struck nearby.



Cats vs. rats

The first study to look at how talented feral cats are at killing wild rats found that the felines just aren’t very good at that task. Writing in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, lead researcher Michael H. Parsons of Fordham University said the findings add to the growing evidence that any benefit of using cats to control city rats is outweighed by the threat they pose to birds and other urban wildlife. Earlier studies found that cats prefer smaller, defenseless prey such as birds and smaller native wildlife, which makes cats a threat to urban ecosystems.



Canine smarts

Dog lovers around the world may be disappointed to hear that researchers have found that “man’s best friend” is probably not as smart as they think. “Dogs are special, but they’re not exceptional,” said Britta Osthaus of Canterbury Christ Church University. “They’re smart, but they’re not stand-out smart.” She and Stephen Lea compared the brain power of dogs with wolves, bears, lions and hyenas, and found that the abilities of canines were at least matched by several species in each group. “We are doing dogs no favor by expecting too much of them,” Osthaus said.



Bovine gas control

The burps and flatulence of cows contribute about 4 percent of all greenhouse gas created worldwide, but a Swiss company is touting a way to reduce those bovine emissions. Co-founder of Agolin, Kurt Schaller, told Reuters that his company’s special feed can cut those gases by about 10 percent per cow. Schaller told the agency that trials have shown its product also helps increase milk yield and feed efficiency. The company says this is achieved by using additives based on botanical compounds.



Summer melt

The Arctic’s sea ice melted to its sixth-lowest coverage on record in late September. The annual minimum of 1.77 million square miles measured on Sept. 19 and 23 followed the second-lowest-ever wintertime expanse seen earlier this year. “This year’s minimum is relatively high compared to the record low extent we saw in 2012, but it is still low compared to what it used to be in the 1970s, 1980s and even the 1990s,” said Claire Parkinson, a climate change senior scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
Sea ice around the North Pole has started to expand again as the long Arctic winter is settling in.


• Extreme Temperatures: -86°F South Pole, Antarctica; 113°F Yenbo, Saudi Arabia

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October 01, 2018 (for the week ending September 28)



Earthquakes

• A [magnitude 3.8] tremor along the Pakistan-India border sent people rushing out of homes and other buildings.
• Earth movements were also felt in the northwest Sumatra [magnitude 5.0], southern Greece [5.2] and southern New Hampshire [1.9].



Tropical cyclones

• Typhoon Trami made landfall Sunday in Japan. More than 750,000 homes lost power.
• The Solomon Islands were hit by Tropical Storm Liua.
• Tropical storms Leslie and Kirk developed over the Atlantic.
• Hurricane Rosa passed to the west of Mexico.



Fiery eruptions

A mud volcano erupted outside the Azerbaijan capital of Baku, sending plumes of smoke and flames nearly 1,000 feet into the sky. The Otman-Bozdag volcano is said to be the world’s second-largest, but it posed no threat to populated areas. Mud volcanoes are smaller than their lava-producing counterparts.



Warming demand

Utility companies may underestimate how much electricity will be needed to power the increased use of air conditioners worldwide as the planet warms, a new study finds. Scientists from the University at Buffalo and Purdue University say they have found a better way to predict the need for energy, based on more accurate predictors that include mean dew point temperatures and extreme maximum temperatures. “Existing energy demand models haven’t kept pace with our increasing knowledge of how the climate is changing,” said lead researcher Sayanti Mukherjee. Underestimating future needs could result in more power failures, threatening our high-tech economy and national security, she warns.



Squirrel scourge

Farmers in New England are vexed by unusually large numbers of squirrels that are gnawing through pumpkin patches, corn fields and apple orchards this fall. Robert Randall, who has a 60-acre orchard in Standish, Maine, told The Associated Press: “They’re raising some hell this year. It’s the worst I’ve ever seen.” The squirrel population boom appears to have been fueled by a bumper crop of acorns and other food, according to the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department. Growers say one of the more infuriating aspects of the squirrels is that they often take a single bite then move on. But just one bite is all it takes to ruin fruit. The rodents are being killed in greater numbers by passing vehicles as they dart to find their next meal.



Flood frequency

The recently reported surge in rainfall across the Amazon Basin over the past few decades is triggering a significant increase in the frequency and severity of floods across that region. While the frequency of Amazon droughts has also increased, researchers from Britain and Chile found that severe floods that once swamped the Brazilian city of Manaus roughly every 20 years now occur on average every four years. The more frequent inundations contaminate water supplies and spread disease as they destroy homes, agriculture and livelihoods.



A 'perfect storm'

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that the latest Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo could spread quickly across the northeast of the country and beyond due to attacks by armed rebel groups and local resistance to vaccination in the area where the disease has already spread. The U.N. agency says this "perfect storm" of conditions could mean the hemorrhagic fever could go on to kill far more than the 100 people who have already died in the outbreak, out of about 150 reported cases. The WHO has been forced to suspend its operations in one city due to a rebel attack that killed 21 people and caused the community to shut down in mourning.


• Extreme Temperatures: -91°F South Pole, Antarctica; 114°F Al Qaysumah, Saudi Arabia

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September 24, 2018 (for the week ending September 21)



Earthquakes

• The Solomon Islands were rocked by a magnitude 5.8 quake that struck in the middle of the night.
• Earth movements were also felt in the southern Philippines [magnitude 4.6], southwestern Australia [5.6], western Denmark [3.4], western Iceland [4.2] and Jamaica [4.6].



Tropical cyclones

• About 100 people are feared dead in the Philippines from mudslides, flooding and high winds from Super Typhoon Mangkhut. The storm later struck Hong Kong as the strongest there on record.
• Hurricane Florence unleashed catastrophic flooding across the Carolinas and parts of Virginia.



Obsolete warnings

Experts are cautioning that climate change and the apparent amplified flooding it brought during hurricanes Harvey and Florence may mean that the Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity is obsolete. Because Florence was repeatedly downgraded from its earlier Category-4 force before landfall, some Carolinians ignored evacuation orders only to become trapped by floods. “There’s more to the story than the category,” said hurricane expert Brian McNoldy. “While you may still have a roof on your house because it’s only a Category 1, you may also be desperately hoping to get rescued from that same roof because of the flooding.”



Mixed company

A lone narwhal has been spotted swimming in eastern Canada’s St. Lawrence River, 600 miles south of its typical habitat, apparently welcomed by a pod of beluga whales as one of their own. The two species are closely related and are about the same size. But narwhals have a single pointed tusk sprouting from their heads. Researchers from the Group for Research and Education on Marine Mammals (GREMM) say the narwhal is even beginning to pick up beluga behavior, such as blowing bubbles. GREMM experts speculate that the new narwhal-beluga relationship may be due to climate change, and could occur more often as the Arctic warms further.



El Niño returning?

Weather agencies around the world predict there is a 60 to 70 percent chance the weather-altering phenomenon El Ni&ntidle;o will emerge during the next two months. The last time the ocean-warming stretched across the tropical Pacific was in late 2015 into 2016. It was among the strongest on record and caused weather-related crop damage, wildfires and disastrous flooding in various parts of the planet. But researchers say they don’t expect the new one to be as intense. A recent study predicts that climate change is altering the dynamics of El Niño and its ocean-cooling counterpart, La Niña, making their weather impacts more severe as the planet warms.



Squirrel knot

Five infant squirrels that got their tails caught together in a giant knot were rescued and untied by the Wisconsin Humane Society.
They were taken to the group’s vets by someone who came across the bizarre scene of their tails caught in what the rescuers called a “Gordian knot” of squirrel tail and nest material. “You can imagine how wiggly and unruly (and nippy!) this frightened, distressed ball of squirrelly energy was, so our first step was to anesthetize all five of them at the same time,” the Humane Society said. The squirrels were frazzled but unharmed by the experience.



Airborne plastic

Mosquitoes could be eating tiny bits of plastic pollution and carrying them to contaminate new food chains and ecosystems.
Amanda Callaghan and her team at the University of Reading say the insects could already be mistaking the microplastics for food.
“It occurred to us that aquatic insects might carry plastics out of the water if they were able to keep the plastics in their body through their development,” they wrote in the journal Biology Letters. After feeding fluorescent plastic beads to mosquito larvae, the researchers observed the microplastics eventually wound up in some adult mosquitoes’ guts and livers.


• Extreme Temperatures: -106°F South Pole, Antarctica; 116°F Ai Ahsa, Saudi Arabia

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September 17, 2018 (for the week ending September 14)



Earthquakes

• A [magnitude 6.2] temblor caused scattered damage and blackouts across Ecuador.
• One person was killed when a magnitude 5.5 quake damaged buildings in several villages across southeastern Iran.
• Earth movements were also felt in southwestern Turkey [magnitude 5.2], northern India [4.3] and the far southern Philippines [6.1].



Tropical cyclones

• Hurricane Florence brought disastrous flooding and wind damage to the southeastern United States.
• Super Typhoon Mangkhut raked the U.S. Pacific territory of the Northern Mariana Islands, then took aim on the northern Philippines as a Category 5 storm.
• Tropical Storm Barijat was the latest in a series of storms to drench southern China and neighboring Vietnam this summer.
• Hurricane Helene and tropical storms Joyce and Isaac churned the open waters of the Atlantic.
• Hawaii received heavy rain from former Hurricane Olivia while Tropical Storm Paul formed off Mexico.



Habitat ascent

A warming climate appears to be driving alpine species ever farther upslope in an effort to stay cool.
New research by the University of British Columbia examined the elevation range of 975 species of plants, insects and animals. It found that every 1 degree Celsius (1.8°F) rise in average temperature sent mountaintop species upslope by 330 feet.
The migration also resulted in dramatic drops in available habitat, which led to decreased wildlife populations.
“This supports predictions that global warming could eventually drive extinctions among species at the top,” says Benjamin Freeman, lead author of the study.



Wetter warming

The rise in ocean temperatures brought on by climate change is altering the world’s rainfall patterns.
A team from China and Brazil examined how a warmer Atlantic, and more moisture from the Pacific, have increased the annual rainfall in the Amazon Basin by 7 to 24 inches over the past three decades.
The warming oceans amplify the evaporation from the sea, especially off the coast of South America, causing Amazon rainfall to increase.
When that rain evaporates, the moisture is carried by wind to other parts of the planet to again fall as rain.



Whaling wins

A nearly two-decade effort to create a whale sanctuary across the southern Atlantic was shot down by pro-whaling nations at the fractious International Whaling Commission meeting in Brazil.
While 39 countries backed establishing a haven for the marine mammals, 25 voted against it, including Russia and pro-whaling Japan, along with commercial whaling nations Iceland and Norway. This caused the vote to fall short of the required three-quarters majority.



Desert greening

Building solar and wind farms across the vast Sahara Desert could cause a lot more rain to fall throughout the arid region and allow more plants to grow.
The Sahara Solar Breeder Project aims to power half the world by 2050 with massive solar panel farms.
A team led by scientists from the University of Maryland also found that adding wind turbines to the mix would create rougher and darker land surfaces across the Sahara, causing more rain to fall.



'Dancing' fad

A pod of wild Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins off Australia is slowly giving up an amazing behavior picked up from “Billie,” a dolphin that learned to “tail walk” on the water while she was held in captivity. Once Billie returned to the wild in 1988, other dolphins copied her behavior, seemingly to impress other animals, according to marine mammal experts.
But now that Billie and the first dolphins to copy the trick are dead, the remaining dolphins in the pod aren’t doing it nearly as often.


• Extreme Temperatures: -101°F Vostok, Antarctica; 116°F Hassi Messaoud, Algeria

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September 10, 2018 (for the week ending September 07)



Earthquakes

• Japan’s Hokkaido Island was struck by a magnitude 6.6 quake that killed at least nine people and left residents trapped inside homes buried by landslides. Power was knocked out to nearly 3 million homes.
• Earth movements were also felt in far western China [magnitude 5.0], the western Philippines [5.2], central Greece [5.0], Portugal [4.8], western Scotland [2.5] and the San Francisco Bay Area [3.5].



Tropical cyclones

• At least 11 people were killed across western Japan by Typhoon Jebi’s high winds and record flooding unleashed by the storm’s powerful rain bands.
• The central U.S. Gulf Coast and Midwest were raked by rapidly moving Tropical Storm Gordon.
• Hurricane Norman passed well to the east of the Hawaiian Islands, while Hurricane Olivia churned the eastern Pacific.
• Hurricane Florence formed over the open waters of the mid-Atlantic.



Alaska rumblings

Unrest at one of Alaska’s largest and most active volcanoes prompted officials to elevate the alert level for Mount Veniaminof. The Alaska Volcano Observatory said the 8,225-foot volcano suddenly began to rumble and spew small ash plumes that rose 10,000 feet above the Alaska Peninsula.



'Ghost' lobster

A Maine fisherman famous for catching lobsters with unusual colorations hauled in one with a genetic condition called leucism, which causes a loss of pigmentation. Mike Billings caught the ghostlike crustacean off the coast of Stonington and said he threw it back into the ocean after photographing it because it was too small. It’s estimated that the odds of pulling in a ghost lobster are about 100 million-to-1. But Billings also caught an equally rare calico lobster in 2014, as well as one with a blue claw.



Outlaw whaling

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) announced that Japan killed more than 50 minke whales in an Antarctic marine protection area this year as it continued to ignore a ruling to halt its “research whaling.”
Fishing is restricted in that part of the Southern Ocean to protect marine life, including blue, humpback, minke and killer whales, along with emperor penguins and Weddell seals. WWF said that Japan killed a total of 333 minke whales off Antarctica this year, including 122 pregnant females. In 2014, the International Court of Justice ruled that Japan should cancel all existing “scientific whaling” permits in the Southern Ocean. But the country continues to issue itself new permits, and plans to do so until 2027.



Warming urgency

A United Nations official warned that governments are not on track to meet a goal of the 2015 Paris agreement to cap global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6°F) before the end of this century. Patricia Espinosa, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, said governments as well as the private sector now need to act swiftly to avert the “catastrophic effects” of climate change.
Espinosa said of the recent deadly heat and resulting firestorms around the Northern Hemisphere, “It really does make the evidence clear that climate change is having an impact on the daily lives of people.”



Rat fever

The worst monsoon flooding in a century across the southern Indian state of Kerala is triggering an outbreak of waterborne bacterial diseases, including one known locally as rat fever.
Dozens of people have been killed by leptospirosis after being exposed through the urine of infected rodents and other animals flowing in the floodwaters.


• Extreme Temperatures: -103°F Vostok, Antarctica; 118°F Al Qaysumah, Saudi Arabia

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September 03, 2018 (for the week ending August 31)



Earthquakes

• Two people were killed and 255 others were injured by a magnitude 6.0 temblor centered in far western Iran, near the border with Iraq.
• Earth movements were also felt around Timor Sea [magnitude 6.2], Guam and the northern Mariana Islands [6.4], New Caledonia [7.1], southeastern Peru [7.1] and Southern California [4.4].



Tropical cyclones

• Hurricane Lane drenched parts of Hawaii with the third-highest rainfall tally from any tropical cyclone in the United States since 1950. Rainfall of between 3 and 4 feet in some locations unleashed widespread flooding.
• Tropical Storm Miriam and Hurricane Norman churned the Pacific between Mexico and Hawaii.
• Typhoon Jebi moved steadily across the open waters of the western Pacific.



Sicilian eruption

Mount Etna produced a colorful eruption that sent fountains of lava shooting hundreds of feet into the Sicilian sky. Lava also snaked down the volcano’s slopes, accompanied by plumes of ash.



Climate-sick

Man-made climate change is so pervasive that it is making people sick, a leading expert warns. Beyond the heat-related deaths and illnesses around the Northern Hemisphere this summer, Dr. Sandro Galea, dean of Boston University School of Public Health, says the warming climate is also sending disease-carrying insects into new territories. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that ailments caused by flea and tick bites tripled in the U.S. between 2004 and 2016, with Maine seeing a 20-fold increase in cases of tick-borne Lyme disease. Writing in HuffPost, Galea describes climate change as acting like a disease, with symptoms that include polluted air, flooded streets, burning forests and death.



Porpoise chat

A lone common dolphin believed to be separated from his group along western Scotland’s Firth of Clyde may have learned to “talk” with a group of local harbor porpoises. Researcher Mel Cosentino of the University of Strathclyde has been recording sounds from the dolphin, dubbed “Kylie,” and finds he has changed the frequency of his communication clicks to closely match those of his new porpoise companions. “We want to see whether he is imitating the porpoises, like when we bark back at a dog, or there is something else going on,” said Cosentino. She tells the BBC that further studies will soon reveal whether Kylie is really communicating or just imitating.



CO2 capture

A Swiss company has received a $31 million investment to suck carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in an expensive process that uses high-tech filters and fans. Climeworks AG says it costs about $600 to extract a ton of carbon from the air, but the company hopes to bring down the cost enough to pull out 1 percent of man-made CO₂ emissions by 2025. Scientists believe that only a combination of eliminating greenhouse gas emissions and extracting existing CO₂ from the air can reduce the effects of climate change brought on by the burning of fossil fuels.



Kelp allure

Undersea kelp forests are being transformed by warming oceans, affecting the species that rely on them for food and shelter. “The warm-water kelp Laminaria ochroleuca was actually first detected in the U.K. in the late 1940s, but is now a common sight along the southwest coast,” said Dan Smale of Britain’s Plymouth University. The warmer water and resulting northward expansion of the kelp is causing warm-water fish to move north too. It’s also allowing the cool-water species they are displacing to migrate into Arctic waters that are rapidly becoming warmer.


• Extreme Temperatures: -116°F Vostok, Antarctica; 115°F Al Qaysumah, Saudi Arabia

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August 27, 2018 (for the week ending August 24)



Earthquakes

• A swarm of temblors on Indonesia’s quake-ravaged Lombok Island killed 12 more people while causing more damage. [The largest quake in this series had a 6.9 magnitude].
• Venezuela’s strongest tremor in years [a magnitude 7.3] damaged buildings across the north of the country and in Trinidad.
• A sharp [magnitude 5.3] quake damaged buildings in eastern Italy.
• Earth movements were also felt in Vanuatu [magnitude 6.9] and along the Costa Rica-Panama border [6.1].



Tropical cyclones

• Hawaii was on alert for powerful Hurricane Lane, which was approaching the islands from the south after earlier being a Category-5 storm.
• Japan’s Honshu Island was hit by former Category-3 Typhoon Cimaron, which triggered flash floods across a country still recovering from storms earlier this summer.
• Typhoon Soulik skirted Japan’s southernmost islands before dousing a wide swath of the Korean Peninsula.
• Tropical Storm Rumbia gave the area around Shanghai a good soaking.



Eruptive pause

Lava flows from Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano have slowed to a creep, but volcanologists warn such pauses have lasted for days, weeks and even months in past eruptions.



"Stuck" weather

Recent extended heat waves across Europe, North America and Asia are being driven by stalled weather patterns that are becoming more frequent due to record Arctic warmth, according to a new study by a team of international researchers. It points to the polar region warming more quickly than any other part of the planet, and that is slowing the jet stream and other large-scale planetary winds. This means areas of high and low barometric pressure are getting stuck in the middle latitudes, resulting in longer periods of extreme weather, including heat waves. Writing in the journal Nature Communications, the researchers say the more frequently stalled patterns turn sunny days into heat waves, dry conditions into wildfires and rains into floods.



Drought Refugees

Australia’s worst dry spell in a generation is sending flocks of emus into Outback towns in search of food and water. The large, flightless birds have even taken refuge in the streets of Broken Hill, where residents are providing them with food and water. While emus have been sighted before in the mining town about 580 miles west of Sydney, they have never been seen in such great numbers. “Now they’re actually walking down our main street. We’re seeing mobs of them,” said animal rescue spokeswoman Emma Singleton.



Skyglow 'Steve'

A new type of phenomenon that appears as ribbons of purple-and-white light in the sky is not an actual aurora, despite being dubbed aurora “Steve” by the scientific community in 2016. While it has been photographed for decades, scientists only recently found that its light is different from typical auroras. Those researchers say they still are not sure exactly what causes Steve to shine, and have called it a “skyglow” to distinguish it from an aurora. The light from Steve appears only a few times per year and has been seen farther south than auroras.



Floating Farm

Cows may be grazing on a floating “farm” in the middle of the Dutch Port of Rotterdam as soon as the end of this year in a scheme that aims to reduce the distance food travels before it reaches the consumer. The Dutch company Beladon will initially place 40 cows onboard, which will be milked by robots. The three- level facility is expected to produce more than 210 gallons of milk each day. “At least 80 percent of what our cows eat will be waste products from Rotterdam’s food industry,” says farm general manager Albert Boersen. The cow manure will be sold as fertilizer.


• Extreme Temperatures: -100°F Vostok, Antarctica; 122°F Death Valley, CA

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August 20, 2018 (for the week ending August 17)



Earthquakes

• A magnitude 5.1 temblor damaged buildings in northern Albania.
• Eighteen people were injured as buildings were wrecked by a sharp [magnitude 5.0] quake in China’s Yunnan province.
• A remote stretch of Alaska’s North Slope was jolted by the strongest quake there on record. [The quake had a magnitude of 6.4]/
• A mild [magnitude 4.4] tremor was felt across Southern California.
  NB: The term tremor is often used in the news but does not describe tectonic earthquakes such as are listed here.



Tropical cyclones

• More than 200,000 residents were evacuated along the coast of China’s Zhejiang province before Typhoon Yagi caused local flooding, beach erosion and wind damage.
• Tropical Storm Bebinca looped across the South China Sea off Hong Kong before drenching China’s southern Guangdong and Hubai provinces. It finally dissipated over northern Vietnam.
• Leepi briefly attained typhoon force before passing over far southern Japan and the southeastern corner of the Korean Peninsula as a tropical storm.
• Subtropical Storm Ernesto churned the far North Atlantic.



Volcanic crisis

The ongoing eruption of Vanuatu’s Manaro Voui volcano has created a large-scale humanitarian crisis as local and international teams work to evacuate everyone from the island of Ambae. Thick ash is blanketing most of the island, where terrified residents say they can’t even see the sun. Officials say the eruption has caused widespread damage, increased respiratory illness and poisoned water supplies while killing crops.



Island lift

Satellite images reveal that the Indonesian island of Lombok was lifted upward by 10 inches in some places during the devastating Aug. 5 temblor that killed more than 460 people.



Arachnid warming

Climate change is causing some spiders to grow much larger in a warmer Arctic environment and others to spread farther north in Canada than ever seen before. Canadian researchers used photos from citizen scientists to document how the range of black widow spiders is now about 31 miles farther north than 60 years ago. Scientists on Alaska’s North Slope say the recent record warmth in the Arctic may lead to larger and more active wolf spiders. The researchers believe the spider may be altering its diet in the warmer tundra, now eating less of an insect species that thrives on fungus. As a result, that insect is eating more fungus, which curbs the amount of fungal decomposition, and greenhouse gas released in the process.



Roo invasion

Some of the Australian capital’s frostiest and driest wintertime weather on record has sent mobs of kangaroos hopping into town from the surrounding countryside in search of food. Very little rain around Canberra during June and July has left hardly any fresh vegetation for the marsupials to eat. So the few remaining green lawns, sports fields and schoolyards in the city have proven to be irresistible to the roos. A lone kangaroo halted play twice at a soccer field during a National Premier League match in Canberra.



SPF parasol

Climate change has made parts of Japan so broiling hot over the past two summers than one prefecture (state) government just northwest of Tokyo is urging its male citizens to use parasols, or umbrellas, to keep from falling ill during the hot spells. The scheme was first promoted by 20 male officials from Saitama Prefecture, who sported the UV parasols in public and posted images of themselves with them on social media. Stores later reported a surge in sales of parasols among men in their 50s to their 70s.


• Extreme Temperatures: -89°F Vostok, Antarctica; 119°F Death Valley, CA

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August 13, 2018 (for the week ending August 10)



Earthquakes

• More than 300 people perished on the Indonesian resort island of Lombok when a sharp [magnitude 6.9] temblor and strong aftershocks wrecked buildings, leaving 270,000 people homeless.
• Earth movements were also felt in northeastern Japan [magnitude 5.6] and the desert resorts of Southern California [3.2].



Tropical cyclones

• Typhoon Shanshan skirted metropolitan Tokyo and northeastern Japan as a Category 1 storm only a week after Typhoon Jongdari lashed central and southern parts of the country.
• Powerful Hurricane Hector passed just to the south of Hawaii’s Big Island.
• The eastern Pacific was churned by Hurricane John and tropical storms Ileana and Kristy.
• Subtropical Storm Debby formed briefly over the northern Atlantic Ocean.



Child of Krakatau

Indonesia’s Anak Krakatau volcano produced a series of 49 blasts that were accompanied by ash plumes and fountains of lava on an island between Java and Sumatra. The volcano, also known as Child of Krakatau, emerged from the caldera formed in 1883 after the famed Mount Krakatau produced the most deadly volcanic event in modern history. Anak Krakatau has grown an average of 5 inches per week since the 1950s and now towers above the Sunda Strait. Its current eruptive phase began in 1994.



Hothouse Earth

Climate scientists issued some of their most dire predictions to date on global warming, cautioning that the planet risks soon becoming “Hothouse Earth” if carbon emissions aren’t curbed. Researchers from across Europe and Australia say without swift action, a lasting and dangerous “hothouse” state could be only decades away. “Places on Earth will become uninhabitable if ‘Hothouse Earth’ becomes the reality,” said co-author Johan Rockstrom of Stockholm University. The warnings come as locations around the Northern Hemisphere have experienced their hottest temperatures on record this summer.



Alcohol resistance

At least one of the multidrug-resistant “superbugs” that are notoriously difficult to treat in humans is becoming resistant to the alcohol widely used in hand washes and sanitizers. An Australian study looked at bacterial samples of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE) collected between 1997 and 2015 from two Melbourne hospitals. They found those collected after 2009 were on average more resistant to alcohol than those taken before 2004. But Paul Johnson, an infectious diseases specialist involved in the study, says the finding doesn’t mean anyone should stop using alcohol-based disinfectants.



Heat refugees

Temperatures have soared so high in Norway’s Arctic region this summer that reindeer are taking shelter from the heat in traffic tunnels and in other shaded places. The Norwegian Public Roads Administration took the unusual measure of urging motorists to be on the lookout for the tundra grazers after at least 44 traffic collisions with reindeer and sheep occurred during July.



Lost wilderness

Only 13 percent of the world’s oceans remain untouched by such human influences as shipping, pollution and fishing, according to an international team of researchers. Writing in the journal Current Biology, they determined that the areas remaining “mostly free of human disturbance” are now almost entirely in the Arctic and Antarctic, and around some isolated Pacific islands.


• Extreme Temperatures: -80°F Vostok, Antarctica; 122°F Death Valley, CA

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August 6, 2018 (for the week ending August 3)



Earthquakes

• At least 14 people were killed on the Indonesian island of Lombok when a magnitude 6.4 temblor wrecked buildings.
• Earth movement was also felt in northeastern Japan [magnitude 5.4] and the San Francisco Bay Area [3.7].



Tropical cyclones

• Typhoon Jongdari lashed Japan, abruptly ending a heat wave that had brought the country its hottest weather on record.
• Tropical Storm Gilma and Hurricane Hector churned the eastern Pacific.



Island eruption

Vanuatu’s restive Manaro Voui volcano erupted with such force that residents across the entire island of Ambae were told to evacuate for the second time in less than a year. Ash blanketed homes and crops, polluting local water supplies. One resident said noise from the eruption made it hard to sleep, and that ash was aggravating her child’s asthma.



Not a "wholphin"

Researchers in Hawaii spotted a hybrid between a melon-headed whale and a rough-toothed dolphin off the island of Kauai. Confirmed through DNA analysis, it is the first such hybrid found in the wild. But because the so-called melon-headed whale is actually a species of dolphin, “calling it something like a wholphin doesn’t make any sense,” said Robin Baird, one of the Washington state-based Cascadia Research Collective researchers involved in the discovery. The hybrid was traveling with a single melon-headed whale, and the pair was “found associating with rough-toothed dolphins.” The team says that the single male hybrid doesn’t mean a new species is emerging.



Iceberg jam

A massive chunk of Antarctic ice that broke off the Larsen C ice shelf about a year ago has become stuck, and it’s banging up against an ice promontory called the Bawden ice rise. The giant iceberg, about the size of Delaware, traveled 27 miles to the northeast before becoming trapped. Such icebergs are typically carried northward into the Atlantic by currents and wind, where they slowly melt. Scientists say the battering of the ice rise by the iceberg could erode the Bawden’s ability to stabilize the nearby Larsen C. If that Antarctic ice shelf were destabilized, it could lead to the collapse of the rest of the shelf, resulting in a significant rise in sea level.



Vanishing penguins

The population of king penguins in what was once the world’s largest colony has plummeted by nearly 90 percent over the last 35 years, and scientists say they don’t know why. The Île aux Cochons colony in the southern Indian Ocean was also once the second-largest colony of all penguins. But satellite images revealed the number of birds there dropped from 502,400 breeding pairs in 1982 to 59,200 in April 2017. Scientists say overfishing, feral cats and invasive diseases or parasites could be responsible for the disappearing penguins in the remote French territory.



Hotter climate

The type of hemispheric heat waves baking large swaths of the Northern Hemisphere this summer are among the most likely consequences of climate change, according to U.K. researchers. July was the hottest in Sweden for at least 250 years. A team led by Friederike Otto of the University of Oxford says such heat is at least twice as likely due to global warming. The soaring temperatures “are consistent with what we expect as a result of climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions,” said Elena Manaenkova of the World Meteorological Organization.


• Extreme Temperatures: -78°F Vostok, Antarctica; 127°F Death Valley, CA

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July 30, 2018 (for the week ending July 27)



Earthquakes

• The strongest in a series of quakes to strike Iran damaged buildings and injured nearly 290 people near the Iraq border. [The quake had a magnitude of 5.9]
• Earth movement was also felt in northern Israel [magnitude 2.8], central New Zealand [5.2], northern Baja California [4.6] and central Oklahoma [3.4].



Tropical cyclones

• At least 27 people in northern Vietnam perished in flash floods triggered by Tropical Storm Son-Tinh.
• High winds from Tropical Storm Ampil halted air transport around Shanghai.
• Typhoon Jongdari threatened to strike central Japan late in the week.
• Typhoon Wukong formed briefly east of Japan.



Global heat

Record-breaking heat around the Northern Hemisphere killed scores of people and sparked wildfires that caused more to perish. More than 25,000 others from Japan and Canada to Europe were sent to hospitals suffering from heat-related illnesses. The unprecedented heat in Japan produced a maximum temperature of 106 degrees Fahrenheit — a record there. Livestock in Sweden are being slaughtered because the heat has left farmers with no hay to feed them. Wildfires in Greece, described as a “biblical disaster,” killed at least 81 people and sent trapped tourists and residents fleeing into the ocean to escape the flames.



'Natural' plastic

Scientists have manufactured what they call an eco-friendly plastic wrap using material from crab shells and tree fibers. The researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology describe it as a more sustainable replacement for flexible plastic wrap used to keep food fresh. It’s created with alternating laters of cellulose from wood and chitin found in shellfish. Biomolecular engineer Carson Meredith says there is a “huge market opportunity for renewable and compostable packaging … as the population continues to grow.” He said the new wrap allows even less oxygen through than conventional petroleum-based materials, meaning food can be kept fresher longer.



Plastic waves

Large waves of plastic pollution washed onto the coast of the Dominican Republic, prompting officials to dispatch more than 500 workers to remove the debris from a beach in the capital of Santo Domingo. More than 1,000 tons of plastic waste, including bottles and foam takeout boxes mixed with seaweed, were hauled away. The debris was said to have washed onto the beach from a nearby polluted river. Parley for the Oceans, a group working to reduce plastic waste in the world’s oceans, says the phenomenon occurs in many developing nations with a coastline.



Current contradiction

A new study says that the slowdown of the massive Atlantic Ocean circulation during the past decade does not mean the intricate conveyer belt of currents is collapsing due to climate change. The circulation affects the climate and makes Northern Europe far more temperate than it otherwise would be. There had been concerns that a collapse of the circulation could lead to more extreme climate changes. But scientists from the University of Washington and the Ocean University of China say they have found the recent slowdown is part of a regular, decades-long cycle that will affect temperatures until it shifts gears and increases again as the climate warms even further.



Night fliers

Dozens of intoxicated gulls have been staggering and losing their balance along the coasts of southwestern and southern England this summer. Wildlife officials say the birds are getting drunk after feeding on waste products from a local brewery or alcohol producer. One rescue center said it had taken in about 20 of the tipsy gulls during a two-week period. “The birds absolutely stink of alcohol when we collect them, so now our vans smell like pubs,” said Jo Daniel of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals


• Extreme Temperatures: -92°F South Pole, Antarctica; 127°F Death Valley, CA

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July 23, 2018 (for the week ending July 20)



Earthquakes

• Christchurch was soundly shaken by a magnitude 4.2 quake that was a sharp reminder of the 2010 and 2011 temblors that wrecked areas around the southern New Zealand city.
• Earth movement was also felt in Vanuatu [magnitude 6.4] and the San Francisco Bay Area [3.0] .



Tropical cyclones

• Regenerated Tropical Storm Beryl spun up north of Bermuda from remnants of the former short-lived hurricane.
• Tropical Storm Son-Tinh drenched parts of southern China and northern Vietnam.



Volcanoes

• A lava “bomb” from Hawaii’s erupting Kilauea volcano injured 23 people after the molten projectile crashed through the roof of a tour boat near where the lava was flowing into the sea. The boat was described as “covered in lava” after an explosion occurred in the molten rock.
• Iceland’s civil and emergency management agency warned that the Oraefajokull volcano is showing fresh signs of unrest. Magma rising beneath the volcano is said to be comparable to what happened before nearby Eyjafjallajokull erupted in 2010, disrupting trans-Atlantic aviation.



Earth's coldest

While Russia’s Vostok Antarctic research station holds the record for the coldest inhabited location on Earth and often comes in as the week’s coldest place, scientists have discovered even colder venues on the Antarctic Plateau. Vostok’s record of minus 129 degrees, set on July 23, 1983, is eclipsed in places where temperatures can regularly plummet to minus 144 degrees, in small hollows in the ice about 6 to 10 feet deep on the southern sides of ridges. The discovery was made by examining thermal data from NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites.



No 'Day Zero'

The day that taps run dry in South Africa’s drought-stricken Cape Town now looks a lot less likely to arrive, thanks to recent heavy rains that have replenished the reservoirs of Western Cape province. Officials had warned residents earlier this year to prepare for “Day Zero,” when water mains would have to be turned off due to a drought that had parched much of southern Africa for two years. They now say that despite the welcome change in the weather, strict water restrictions will not be eased until reservoir levels reach 85 percent of capacity.



Revenge killings

An angry mob of Indonesian villagers slaughtered 292 crocodiles with machetes, hoes and clubs after one of the reptiles killed a man on a crocodile breeding farm. The victim had entered the farm and was picking grass to feed his cattle when attacked. After his burial, villagers stormed the farm and killed all the crocodiles, an act of savagery condemned by officials. The facility had a license to breed protected saltwater and New Guinea crocodiles for conservation, and also to harvest some of them.



Heat crisis

More than a billion people around the Northern Hemisphere struggle to escape the summertime heat now made more frequent and intense by climate change. The nonprofit Sustainable Energy for All group says that residents in Asia, Africa and Latin America will have to find affordable and efficient ways to stay cool as the planet warms even further. The initiative is led by former secretary-general of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon. Beyond finding cheap air conditioning and refrigeration for the poorer areas of the world, simpler solutions such as painting roofs white to reflect sunlight and redesigning buildings to allow heat to escape will also become necessary, the group says.


• Extreme Temperatures: -110°F Vostok, Antarctica; 124°F Death Valley, CA

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July 16, 2018 (for the week ending July 13)



Earthquakes

• An unusually sharp [magnitude 5.9] temblor knocked items off shelves in metropolitan Tokyo.
• An earth movement was also felt in northern Israel [magnitude 4.7].



Tropical cyclones

• Typhoon Maria briefly attained Category-5 force before striking Taiwan and eastern China.
• Beryl was briefly a hurricane before passing through the Windward Islands as a tropical storm.
• Hurricane Chris passed just off the Atlantic Seaboard.



Hotter heat

Heat records tumbled around the Northern Hemisphere from California to Europe and the Middle East, with disastrous wildfires being sparked in some areas. And while parts of the planet were cooler than average for this time of year, climate experts caution the trend toward more maximum temperature records being broken is a product of the planet getting increasingly warmer on average. There is mounting evidence that a warmer Arctic is altering the strength and pattern of the jet stream, meaning when heat waves set in, they tend to last longer. The more frequent and intense heat waves are proving to be deadly for the vulnerable and elderly, with more than a dozen deaths being blamed on the recent heat in Canada.



Where is summer?

Iceland has been on the opposite side of the hemispheric weather pattern that has brought Europe a scorching heart wave for weeks, with the island nation experiencing its grayest and wettest summer since 1914. According to Icelandic meteorologist Trausti Jonsson, the high pressure blanketing the continent with heat is also driving cooler and wetter winds over the far North Atlantic. Long-range outlooks don’t offer much hope for Iceland’s struggling ice-cream vendors, swimming pools and campsites.



New stone age

A small group of wild monkeys on a Panamanian island appears to have entered into its own version of the stone age, scientists say. While only a handful of the many white-faced capuchin monkeys that live on Jicaron have displayed the ability to use stones to crack open nuts and shellfish, they join only three other groups of nonhuman primates that have used stones for tools. Other species that appear to have learned the practice by chance are chimpanzees in West Africa, macaques in Thailand and other species of capuchins in South America. Until a few decades ago, it was believed humans were the only species to turn stones into tools.



Crashing the party

The rare sight of a southern right whale frolicking in New Zealand’s Wellington Harbor forced officials to postpone the city’s annual fireworks display. The untimely arrival of the marine mammal coincided with the Maori new year celebration known as Matariki. Concerns from experts that the flashes and sounds of the pyrotechnics could cause the whale to harm itself or the boats in the harbor loaded with people wanting to enjoy the festivities, prompted the event to be postponed for a week.



Electric propulsion

One scientist believes she has solved the centuries-old mystery of how spiders can launch themselves into air and fly on silken threads for hundreds of miles at heights of nearly 3 miles. Researcher Erica Morley at the University of Bristol found that Linyphiid spiders can detect electric fields, actually generate their own currents and use the fields to control their flights. Morley found that when an electric field was available to the spiders, they began a behavior known as tiptoeing, which is seen only when spiders are about to balloon. That’s a practice that involves straightening their legs, raising their abdomen and releasing silk.


• Extreme Temperatures: -112°F Vostok, Antarctica; 124°F Ouargla, Algeria

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July 09, 2018 (for the week ending July 06)



Earthquakes

• Greater New Delhi was jolted by a moderate [magnitude 4.0] tremor that sent people rushing into the streets.
• Earth movements were also felt in the northern Philippines [magnitude 5.4], southeastern England [2.4], western Mexico [5.9] and central Nebraska [4.1].



Tropical cyclones

• Southern parts of South Korea and Japan were drenched by passing Typhoon Prapiroon.
• Hurricane Fabio and Tropical Storm Emilia churned the eastern Pacific.



Balinese Eruption

Fresh eruptions at Bali’s Mount Agung volcano produced fountains of lava and plumes of ash that soared above the Indonesian resort island. The main airport shut down and hundreds evacuated. Nearby residents donned face masks as ash fell over villages, roads and forests.



Nature needs half

A group of 47 scientists is proposing that humankind set aside half of the planet in various kinds of reserves to protect Earth’s dwindling biodiversity. The Half Earth, or Nature Needs Half, goal proposes a global agreement similar to the Paris climate accord. A new report by the group says that businesses should join governments to increase the funding to protect Earth’s animal and plant species from the current $4 billion-$10 billion annually to $100 billion per year. “Corporations depend on the health of our ecosystems and are therefore at risk of losing the very foundations upon which their businesses rely,” explained co-author Thomas Dean of Colorado State University.



Deforestation

Forests covering an area roughly the size of the Philippines were cut down or burned to make way for farms from the Amazon Basin to the heart of Africa during 2017, according to an independent forest-monitoring organization. Global Forest Watch said tropical forests were felled at a rate equivalent to 40 soccer fields per minute last year. The greatest tree losses occurred in Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Indonesia, Madagascar and Malaysia. Norway’s environment minister described the losses to Reuters as “catastrophic” and a threat to efforts to slow global warming. Trees soak up the greenhouse gas CO2 from the atmosphere as they grow, but release it back into the air when they burn or decay.



Hippo cull

More than a thousand hippos are slated to be killed in Zambia over the next five years in an effort that the government insists is to control their numbers and to stop the spread of anthrax. Trophy hunters are being invited to kill up to five of the animals each for a fee of about $14,000. Zambia says hippos are susceptible to anthrax infection and can pass it on to humans who eat infected meat. But the animal rights charity Born Free says authorities have failed to provide enough evidence of hippo overpopulation to justify the cull.



'Drunken' kangaroos

Veterinarians in Australia believe they know why an increasing number of eastern gray kangaroos have been observed staggering as if drunk and dying across Victoria’s rural landscape. The experts from the University of Melbourne say the animals could be suffering from the effects of eating new shoots of phalaris grasses, also known as canary grass. The imported strain has been popular with some farmers even though it can cause similar symptoms in livestock, especially sheep. Vets say that since there is no cure, the kindest thing to do is to euthanize the suffering marsupials.


• Extreme Temperatures: -101°F Vostok, Antarctica; 121°F Ouargla, Algeria

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July 02, 2018 (for the week ending June 29)



Earthquakes

• Southern Greece was jolted by an unusually long magnitude 5.5 temblor beneath the Ionian Sea, just off the Peloponnese Peninsula.



Tropical cyclones

• Tropical cyclone activity around the world was unusually low, with only Tropical Storm Daniel forming briefly off the Baja California peninsula.



Eruptions

• Each in a series of blasts at the summit of Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano brought a force equivalent to a magnitude 5.3 earthquake over five consecutive days. Lava flowing into the Pacific Ocean from Kilauea during June expanded the Big Island by more than 400 acres.
• The latest in a series of eruptions since last October at southern Japan’s Mount Shinmoe volcano produced a column of ash and vapor.



Manta nursery

The world’s first known manta ray nursery has been discovered in the Gulf of Mexico, solving a mystery that had baffled scientists. Young mantas are virtually never seen swimming in the world’s oceans, leaving researchers with few clues about their early life. But a researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla worked with NOAA to pinpoint the manta nursery in the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, about 120 miles southeast of Houston.



Antarctic lift

The melting of heavy ice in West Antarctica is allowing the bedrock below to rise at a surprisingly fast rate, prompting scientists to suggest the trend could slow the rise of global sea levels. An international team of researchers found that part of Antarctica was rising by more than 1.6 inches yearly. The trend is likely to accelerate, potentially lifting the bedrock more than 26 feet higher by 2100. The rise may also stabilize the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which produces about 25 percent of all the global melting of land-based ice each year.



Wildebeest buffet

The world-famous wildebeest migration across East Africa is being slowed this year by a bounty of fresh grass left along the route by heavy rains that nourished the Serengeti last year, and again during much of May. The Tanzania Daily News reports the migration is nearly two months behind its typical pace, meaning the grazers are going to be considerably delayed in reaching Kenya’s Maasai Mara. The wildebeest crossings of the Grumeti and Mara rivers, typically during July, are popular safari attractions.



Microbe meal

A process designed by the Soviets during the cold war to create food for long-mission space travel is being touted for its potential to curb deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions and nitrogen pollution while feeding the world’s livestock. Researchers from the Potsdam Institute say protein-rich microbes could be harvested on an industrial scale to feed cattle, pigs and chickens, which munch through about half of all the feed cultivated on the world’s farmlands. “In practice, breeding microbes like bacteria, yeast, fungi or algae could substitute protein-rich crops like soybeans and cereals,” the institute said in a statement. Researchers estimate that replacing only 2 percent of livestock feed with the microbes could reduce global agricultural greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent.


• Extreme Temperatures: -97°F Vostok, Antarctica; 121°F Death Valley, California

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June 25, 2018 (for the week ending June 22)



Earthquakes

• At least five people perished when a strong [magnitude 5.5] temblor rocked metropolitan Osaka, Japan, toppling bookcases and walls onto victims. Hundreds of others were injured.
• Earth movements were also felt in northwestern Taiwan [magnitude 5.2], northern New Zealand [4.6], central Tunisia [3.6], southwestern Iceland [3.0] and southern Guatemala [5.6].



Tropical cyclones

• A long stretch of Mexico’s Pacific coast was drenched by Tropical Storm Carlotta, the third named storm of the eastern Pacific hurricane season.
• Tropical Storm Gaemi formed briefly near Japan’s southernmost islands.



Eruptions

• Lava from Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano has become hotter and more fluid, creating wider flows that can quickly reach the Pacific.
• An eruption of La Cumbre volcano sent lava flowing down its flanks on an uninhabited island in Galapagos National Park. The unique species that live on Fernandina were not immediately threatened.



Newly nocturnal

The expanding human influence on the world is causing many animal species to be more active at night, while most people are sleeping. “Humans are now this ubiquitous, terrifying force on the planet, and we are driving all the other mammals back into the nighttime,” said University of California Berkeley researcher Kaitlyn Gaynor. She and colleagues analyzed studies of 62 species on six continents and found that human activity, such as hunting and farming, triggered an increase of about 20 percent in nighttime activities. This includes animals that aren’t typically awake at night.



Flooded future

American coastal communities are flooding twice as often at high tide than they did just 30 years ago, with scientists warning that rising sea level may bring even worse inundations within the next two years. NOAA found that last year broke the record for “sunny day flooding,” with an average of six days of such tidal flooding across the 98 coastal areas monitored by the U.S. agency. Globally, sea level has risen about 3 inches since 1992. But NOAA warns the world’s oceans could rise more than 8 feet by the end of this century.



Ebola victory

Swift response by health officials appears to have “largely contained” an Ebola outbreak that emerged this year in parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A pilot program of administering a new Ebola vaccine to everyone who came in contact with known patients seems to have halted the spread, officials say. But as many as 28 people may have been killed by the disease since it re-emerged in early April.



Warming deadline

The United Nations will soon issue its most dire warning to date that the planet will exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming by around 2040, which was the most ambitious limit agreed to in the 2015 Paris agreement. Experts believe limiting global warming to that level would avert the most catastrophic effects of climate change. A draft obtained by Reuters of the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, due for publication in October, says only “rapid and far-reaching” changes in the world economy can restrict warming to 1.5 degrees. It states that renewable energies, such as wind, solar and hydro power, would have to surge more than 60 percent by 2050 to achieve that goal, along with a two-thirds reduction in the use of coal. Planting vast amounts of forests, and rapid technological advances, may also be needed to remove the accumulating carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the report will conclude.


• Extreme Temperatures: -84°F Vostok, Antarctica; 121°F Mecca, Saudi Arabia

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June 18, 2018 (for the week ending June 15)



Earthquakes

• Parts of England were soundly jolted by a moderate [magnitude 4.0] quake.
• Earth movements were also felt in Panama [magnitude 5.3], North Carolina [2.4] and Oklahoma [4.5].



Tropical cyclones

• Hurricanes Aletta and Bud churned the Pacific off Mexico.
• Tropical Storm Maliksi briefly formed off Japan.



Carbon collection

Recent advances in removing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the air have significantly brought down the cost, with one process having the ability to create synthetic fuel.
Carbon Engineering’s pilot facility in western Canada has been extracting about one ton of CO₂ per day at a cost of about $100 per ton, far less than the prevailing price of about $600 per ton. While the captured carbon can be stored in stone deep underground, Carbon Engineering says it can use renewable energy to take hydrogen from water and combine it with the collected carbon to create a synthetic liquid fuel. The Bill Gates-funded company says it is already making about one barrel a day with that process.



Antarctic rise

The loss of ice across Antarctica has added about a third of an inch to rising global sea levels since 1992, with two-fifths of that increase coming in the last five years. A new study says the loss is mainly due to the acceleration of glaciers in West Antarctica and the Antarctica Peninsula, and the reduced growth of the ice sheet in East Antarctica. The continent stores enough frozen water to raise global sea levels by 190 feet. “This has to be a concern for the governments we trust to protect our coastal cities and communities,” said lead researcher Andrew Shepherd.



Lighting hazard

Greater care may need to be taken in choosing the color of outdoor LED lighting across Earth’s landscapes, as scientists warn that some hues of the modern-day lighting can be harmful to wildlife. Researchers have spent years documenting how the brightness, color and direction of LED light affects migration, species attraction, predator-prey relationships and circadian rhythms. A new study led by the University of Southern California finds that blue and white have the worst impacts, while the warmer yellow, amber and green LEDs are more benign. Some creatures, like insects and sea turtles, are especially vulnerable.



Dying ancient

The world’s oldest flowering trees are mysteriously dying after providing food, water and shelter from the African sun to humans and animals for thousands of years. The deaths of four of the continent’s 13 oldest baobab trees, and the withering to near death of five others over the past 12 years, are being blamed by some on climate change. But a team of scientists from Romania, South Africa and the United States studying the trees says further research is needed to determine the cause. Towering over Africa’s savannah, the iconic trees can live to be nearly 3,000 years old.



Male bonding

A new study reveals that male bottlenose dolphins communicate by calling out names. The University of Western Australia study found that dolphins use signature whistles for each other, and are the only animals besides humans to adopt names. Researcher Stephanie King says that using individual names helps the dolphins negotiate a complex social network of relationships. The study also revealed the male dolphins spend a lot of time caressing each other with their pectoral fins, as if they are holding hands.


• Extreme Temperatures: -97°F Vostok, Antarctica; 123°F Jacobabad, Pakistan

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June 11, 2018 (for the week ending June 08)



Earthquakes

• Guatemala’s Pacific coast was jolted by an offshore [magnitude-5.2] quake that struck as the country’s volcano disaster was unfolding.
• Earth movements were also felt in northern Baja California [magnitude 3.6], central Kansas [2.9] and France's Côte d'Azur [3.1].



Tropical cyclones

• Tropical Storm Ewiniar formed briefly before moving ashore in South China’s Guangdong province and losing force.
• Tropical Storm Aletta, the first named storm of the eastern Pacific hurricane season, spun up from an area of disturbed weather off Mexico.



Eruptions

• Nearly 200 people were unaccounted for and about 100 others died after the most powerful eruption of Guatemala’s Fuego volcano in four decades buried entire villages and farms in searing-hot ash or lava.
Surging lava from Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano destroyed hundreds of home in a single night.
• Indonesia’s Mount Merapi sent a column of ash soaring high above Sumatra.



Virus on Wings

The virus responsible for outbreaks of Alkhurma hemorrhagic fever on the Arabian Peninsula and in Egypt may now be taking flight in ticks hitching rides northward on migratory birds, researchers warn. With symptoms similar to those from Ebola, the Alkhurma virus seems to be spread to humans through contact with cattle and camels, or from tick bites. It was first identified in Saudi Arabia during the mid-1990s. Examination of thousands of ticks removed from migrating birds at several Mediterranean sites found some with Alkhurma virus RNA. Researchers at Sweden’s Uppsala University warn this means the virus could now fly on to infect people and animals in other areas.



Gorilla Rebound

The population of Africa’s critically endangered mountain gorillas has soared by a quarter since 2010, with wildlife authorities estimating the number now to be over 1,000 individual primates. The population boom came despite the threat of poaching and armed groups vying for control on the chain of volcanic mountains that are home to the gorillas in Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The population increase came after the introduction of park guards, veterinary care, community support projects and regulated tourism around the gorillas’ habitats.



Fireball Bonanza

Treasure hunters in southwestern China recovered hundreds of meteorites after a fireball exploded over the region on June 1. Some of the meteorites crashed through the roofs of homes. Collectors were hoping to cash in on the windfall of cosmic stones, but government officials cautioned that the meteorites would be better used in scientific research than just sitting on the shelves of wealthy collectors.



Bear dogs

Increased conflicts between humans and wild bears in Japan have prompted the mountainous resort of Karuizawa to import a breed of dog renowned for its nonlethal bear-control abilities. Since the Picchio Wildlife Research Center introduced patrols using Finnish Karelian bear dogs to chase the animals from the resort, bear incidents with humans plummeted from 255 in 2006 to just four last year.


• Extreme Temperatures: -87°F Vostok, Antarctica; 120°F Sibi, Pakistan

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June 04, 2018 (for the week ending June 01)



Earthquakes

• Northeastern China’s Jilin province was jolted by a moderate [magnitude 5.1] temblor that caused people to rush from their homes but resulted in no significant damage.
• Earth movements were also felt around Melbourne, Australia [magnitude 2.8], and in California's Silicon Valley [3.0].



Tropical cyclones

• The strongest tropical cyclone on record to strike Oman killed at least 13 people and triggered disastrous flash floods near the sultanate’s third-largest city of Salalah. Cyclone Mekunu lashed the arid country with winds of over 100 mph.
• Subtropical Storm Alberto deluged parts of Cuba with more than 10 inches of rainfall before striking the Florida Panhandle.



Vog and Pele's hair

Volcanic smog from Hawaii's Kilauea volcano blew southwestward for thousands of miles to Guam and the Marshall Islands. Meteorologists warned islanders with respiratory problems to stay indoors to avoid exposure to the “vog.” Scientists in Hawaii say that tiny strands of volcanic glass fibers blowing in the wind near Kilauea’s lava flows could damage the eyes and lungs of those on the Big Island who come in contact with “Pele’s hair.”



Mosquito thirst

Mosquitoes appear to be more prone to bite during droughts and in arid climates because the insects need blood to stay hydrated, as well as for its protein content, new research reveals. A team from the University of Cincinnati says the discovery could lead to new ways to fight mosquito-borne diseases, such as malaria, West Nile virus, dengue and Zika. While the stagnant pools of water that form when it rains produce ideal breeding conditions for mosquitoes, the disease-carrying pests are likely to become more aggressive when they dry up. Lead researcher Chris Holmes believes that climate change could make periods of drought more frequent, increasing the health threat posed by mosquitoes.



Happy captives?

A controversial study suggests captive dolphins can be as “happy” as those swimming free in the wild, and also appear to look forward to human interaction. French researchers played specific sounds before offering the dolphins different things to do, such as playing with new toys, interacting with a human or being left to do as they pleased. The marine mammals would clearly bob their heads out of the water when they anticipated a human was coming. The scientists conclude this means the dolphins become excited when offered the chance to connect with their human trainers.



Oceanic heatwave

Tropical fish from off northeastern Australia have been spotted around parts of New Zealand, lured across the Tasman Sea by a record-breaking hot summer season. The country’s unusual warmth was largely generated by what meteorologists term a “marine heat wave,” which has seen water temperatures nearly 10 degrees Fahrenheit above normal. The rare appearance of the Queensland groper, also known as the giant grouper, has startled New Zealand divers, who fear the fish won’t survive once temperatures cool to near normal.



Cow cull

New Zealand is in the process of slaughtering about 150,000 cattle to eradicate a bovine disease that managed to slip through strict biosecurity controls. Officials plan to kill every cow on farms where the Mycoplasma bovis bacteria has been found, even if some of the animals are healthy. Because the disease isn’t a threat to the food chain, most of the culled cows will be slaughtered at processing plants and used for beef. Farmers will be compensated, but only a small portion of the country’s 10 million cows are affected.


• Extreme Temperatures: -88°F Vostok, Antarctica; 120°F Jacobabad, Pakistan

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May 28, 2018 (for the week ending May 25)



Earthquakes

• A moderate [magnitude 5.2] temblor centered in southern Mexico sent residents rushing into the streets as far away as Mexico City, 200 miles to the north. There were no reports of significant damage.
• Earth movements were also felt in Southern California [magnitude 3.5], metropolitan Dallas-Fort Worth [4.4], central Maine [2.1] and the Czech Republic [4.4].



Tropical cyclones

• Cyclone Sagar killed more than 50 people in flash floods that swamped hundreds of farms in Somalia’s breakaway region of Somaliland and other parts of the country.
• Cyclone Mekunu formed in the same area and struck the Oman-Yemen border region.



Hawaiian hazards

the volume of lava spewing from Hawaii's Kilauea volcano surged, leaving dozens of homes now destroyed by the ongoing eruption.
Lava began reaching the Pacific, where it has the potential of creating toxic clouds of acidic steam and tiny shards of volcanic glass as it makes contact with the cooling ocean water.



Polar bear shift

Hunters in eastern Greenland report more polar bears are venturing into their communities, and some say it’s due to the melting of sea ice brought on by climate change. Hunts for the bears are also taking place closer to towns because the traditional routes for both the hunters and the bears along the sea ice, and across Greenland’s ice cap, are gone or have become too dangerous to use. The disappearing ice also means there are fewer hunts taking place using dog sleds, with more now being conducted by boat.



Worm invasion

A silent invasion of giant hammerhead flatworms has been occurring for the past two decades in France and some of its territories. The extent of the invasion was uncovered by citizen scientists, who found that several non-native species now slither across urban areas of southern France and its overseas territories from the Caribbean to Oceania. The ecological impact of the invasion is unclear, but the worms prey on animals living in the ground, including earthworms. The Asian natives are believed to be inadvertently spreading through international trade.



Deadly heat

A searing pre-monsoon heat wave that has baked parts of South Asia for weeks killed at least 65 people during a three-day period in the southern Pakistan city of Karachi, according to a social welfare organization. Temperatures soaring to 111 degrees caused the deaths during the opening days of Ramadan, when most Muslims do not eat or drink in daylight hours. Power failures made finding relief from the heat nearly impossible for many.



Ozone cheating?

The man-made chemicals responsible for the ozone hole are now declining in the atmosphere at half the rate of just a few years ago, according to a new published study. It says the trend could be linked to serious violations of the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which banned the compounds. The report says there is strong evidence the increased emissions of the chlorofluorocarbons are coming from East Asia. But another study published a week earlier says some of the emissions could be due to leaks from the careless recycling of discarded refrigerators in China. Whatever the cause, the trend is likely to slow the already sluggish healing of the Antarctic ozone hole.


• Extreme Temperatures: -92°F Vostok, Antarctica; 121°F Bahariya, Egypt

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May 21, 2018 (for the week ending May 18)



Earthquakes

• Western Japan was soundly jolted by a magnitude 5.1 quake, centered in Nagano prefecture. There were no reports of damage.
• Earth movements were also felt in central New Zealand [magnitude 4.6], south-central Mexico [4.9], central Oklahoma [4.0], parts of Southern California [3.7] and the San Francisco Bay area [3.5].



Volcanoes

• Hawaii's erupting Kilauea volcano prompted more evacuations as new fissures opened up, shooting fountains of lava.
  Scientists warned that an even more powerful and explosive eruption could occur.
• A blast at Indonesia's Mount Merapi volcano shot a plume of ash high above Java, prompting officials to briefly halt operations at a nearby regional airport.



El Niño outlook

The recent La Niña ocean cooling across the tropical Pacific may be replaced toward the end of this year by an El Niño warming, which could bring its own set of weather disruptions. The U.S. agency NOAA predicts there is a 50 percent chance El Niño will return by the 2018-19 Northern Hemisphere winter. The last El Niño was linked to crop damage, deadly wildfires and flash floods during 2016.



Emerging virus

A new virus that causes acute illness and even death in pigs has shown the ability to be passed on to humans, according to researchers at Ohio State University and Holland's Utrecht University. Porcine deltacoronavirus was first identified in 2012 among Chinese pigs. It has since caused sometimes-fatal diarrhea and vomiting in Ohio swine. Researchers say they have found the virus can readily infect laboratory-cultured cells of humans and other species. No human cases have so far been documented, but scientists say they are concerned about the possibility.



Dam good work

Returning wild beavers to their former habitats can help clean up polluted waterways and restore the natural environment for other wildlife, according to a new study by the University of Exeter. The British scientists worked with the Devon Wildlife Trust to find that the toothy animals can remove large amounts of sediment, as well as nitrogen and phosphorus pollution created by agriculture, from the water that flows through the ponds they create with their dams. All that material can create problems for wildlife and, without the beavers, needs to be removed at processing plants before the water can be used by humans.



Towlette pollution

Masses of wet wipes accumulating along riverbanks are causing concern that the waste product is altering the ecology and shape of some of the world's waterways. The moist towelettes and baby wipes are made with polyester or polypropylene and are not biodegradable. British researchers recently found more than 5,000 of them along the River Thames in an area the size of half a tennis court. “People get confused and don't realize that you are not supposed to flush wet wipes down the toilet," environmental advocate Kirsten Downer of Thames 21 told The Guardian.



Record wave

A 78-foot wave that formed off New Zealand in early May is believed to be the largest ever observed south of the Equator.
Scientists think a powerful storm near Campbell Island in the Southern Ocean whipped up the titanic wave. The wave was measured by a remote buoy, and New Zealand MetService forecaster Tom Durrant says even larger ones could have been created by the storm.


• Extreme Temperatures: -78°F Vostok, Antarctica; 118°F Nawabshah, Pakistan

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May 14, 2018 (for the week ending May 11)



Earthquakes

• At least two miners died in southern Poland when a magnitude 4.1 tremor caused their coal mine to collapse.
• Nearly 200 homes were damaged in El Salvador by a sharp [magnitude 4.1] quake in the southeast of the country.
• Earth movements were also felt in the northern Philippines [magnitude 6.1], eastern Afghanistan [6.2], the central U.S. Gulf Coast [4.6], northern Arkansas [2.8] and southern California [4.5].



Volcanoes

• Aleutian eruption: Alaska’s Mount Cleveland volcano exploded with a plume of ash that soared 22,000 feet above Chuginadak Island in the Aleutians.
• Hawaii unrest: Hawaii's Kilauea volcano caused further evacuations as new fissures unleashed destructive lava flows.



Jumping champ

Researchers have for the first time trained a spider to jump on demand at varying distances, and from different heights, in a study to help design a generation of tiny, high-performance robots with the same abilities. Scientists from the University of Manchester named the regal jumping spider Kim. They found it uses the perfect trajectory and amount of energy for each of the jumping challenges presented to it. “A jumping spider can leap up to six times its body length from a standing start,” said Mostafa Nabawy.



War extinctions

A new study shows armed conflicts in Africa’s Sahara and Sahel regions are resulting in a sharp decline of species such as the African elephant and dorcas gazelle. The study, led by researchers at Portugal’s University of Porto, found that the proliferation of firearms, over-exploitation of natural resources and human intrusion into previously isolated areas have resulted in the extinction or near-extinction of 12 out of the 14 large animal species in the region. The study also found that oil drilling has led to the progressive extinction of the addax, a type of antelope.



Rodent-free

The world’s most ambitious project to eradicate invasive species has left the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia free of rats and mice for probably the first time in nearly 250 years. The rodents were inadvertently introduced by sealers and whalers who stopped there. The pests have since ravaged the British territory’s native species, especially birds that lay their eggs on the ground or in burrows. But a $15 million project to poison or trap the rodents over the past decade has apparently eradicated every one from the 100-mile-long island.



Plant talk

Plants seem to have developed a unique form of communication in the ground that lets them tell one another what nearby plants are doing. Earlier studies proved that fungus helps tree roots communicate. It’s a ground-based network scientists call the “fungal internet.” But a team at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences has found that the growth behavior of corn can also be driven by chemical secretions in the soil released by nearby plants.



Ebola returns

The Democratic Republic of the Congo has confirmed that two people suffering from a hemorrhagic fever were infected with Ebola. The virus is believed responsible for several other cases in an outbreak that emerged during the past five weeks in the northwest of the country. At least 17 people have already died. West Africa was ravaged by an Ebola outbreak that ended two years ago after killing more than 11,300 people and infecting 28,600 others.


• Extreme Temperatures: -98°F Vostok, Antarctica; 116°F Luxor, Egypt

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May 07, 2018 (for the week ending May 04)



Earthquakes

• At least 76 people were injured by a magnitude 5.3 quake that rocked southwestern Iran.
• Earth movements were also felt in the Greek capital of Athens [magnitude 4.2], Guam [4.9], islands of the eastern Caribbean [4.6], eastern Tennessee [3.1], coastal Southern California [3.7] and the San Francisco Bay Area [3.0].



Tropical cyclones

• Tropical Cyclone Flamboyan briefly attained Category-1 force as it churned the central Indian Ocean.



Hawaiian eruption

Fountains of lava emerged from cracks in the ground that formed in a Hawaiian neighborhood as Kilauea volcano erupted suddenly on the Big Island. Residents in the Leilani Estates subdivision were immediately ordered to evacuate due to the mounting lava threat. Most people had already been on high alert due to a swarm of powerful tremors before the eruption.



Magnetic shift?

Recent speculations that Earth’s magnetic field is in the early stages of reversal have been discounted by an international team of researchers. A significant weakening of the field over the last 200 years or more, and an expanding weak area in the field between South America and Africa, has some scientists concerned. But geomagnetism expert Richard Holme of the University of Liverpool says that the last comparable weakening periods, approximately 49,000 and 46,000 years ago, did not result in flips. The last reversal happened 780,000 years ago. “Our research suggests instead that the current weakened field will recover without such an extreme event,” said Holme.



Simian revenge

A Sudanese farmer was rescued from a savage attack by a monkey, said to be the father of a young monkey the farmer killed years ago.
Khartoum’s SudaNow reports the Central Darfur farmer’s wife was able to beat the attacking primate to death as it was biting her husband’s thighs and legs. The magazine reports monkeys once dug up seeds the farmer had planted until he chased them away about five years ago, killing the assaulting monkey’s offspring in the process. Locals say they have witnessed monkeys stalking their enemies for decades after being wronged.



Antarctic relief

An audacious plan to tow Antarctic icebergs to South Africa to help solve the worst water crisis there in a century is being proposed by a marine salvage expert. Nick Sloane told Reuters that he and his crew are looking for investors to fund the project, which would have chunks of the ice chopped into a slurry and melted to provide millions of gallons of drinking water per day. Cape Town has for months been facing the prospect of all water taps being turned off due to depleted reservoirs. “We want to show that if there is no other source to solve the water crisis, we have another idea no one else has thought of yet,” Sloane told the agency.



Longest-lived

The world’s oldest known spider was killed at the age of 43 by a wasp attack in Western Australia. Scientists at Curtin University said the trapdoor spider was the subject of a long-term study and outlived the previous record-holder by 15 years, mainly from living her entire life in one burrow. “We’re really miserable about it,” lead researcher Leanda Mason told The Telegraph. “We were hoping she could have made it to 50 years old.” Trapdoor spiders ambush small prey that have the misfortune of passing by their burrows.


• Extreme Temperatures: -94°F Vostok, Antarctica; 122°F Nawabshah, Pakistan

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April 30, 2018 (for the week ending April 27)



Earthquakes

• Dozens of people were injured in southeastern Turkey when a magnitude 5.2 temblor caused damage to buildings in Adiyaman province.
• Earth movements were also felt in western Nicaragua [magnitude 5.6], southeastern Michigan [3.6] and a wide area of Southern California [3.9].



Tropical cyclones

• The Indian Ocean island of Réunion was raked by hurricane-force winds as Tropical Cyclone Fakir skirted the French overseas territory.



Historic eruption

Japan’s Mount Io erupted for the first time in 250 years, prompting officials on each side of the border between Miyazaki and Kagoshima prefectures to warn of flying rocks and pyroclastic flows. Io, which erupted twice in less than a week, is one of the craters in the Mount Kirishima group of volcanoes. Nearby Mount Shinmoe erupted violently for the first time in about seven years on March 9.



Arctic mystery

NASA scientists flying over a remote stretch of the Canadian Arctic spotted a phenomenon they had never seen before and are struggling to explain. Images taken on April 14 during an Operation IceBridge flyover of the Beaufort Sea, northwest of the Mackenzie River Delta, revealed mysterious rings around small holes in the relatively thin sea ice. One scientist suggested the rings could have been formed as seals come up for air through the holes, creating small waves that wash outward and freeze. Others believe they formed as currents flowing out of the Mackenzie River interacted with the seabed and gushed up through the holes in the surface ice.



Arboreal 'heartbeat'

Dutch researchers say they have found evidence of a kind of “heartbeat” in trees that causes them to change shape in a regular rhythm that is much shorter than a day-night cycle. András Zlinszky and colleague Anders Barfod at Aarhus University scanned 21 species of trees in windless and lightless conditions and found seesaw oscillations in branches that were most pronounced in magnolia trees. Branches move up and down an average of 0.6 inch during cycles that are 2 to 6 hours in duration. The pair thinks the pulses are evidence that trees have a “heartbeat” in which they actively squeeze water upward from their roots.



Fish competition

Damage to fishing nets caused by dolphins is increasing across the Mediterranean as overfishing forces the marine mammals to compete more with humans for seafood. Damage to the typically small-scale fishing businesses are now costing thousands, or even tens of thousands, of dollars per year, according to University of Exeter researchers. Acoustic “pingers” used in an attempt to deter dolphins haven’t worked, and may have acted as “dinner bells” that actually attracted the ocean animals in some cases, the researchers found.



Suicide bombers

The first new species of "exploding ants" since 1935 has been discovered in the remote rainforests of Borneo, Thailand and Malaysia. The insects give their lives in selfless acts that produce a burst of toxic yellow goo to kill invaders. “When threatened by other insects, minor workers can actively rupture their body wall,” said lead researcher Alice Laciny of Austria’s Natural History Museum. “Apart from leading to the ants’ imminent death, the ‘explosion’ releases a sticky, toxic liquid … to either kill or hold off the enemy.”


• Extreme Temperatures: -87°F Vostok, Antarctica; 116°F Jacobabad, Pakistan

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April 23, 2018 (for the week ending April 20)



Earthquakes

• Eastern parts of Japan’s Hokkaido Island were briefly jolted by a strong [magnitude 5.4] offshore temblor.



Eruption migration

Heavy ash and hazardous fumes from an active volcano on Vanuatu’s Ambae Island have prompted officials to permanently resettle most of the island’s 11,000 residents by the end of May.



Kenyan fractures

A second massive crack has ripped through the Kenyan landscape, but geologists assure nervous residents that neither means their country will break apart anytime soon. They say both fissures were caused by heavy rains that soaked the area, causing the volcanic soil beneath to give way. The latest “fault line” near the town of Naivasha is more than a mile long and has destroyed crops and forced at least 16 families to move to safer ground. The earlier fissure, about 20 miles to the southeast, severed a road and forced other people to flee in late March. Scientists say a growing split in the African tectonic plate will eventually cause a slice of Africa to break away.



Current weakening

The long-feared weakening of the massive Atlantic Ocean circulation due to climate change appears to be under way. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) carries warmth to high latitudes and makes northern Europe far more temperate than it otherwise would be. It’s also crucial for fisheries off the coasts of New England and the Canadian Maritime Provinces. But scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research write in the journal Nature that the AMOC has declined in strength by 15 percent since the mid-20th century, reaching a record low. Changes in ocean salinity brought on by melting glaciers and ice sheets are blamed for the slowdown.



Antarctic melt

Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf now melts in the dead of winter when the average temperature on the adjacent Antarctic peninsula is only 5 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s been known for a while that Antarctic ice shelves are thinning and retreating, mainly because warmer currents below are melting them. But new remote sensors have found that downslope winds can also cause them to thin. These “foehn winds” blowing off Antarctica’s mountains can cause air temperatures to rise several degrees, sometimes to above freezing. The phenomenon had earlier been observed in summer, but it’s now happening in the depth of winter.



Plastic eaters

Mutant plastic-dissolving enzymes could help curb the increasing global plastic pollution that threatens marine life and even the humans who eat it. Researchers from the University of Portsmouth were studying a bacterium discovered at a Japanese dump in 2016 that had naturally evolved to consume plastic. While using ultra-intense beams of X-rays to examine the structure of the key enzyme produced by the bacterium, they accidentally improved the enzyme’s ability to break down the kind of plastic that is used to make beverage bottles.



Coral shield

Australian scientists have developed a "sun shield" they hope can save the Great Barrier Reef from the coral bleaching that has ravaged the reef since 2016. The shield is an ultra-thin biodegradable film that floats on the ocean’s surface. The shield contains calcium carbonate — the same compound corals use to make their hard skeletons. While it would be impractical to deploy the film over the entire 135,000-square-mile reef, the scientists say it could be selectively placed to protect the most precious or high-risk areas.


• Extreme Temperatures: -95°F Vostok, Antarctica; 115°F Sharurah, Saudi Arabia

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April 16, 2018 (for the week ending April 13)



Earthquakes

• It was an unusually active week for seismic activity, with damage reported in central Italy [from a magnitude 4.7 quake], central Papua New Guinea [magnitude 6.3] and western Japan [5.6].
• Earth movements were also felt in Wales [magnitude 4.4], Chile's central coast [6.2], northwestern Oklahoma [4.6] and central Nebraska [3.7].



Tropical cyclones

• Fiji was lashed by the second tropical cyclone within a week when Cyclone Keni passed just to the south of the Pacific island nation and neighboring Tonga. The Fijian island of Kadavu bore the brunt of Keni’s fury, with homes there destroyed, trees uprooted and boats capsized. There was no loss of life.



Japanese eruption

Shinmoedake volcano erupted, sending incandescent rocks flying and plumes of fiery gas and ash soaring thousands of feet above southern Japan's Kagoshima prefecture. Some of the glowing, ballistic rocks were clocked at more than 300 mph on impact.



Winged tragedy

Wildlife experts in Idaho Falls, Idaho, say a gaggle of more than 100 geese found dead in a parking lot and on nearby rooftops were brought down by lightning in a “freak accident.” A violent hailstorm was in progress just before the migrating snow geese fell from the sky. But since the dead birds had exploded internal organs, Idaho Department of Fish and Game officer Jacob Berl said it’s proof lightning caused their demise. “Mother Nature is sometimes cruel to the wildlife kingdom,” said colleague James Brower. “We worry about accidents with cars and trucks — sometimes animals are affected just by the weather.'



Zombie racoons

Seemingly crazed raccoons standing on their hind legs have terrorized a city in Ohio. Dozens of people have called the police in Youngstown to report the normally nocturnal animals standing up in broad daylight, baring their teeth then falling over in what was described as a comatose state. Wildlife biologists say the weird behavior could be caused by distemper, which isn’t a threat to humans.



Whale 'culture'

One species of whale has been found to demonstrate that it values culture as well as ancestral roots and family ties, like humans. Researchers from Florida Atlantic University conducted a genetic study of kinship among beluga whales from the Gulf of Alaska to the Arctic Ocean. They found that related whales returned to the same locations year after year, and even generation after generation. The marine biologists also found that the sophisticated vocalizations and acoustic systems used by the belugas suggest that they are capable of forming complex relationships and groups.



Southern snowfall

Antarctica has experienced a significant increase in snowfall during the past 200 years, with a new study finding a rise of 10 percent for the frozen precipitation over the period. Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey said their examination of ice cores going back two centuries revealed the trend as they looked into current Antarctic ice loss. The increased annual snowfall around the South Pole would produce enough water to cover all of New Zealand to a depth of 3.3 feet.


• Extreme Temperatures: -93°F Vostok, Antarctica; 116°F Nawabshah, Pakistan

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April 09, 2018 (for the week ending April 06)



Earthquakes

• At least 53 people were injured when a magnitude 5.3 temblor struck the Iran-Iraq border.
• A deep [magnitude 6.8] tremor beneath Bolivia rocked buildings as far away as the Brazilian metropolis of São Paulo.
• Earth movements were also felt in central Taiwan [magnitude 4.3] and El Salvador [5.9].



Tropical cyclones

• Torrential rains from Tropical Storm Josie killed four people as villages in Fiji were swamped.
• Cyclone Iris churned the Coral Sea as former Super Typhoon Jelawat lost force over the North Pacific.



African divide

A widening fissure that has appeared for miles across the landscape of Kenya’s Rift Valley has wrecked homes and destroyed a stretch of highway. One family said a crack developed in their cement floor and started spreading after weeks of rain, floods and tremors.
“The cracks run almost in a straight line, so you can project. If you see a crack coming your way, get away,” said geologist David Adede. The East African Rift Valley is splitting the African tectonic plate in two. Scientists believe the split will, over the next 50 million years, see a long slice of East Africa break away from the continent.



Eruption

Vanuatu’s Manaro Voui volcano produced fountains of lava and a plume of ash that damaged crops, water supplies and buildings on Ambae Island.
The volcano is one of the world’s most dangerous and began erupting in the island nation last September. All of Ambae’s 11,000 residents were evacuated at that time and had just returned before the latest activity.



Arctic ice max

Arctic sea ice reached its greatest coverage of the year on March 17 at the second-lowest maximum on record. The U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said the coverage on that date was 5.6 million square miles, or 23,200 square miles above the record low set on March 7 last year. Freak warming this February saw temperatures soar more than 45 degrees above normal in some parts of the Arctic. Temperatures at the North Pole rose above freezing for several days even as the polar region was still in perpetual darkness. Powerful storms in the Atlantic and Pacific this past winter sent warm water and winds flowing northward into the Arctic. check Wikipedia page on Arctic sea ice decline.



Evolving immunity

Several species nearly sent into extinction by a killer chytrid fungus appear to have evolved with resistance to the pathogen. Their populations in Panama alone have rebounded to previous levels. A hybrid strain of the fungus has been responsible for numerous die-offs of amphibians worldwide since the 1980s. It’s believed to have emerged because of the global trade in amphibians. While not all species have evolved quickly enough to survive, the deep croaks of frogs and toads are returning to some of the once-quiet streams in Panama, according to researchers from the University of Pittsburgh. But they caution that the amphibians are still infected with the fungus, they are just better able to limit its growth and damage.



Whaling season

Japan’s whaling fleet returned home after slaughtering 333 of the marine mammals since November. The fleet of five ships operated this season without interference from anti-whaling groups for the first time in seven years, allowing the hunt for minke whales to proceed without disruption or confrontation. The most aggressive of the campaigners, Sea Shepherd, announced last year it was taking a break from its efforts to thwart Japan’s whaling by clashing with the fleet in the Southern Ocean.


• Extreme Temperatures: -84°F Vostok, Antarctica; 114°F Pad Idan, Pakistan

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April 02, 2018 (for the week ending March 30)



Earthquakes

• A brief tsunami alert was issued after a sharp [magnitude 6.4] tremor struck beneath Indonesia’s Banda Sea. Shaking was felt as far away as Darwin, Australia.
• Earth movements were also felt in the central Papua New Guinea aftershock zone [magnitude 6.6] and from northern Pakistan to eastern Afghanistan [5.1].



Tropical cyclones

• Australia’s Cape York Peninsula, in far northern Queensland, was drenched by Category-2 Cyclone Nora.
• Tropical Storm Iris passed over the Coral Sea.



Eruption

Mayon volcano ended weeks of relative calm in the central Philippines by spewing lava and spouting a plume of ash that rained down on nearby communities.
The country’s Phivolcs agency earlier downgraded the alert level for Mayon to 3 because of what it termed a “general decline in unrest.”



Floating dump

The vast accumulation of plastic pollution known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch contains up to 16 times more floating plastic than previously thought, according to a new report published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports. The Dutch-based nonprofit Ocean Cleanup Foundation provided data to the study from a fleet of 30 vessels that mapped the garbage patch, combined with data from an aerial survey. The three-year study was a joint effort of six universities, an aerial sensor company and the foundation. “This really highlights the urgency to take action in stopping the inflow of plastic into the ocean and also taking measures to clean up the existing mess,” said foundation oceanographer Laurent Lebreton.



Dolphin rescue

Residents of the Newfoundland port of Heart’s Delight used unconventional means to free a pod of six to eight dolphins that had become trapped by ice and were swimming in circles inside the harbor. The coast guard had failed to free them because of the harbor’s shallow water. The town’s fire chief and heavy equipment owner then drove his excavator to the wharf and used it to scoop out a channel for the marine mammals to escape through. Local boaters then sped through the ice to break it up further before guiding the disoriented dolphins to safety.



Puffing pachderm

Wildlife experts say they are baffled at footage captured of an Asian elephant “smoking” in a southern Indian forest — a behavior never seen before. Researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society filmed the female pachyderm at Nagarhole National Park picking up lumps of charcoal with its truck, placing them in its mouth and exhaling with a large plume of ash. In a self-medicating behavior known as zoopharmacognosy, the elephant could have been using the charcoal as a laxative because it is plentiful in the forest after wildfires or lightning strikes, researchers say.



Carbon surge

Global greenhouse gas emissions surged 1.4 percent during 2017 to the highest level on record, according to the International Energy Agency. After three years of relatively flat output of carbon dioxide pollution, the agency says a robust economy, combined with a slowing of energy efficiency improvements, caused the historic high in emissions. While the U.S. saw the biggest drop in CO2 emissions of any nation, India and China contributed 70 percent of the global increase in energy demand. Mexico, the U.K. and Japan saw their emissions drop last year.


• Extreme Temperatures: -90°F Vostok, Antarctica; 111°F Nawabshah, Pakistan

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March 26, 2018 (for the week ending March 23)



Earthquakes

• The Indonesian capital of Jakarta and the rest of western Java were jolted by a magnitude 5.2 offshore quake. There were no reports of damage.
• Earth movements were also felt in Taiwan [magnitude 5.2], southwestern Iran [5.0], upstate New York and Vermont [2.7] and in north-central Oklahoma [3.0].



Tropical cyclones

• At least 17 people were killed on Madagascar in floods and mudslides triggered by Cyclone Eliakim.
• Cyclone Marcus raked Darwin and other areas of northern Australia before strengthening offshore.



Volcanic poison

Toxic gas belched by an Indonesian volcano sent 30 people to a hospital, with some experiencing vomiting and difficulty in breathing. Officials closed the popular tourist destination of Mount Ijen in East Java and halted mining operations. Mount Ijen is famous for its thick, hardened layer of sulfur. Intrepid miners individually dig up the element and carry it out on their backs for use in a variety of products, ranging from cosmetics to matchsticks.



Ice hazard

Climate change is creating a greater danger for ships navigating the North Atlantic as icebergs from a shrinking polar ice cap drift southward in late spring, new research finds. During last May and June, Arctic sea ice surged southward through newly opened Arctic channels and clogged the normally open seas around Newfoundland. That trapped many vessels and sank others when the ice punctured their hulls. A study headed by Arctic climate researcher David Barber of the University of Manitoba concludes that the phenomenon is likely to go on for at least 20 years as the Arctic becomes more and more ice-free in summer.



Bovine split

A runaway Polish cow that joined a herd of bison in January is no longer roaming free on the range. Bison expert Rafal Kowalczyk of the Polish Academy of Science photographed the bovine mismatch earlier this year. He says the cow was recently captured, apparently by a farmer. Kowalczyk had warned that mating between the cow and a bison could have been dangerous for the cow because the offspring may have been too large for her to carry to term. Kowalczyk also worried that any surviving calf could have polluted the gene pool of Poland’s endangered bison population.



Fire season

A lengthening wildfire season brought on in many parts of the world by a warming climate claimed scores of homes in southeastern Australia. An out-of-season brushfire quickly engulfed the New South Wales seaside town of Tathra. It and other blazes destroyed at least 90 homes. Such wildfires have historically occurred in Australia between December and February.
“Sadly, fires like this, well into autumn, are an increasing part of the southern Australian experience, as we move further toward climate disruption,” said Grant Wardell-Johnson of Curtin University’s biodiversity and climate department. Fire seasons are 19 percent longer on average worldwide than they were in the 1970s.



Rodent-free

After a 125-year infestation, mice have been eradicated from a remote sub-Antarctic outcropping known as Antipodes Island. The rodents were accidentally introduced in 1893 from a shipwreck or by seal hunters, and they have since ravaged the island’s unique land birds, causing local extinctions. But New Zealand’s Million Dollar Mouse project, launched in 2014, has exterminated the more than 200,000 mice that plagued the island, located 470 miles southeast of New Zealand. The island’s parakeets, pipits, snipe and insects can now thrive on the island.


• Extreme Temperatures: -86°F Vostok, Antarctica; 111°F Diffa, Niger

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March 19, 2018 (for the week ending March 16)



Earthquakes

• Shaking from a sharp magnitude 5.2 temblor in far northern Borneo prompted officials to halt all climbing and hiking activity on Mount Kinabalu.
• Earth movements were also felt in central New Zealand [magnitude 4.4], the Germany-Switzerland border region [3.1] and in Southern California's Coachella Valley [3.4].



Tropical cyclones

• Tropical storm-force Cyclone Linda formed briefly over the open waters of the Coral Sea.



Seabed rumblings

Ships sailing through the southeastern Caribbean have been warned to steer clear of the only active underwater volcano in the region. While Kick ’em Jenny has shown signs of unrest near Grenada, geologists say it probably isn’t capable of ejecting enough material to affect maritime navigation. But volcanic gases bubbling up could reduce the buoyancy of ships, possibly causing them to sink.



Moose migrants

A changing ecological landscape in western Canada is allowing some moose to lumber from their traditional forest and Rocky Mountain habitats into prairie farmland, where they have hardly been seen before in significant numbers. Declining private homesteads on the prairie in recent decades, and the disappearance of predators such as grizzlies and wolves, appear to be convincing the antlered grazers that it’s safe to scavenge grain spilled during the harvest. The moose even sometimes wander into the suburbs of cities such as Calgary. “For an animal that is used to eating splintered wood most of the winter, all this spilled grain and canola is ... a great banquet for them,” said wildlife biologist and author Chris Fisher.



Winged contagion

Bird lovers are being warned that their garden feeders could contribute to the spread of serious disease among wild birds unless they are cleaned regularly. A new British study found that contaminated feeders could be causing rare bird illnesses to become epidemics. Experts recommend using feed from accredited suppliers and leaving it out in moderation so the feeders are emptied every day or two, allowing them to be cleaned more often. They also suggest rotating the feeding sites to avoid accumulation of waste food and bird droppings that could carry disease.



Australian inundation

Some of the heaviest rainfall for a decade in parts of Australia’s Queensland state created massive inland seas that swamped pastureland and cut off outback towns. “There’s water as far as the eye can see,” James Wyld told Reuters by phone from the bar of the Julia Creek Hotel in western Queensland’s grazing country. Floodwaters also allowed crocodiles to swim through some communities.



Cryospheric max

There is an extraordinary amount of snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere at the time of year it typically reaches its peak, according to researchers. The Finnish Meteorological Institute revealed the late-winter expanse as it premiered a new graphic that it says more accurately depicts ice and snow cover. While the average amount of snow in the Northern Hemisphere has declined and melted earlier in spring for more than 30 years, this year has been an exception. Some climate researchers say this winter’s brutal cold and heavy snow could be a direct result of record Arctic warming in recent years. They say the trend is weakening the jet stream, allowing cold Arctic blasts to plunge southward.


• Extreme Temperatures: -88°F Vostok, Antarctica; 112°F Matam, Senegal

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March 12, 2018 (for the week ending March 09)



Earthquakes

• At least 18 people died in the strongest aftershock, [a magnitude 6.7 quake], to rock Papua New Guinea’s earthquake disaster zone. An estimated 67 people had already died from the massive Feb. 26 temblor.
• The strongest tremor, [a magnitude 4.2 quake], to strike northern Oklahoma in months caused light damage.
• Earth movements were also felt in Jamaica [magnitude 4.0], El Salvador [4.5], southeastern Iran [5.4] and northeastern Taiwan [4.6].



Tropical cyclones

• Northern Vanuatu was drenched as Cyclone Hola formed over the South Pacific island nation.
• Cyclone Dumazile passed between the Indian Ocean island of Réunion and Madagascar’s eastern coast.



Eruption

The strongest eruptions of Japan’s Shinmoedake volcano in years sent huge plumes of ash and other debris soaring thousands of feet above Kirishima city. Residents wore surgical masks, or otherwise covered their faces, to prevent breathing in the falling ash.



Simian syllables

German researchers studying the evolution of human speech have discovered that all of the calls produced by marmoset monkeys are made up of individual syllables of fixed length, similar to humans. While it’s rude to interrupt other people when they are speaking, the team from Germany’s University of Tübingen interrupted the small monkeys in the study with white noise, causing them to fall quiet in the middle of their vocalizations.
The scientists found that among the “tsiks,” “ekks,” “phees” and other sounds uttered by the South American marmosets, the animals would stop only at specific points within the call. This revealed the primates communicate with individual syllables much like humans, who speak with syllables that are about a seventh of a second long on average.



Southern melt

The layer of sea ice ringing Antarctica shrank to its second lowest level on record during the past few weeks just as the Southern Hemisphere summer began to wane. Researchers at the Australian Antarctic Division said in a statement that the ice reached its lowest coverage on Feb. 18 but remained above the record low set in March 2017. These two record minimums ended a trend that saw historic highs in sea ice coverage around the frozen continent during each year from 2012 to 2014. Some researchers attributed that increase to hemispheric winds, strengthened by global warming, collecting the ice around Antarctica, and not cooler temperatures freezing more of the sea.



'Supercolony'

Scientists studying satellite images found evidence of a “supercolony” of penguins that now live on some remote islands off the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. A drone survey of those Danger Islands revealed that there were about 1.5 million Adélie penguins on the jagged outcroppings, living in some of the largest colonies in the world. The study finds that the newly discovered supercolony appears to have avoided recent Adélie declines elsewhere along the peninsula, which are probably due to sea ice decline.



Leopard loss

Conservationists and officials in India say they are alarmed at the staggering loss of 106 leopards during the first two months of this year alone in forested areas of the country. Only 12 of the big cats appear to have died of natural causes, while many of the other deaths are being blamed on poachers who hunt the animals for their prized hides and other body parts. Officials say habitat loss, especially due to expanding agriculture, is also a growing threat to the leopards.


• Extreme Temperatures: -84°F Vostok, Antarctica; 111°F Kayes, Mali

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March 05, 2018 (for the week ending March 02)



Earthquakes

• Papua New Guinea’s most powerful earthquake on record killed at least 31 people as it flattened entire villages in the heart of the impoverished nation. The magnitude 7.5 temblor also destroyed roads and caused massive landslides.
• Earth movements were also felt in northeastern Japan [magnitude 5.7], Indonesia's Maluku province [6.0], northwestern England [3.2] and islands of the eastern Caribbean [3.9].



Tropical cyclones - A new Cat-6?

• Hurricanes, typhoons and other tropical cyclones around the world have become so intense in recent years that some climate scientists suggest that an even higher category of storm strength is needed. The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale currently ranges from Category 1 to Category 5, with the top end describing a storm that can cause near total destruction. But scientists at a conference in New Zealand have proposed that stricter building codes and more powerful storms mean a new Category 6 may be needed to accurately warn the public of the most powerful storms.



Hawaiian lava

The partial collapse of a lava pit rim at Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano was followed by fresh flows of lava on the Big Island. The lava channels posed no threat to populated areas and did not reach the ocean. But they did provide a colorful and dramatic landscape for Hawaiian residents and visitors to witness.



Arctic warmth

A freak warm spell across the Arctic during February has shocked seasoned observers and climate experts alike, some of whom say they may be forced to reconsider their worst-case predictions of climate change. Even though the polar region has been in the midst of a sunless Arctic winter for months, temperatures at the world’s northernmost land-based weather station, Cape Morris Jesup at the northern tip of Greenland, have been warmer at times than London and Zurich, thousands of miles to the south. The current wintertime Arctic warmth may be only a onetime event, but experts point out that it’s the longest-lived and most intense winter warming ever observed.



Flamingo return

The population of Florida’s iconic pink flamingos is rebounding after the birds were virtually eliminated across the state by hunting in the late 1800s. Since 1950, American flamingos have been seen in greater numbers and more often. But because there were so few of them during most of the 20th century, some had argued flamingos weren’t a native species. New research finds that there were probably large flocks of the birds across the state before their colorful feathers and prized eggs led them to be hunted to near oblivion.



Bird slaughter

A million migratory birds, many endangered or threatened, are believed to be illegally killed or captured each year while wintering at a single wetlands site along Iran’s Caspian Sea coast. Among birds being hunted for sale in local markets is the Siberian crane, which is designated as critically endangered. Other endangered or threatened species being killed or caught are white-headed ducks, red-breasted geese and falcons. A leading Iranian conservationist says wildlife rangers meet with strong resistance from the hunters, who now use cheap transparent plastic nets that are not seen by the birds until they become snared.



World of fishing

Industrial fishing vessels are now pulling in seafood across more than half of the world’s oceans, harvesting an area four times larger than all agriculture on land. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization says in the journal Science that many commercial fish stocks are now being caught at unsustainable levels.


• Extreme Temperatures: -76°F Vostok, Antarctica; 109°F Tillabéri, Niger

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February 26, 2018 (for the week ending February 23)



Earthquakes

• Britain’s strongest quake in 10 years [, a magnitude 4.4 temblor,] caused structural damage in southwest England and Wales.
• A strong [magnitude 7.2] quake wrecked about 200 homes in southern Mexico’s Oaxaca state.
• Earth movements were also felt in Iceland [magnitude 5.2], northern Taiwan [5.3] and the San Francisco Bay Area [3.0].



Tropical cyclones

• Remnants of Cyclone Gita triggered widespread flooding and several mudslides across central and southern New Zealand. Roads were washed out, and flights in and out of the capital, Wellington, were halted.
• Warm inland 'oceans' caused by weeks of flooding rains in the remote desert of northwestern Australia helped Cyclone Kelvin intensify, and even form an eye, after it moved ashore.



Sumatran eruption

A blast from northern Sumatra’s Mount Agung volcano Mount Sinabung volcano sent ash and other debris falling over nearby settlements and crops. A red alert was issued for aviation after the ash plume soared nearly 24,000 feet into jet routes.



Harsher climate

A new study concludes that extreme weather events will become far more likely and intense around the world even if the Paris climate agreement’s goal of keeping global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius is met. Researchers from Stanford and Columbia universities expanded on earlier studies of climate records, which demonstrated how carbon emissions have increased the probability of recording-breaking hot, wet and dry events, even in the present warmer climate. Another report, in the journal Nature Communications, cautions that even if the Paris agreement’s goals are met, sea level is still likely to rise at least 2 to 4 feet by the year 2300.



Sleep singing

Argentine researchers have found that zebra finches seem to be practicing their songs while they sleep without actually making a sound. It’s long been known that the birds’ brains spontaneously reproduce the same patterns in their sleep that they use when singing during the day. But scientists from the University of Buenos Aires have found that the finches’ vocal muscles are also moving during their avian slumber. The only thing keeping the tiny birds from actually singing while sleeping is the absence of an air flow through their throats. Scientists think the sleep 'singing' may be how the birds learn new songs or keep their existing tunes stable.



'Day zero' respite

The day of reckoning for drought-parched Cape Town has been pushed back to at least July 9, at which time all water taps across the South African metropolitan area are slated be turned off due to critically low water reserves. Authorities had warned that 'Day Zero' would arrive as early as March. But conservation efforts and leak repairs in recent weeks have given residents more time before they are likely to be forced to go to local distribution points for fresh water. Residents and tourists have been asked to use only 13 gallons per day to preserve the remaining supply.



Primate Peril

Roughly half of the orangutans living on Borneo have disappeared over the past 16 years due to hunting and vast destruction of their habitat. Researchers say much of the loss of 100,000 of the island’s orangutans is due to logging operations that clear the land to make way for palm plantations and mining. Field researcher Serge Wich says targeted killings and other direct conflicts between the orangutans and humans are pushing the primates beyond their well-known ability to adapt to a changing landscape.


• Extreme Temperatures: -69°F Vostok, Antarctica; 112°F Jervois, South Australia

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February 19, 2018 (for the week ending February 16)



Earthquakes

• A rare and unusually strong [magnitude-4.8] quake jolted residents of northwestern France out of bed before dawn last Monday without causing any damage.
• Earth movements were also felt in India's remote Andaman Island [magnitude 5.6], China's Hubei province [4.6] South Korea [4.7] and New Hampshire [2.0].



Tropical cyclones

• Cyclone Gita was the strongest typhoon on record to strike the tiny South Pacific kingdom of Tonga as it reduced the parliament, churches and other buildings in the capital to rubble.
• At least 13 people on Mindanao in the southern Philippines perished in mudslides triggered by Tropical Storm Sanba’s downpours.



Balinese calming

Geologists assured residents of Bali that the Indonesian resort island’s Mount Agung volcano is calming down and not likely to produce a violent eruption in the near future. Thousands of people living for months in evacuation shelters can return home. Tourists are also coming back.



Rising tides

The rate at which sea level is rising around the world has increased in recent years, according to a study of satellite observations over the past quarter-century. Scientists writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences say sea level could become 26 inches higher by the end of the century. The rate then would have increased from the current 0.1 inch per year to about 0.4 inches annually. “This acceleration, driven mainly by accelerated melting in Greenland and Antarctica, has the potential to double the total sea level rise by 2100 as compared to projections that assume a constant rate,” said study author Steve Nerem. He adds that the prediction is a conservative estimate. Scientists have long predicted that melting glaciers, combined with the thermal expansion of the ocean due to global warming, will create a far different coastal landscape for the next generation of humans.



La Niña fading

The La Niña ocean cooling across the tropical Pacific is predicted to disappear during the next few months, according to the U.S. National Weather Service. The phenomenon is typically less disruptive to weather patterns than its warming counterpart, El Niño. But the last two months have seen much of North America, Europe and Asia plunged into the coldest polar vortex chills in years. And drought-prone California has suffered from a protracted dry and warm spell this winter.



Yellow fever panic

Residents around the Brazilian resort city of Rio de Janeiro have slaughtered scores of wild monkeys in fear that the primates could be spreading yellow fever. The disease has caused 25 human deaths this year in Rio state alone and killed untold numbers of monkeys in the forests across southern Brazil during 2017. Health officials are alerting residents that the disease is spread by mosquitoes, not monkeys. They add that infected monkeys often provide the first indication of where the disease has spread, so killing them is not helping to fight the outbreak.



Ant triage

A species of sub-Saharan ant has been observed administering medical care to wounded comrades after battle by intently licking the injury. Matabele ants are among the largest on Earth; they were already known to carry those wounded in battle back to the nest for treatment, where most lived to fight again. In further studies, lead researcher Erik Frank of the University of Lausanne found that the soldier ants actually conduct a type of triage on the battlefield. Writing in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Frank said it is actually the wounded ant that decides whether it lives or dies by simply not cooperating with the helpers if it feels too injured to recover.


• Extreme Temperatures: -62°F Vostok, Antarctica; 112°F Boulia, Queensland, Australia

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February 12, 2018 (for the week ending February 09)



Earthquakes

• At least 10 people died in a magnitude 6.4 temblor that struck a popular tourist resort in the middle of Taiwan’s eastern coast. The violent shaking wrecked numerous buildings.
• Earth movements were also felt in southern Myanmar [magnitude 4.6], Croatia [4.4] and southwestern British Columbia [3.2].



Tropical cyclones

• Southward cyclone: Cyclone Cebile churned the Indian Ocean for a second week, remaining a threat only to shipping lanes in the region. Cebile reached Category-4 force during the previous week.



Volcanic danger

Residents around Popocatépetl volcano, near Mexico City, were warned that an explosive eruption could occur at any time. Popocat&eactue;petl, erupting off and on since 2005, is considered North America’s most threatening volcano. That’s because of its potential to suddenly produce a Vesuvius-like eruption stronger than any other in a thousand years.



Viral winds

Scientists have for the first time determined that astounding numbers of viruses are being swept up from the Earth’s surface and blown around the world in the planet’s atmospheric circulation. Researchers from Spain, Canada and the United States believe there are at least 800 million viruses per square meter from just above the surface to the stratosphere. The global winds are spreading them, as well as bacteria, for thousands of miles, possibly from one continent to another. The scientists say the bacteria and viruses become airborne after winds pick them up in dust and sea spray.



Ozone oddity

The ozone layer high above the poles may be healing, thanks to an international ban on ozone-killing chemicals, but new research finds stratospheric ozone above more populated areas is not recovering. The ozone layer absorbs much of the UV radiation from the sun, protecting humans and other life on the surface. Scientists report that they don’t quite know what is causing the atmospheric discrepancy, but suggest altered wind patterns due to the effects of climate change could be blowing the ozone away from where it is created in the lower latitudes. Another possibility is that fumes of very short-lived substances, like those that are increasingly used in solvents, paint strippers and degreasing agents, could be rising to the lower stratosphere and destroying the ozone.



Cat plague

A deadly feline virus is spreading among cats in Australia after remaining unreported for nearly 40 years. There have been multiple cases of the feline parvovirus, or cat plague, among stray kittens around Melbourne. Australia was one of the first countries to develop a vaccine against panleukopenia, which causes great suffering among its victims as it temporarily wipes out the animals’ bone marrow. Treatment can be costly and doesn’t guarantee survival. Because many of Australia’s feral felines carry the disease, pet owners are urged to vaccinate their cats.



Plastic threat

Scientists warn that tiny bits of plastic pollution in the world’s oceans and other bodies of water are putting filter-feeding marine animals like whales and manta rays at great risk of contamination. That’s in addition to the nearly 600 other species thought to be harmed by the pollution. “Marine filter-feeders are likely to be at risk because they need to swallow hundreds to thousands of cubic meters of water daily in an effort to capture plankton,” researcher Elitza Germanov of Australia’s Murdoch University explained in her findings.


• Extreme Temperatures: -60°F Verhoyansk, Siberia; 109°F Twee Riviere, South Africa

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February 05, 2018 (for the week ending February 02)



Earthquakes

• One person was killed in northern Pakistan and dozens of others were injured when a magnitude 6.1 temblor struck the Hindu Kush Mountains in neighboring Afghanistan.
• Earth movements were also felt in Iceland [magnitude 4.9], Panama [5.7] and along the Oregon coast [4.9].



Tropical cyclones

• New Caledonia received gales and a few rain squalls when tropical storm-force Cyclone Fehi passed just to the west of the French overseas territory.
• Cyclone Cebile reached Category-4 force over the central Indian Ocean.



Volcanic refugees

A period of intense eruptions at Mount Mayon volcano in the central Philippines has kept more than 80,000 people in shelters. Disaster and military officials have recommended that villages in the danger zone around Mayon be combined into a permanent “no man’s land” to avoid having to evacuate thousands of residents each time the country’s most active volcano erupts.



Seismic spawn

The powerful earthquake that rocked much of Alaska and triggered a Pacific tsunami alert on Jan. 23 also shook one of the world’s rarest species of tiny fish into spawning. Seismic waves from the temblor caused the water to slosh in a small pool at Death Valley National Park, which is the Devils Hole pupfish’s lone natural home. Only about 115 of the critically endangered species live there. The sloshing water was a trigger for the males to gain a brilliant blue color, typical during spawning. While this phenomenon has been observed after deep earthquakes in the past, park officials say it always amazes them.



Warming threshold

The average global temperature could rise more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 F) above pre-industrial levels within five years despite the Paris climate accord’s aspiration to limit global warming below that level. “It is now possible that continued warming from greenhouse gases along with natural variability could combine so we temporarily exceed 1.5°C in the next five years,” said Stephen Belcher, the chief scientist at Britain’s Met Office. Some climate experts have said the 1.5°C threshold would not be breached until the 2040s. But Met Office scientists concede that a single year above the 1.5-degree target would not be the same as a sustained period of unbridled warming.



Bovine welcome

Wildlife experts in Poland say they are shocked at how a herd of bison has welcomed a cow that ran away from a farm last fall. Biologist Rafał Kowalczyk says the herd doesn’t seem to mind the cow being around, and is probably keeping the smaller animal safe from wolves. “She is not very integrated with the group, as bison act like one organism and she stands out,” Kowalczyk told broadcaster TVN24. He’s concerned the cow might breed with the bison to produce a hybrid large enough to kill her at birth, as well as contaminate the endangered herd’s gene pool.



Chimp flu

The same virus that inflicts the common cold on humans has been discovered in a population of wild chimpanzees that was ravaged by the pathogen. The outbreak occurred in Uganda’s Kibale National Park in 2013, and scientists have just published a report on how almost 10 percent of chimps there died after being infected by the human rhinovirus C. “We think this human common cold virus represents a grave threat to chimpanzees all across Africa,” said Tony Goldberg of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Humans have developed genetic resistance to the virus while living close to each other for the past 8,000 years, but chimps are extremely vulnerable to being infected by humans who intrude into their habitat.


• Extreme Temperatures: -72°F Batamay, Siberia; 110°F Moomba, South Australia

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January 29, 2018 (for the week ending January 26)



Earthquakes

• One person was killed and hundreds of homes were wrecked on the Indonesian island of Java by a magnitude 6.0 temblor.
• Much of Alaska was jolted by an intense magnitude 7.9 earthquake beneath the Gulf of Alaska, which prompted a brief tsunami watch down to California and Hawaii. The powerful jolt caused water levels in wells to briefly fluctuate as far away as Florida.
• Earth movements were also felt in eastern Australia [magnitude 4.2], western India [3.6], northwestern Mexico [6.3] and the San Francisco Bay Area [3.6].



Eruptions

• A fiery eruption of Mount Mayon in the central Philippines forced about 75,000 people to evacuate. Volcanic ash fell on nearby villages.
• Flying rocks and landslides from a sudden eruption of Japan’s >Mount Kusatsu-Shiranesan killed one person and injured at least 25 others around a nearby ski resort.



Ice-free Yukon

Unusually warm conditions in northwestern Canada have for a second winter in a row prevented a seasonal “ice bridge” from forming over the Yukon River to connect Dawson City with West Dawson. During summer, the two sides are connected by a ferry, but in winter, residents have to wait for the water to freeze over to make the crossing. The ice bridge has historically been open to traffic by mid-December. Crews worked for a week to create an “ice Band-Aid” by spraying a cold mist to cap a 300-foot-wide stretch of the river with ice. But the project proved impractical when daytime temperatures didn’t stay below freezing. The typical Dawson high temperature for January is about minus 8 Fahrenheit.



Avian PTSD

The cacophony of manmade sounds in the modern world may be causing symptoms in birds similar to what humans experience when suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Researchers from the Florida Museum of Natural History studied birds exposed to the constant noise of natural-gas compressors and found skewed stress hormone levels, possibly due to increased anxiety, distraction and hyper-vigilance. Report co-author Rob Guralnick believes the noise could act as an “acoustic blanket,” muffling the sound clues birds rely on to detect predators, competitors for food and their own species. “They’re perpetually stressed because they can’t figure out what’s going on,” said Guralnick.



Stalking raiders

A northern Namibian village was raided by a herd of 28 elephants that wrecked 18 homes, uprooted trees and destroyed the village borehole well. Residents of Otjorute say the animals frequently arrive from a nearby conservation area during harvest time, but this month’s raids are unprecedented. The villagers say the pachyderms arrived early one morning in mid-January amid much noise and chaos, leaving a trail of uprooted or damaged trees. The New Era daily reports at least one elephant followed people’s footprints until it got into their houses.



Running dry

Residents around Cape Town have been warned that the city could run out of water as soon as April because of a protracted drought across parts of South Africa. Each of the residents will be rationed only 13 gallons of water per day effective Thursday. Reservoirs dwindled to less than 10 percent of capacity as the worst drought on record persisted during the past three years. A huge #DayZero awareness campaign is being combined with increased leak detection and repairs to help conserve what water is left for the 3.7 million residents.



Oceanic warming

Chinese researchers say that 2017 was the warmest year on record for the world’s oceans. A report by the Chinese Academy of Sciences published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences says that the increase in heat content of the ocean’s upper 6,500 feet last year occurred in most regions of the world. Scientists say the record warmth of 2017 resulted in a 1.7 millimeter rise in global sea level, along with a further decline in ocean oxygen and an increase in the bleaching of coral reefs.


• Extreme Temperatures: -72°F Majsk, Russia; 115°F Moomba, South Australia

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January 22, 2018 (for the week ending January 19)



Earthquakes

• A powerful [magnitude 7.1] temblor in southern Peru left at least two people dead and wrecked nearly 200 adobe homes.
• Earth movements were also felt in central Portugal [magnitude 4.6], the Greek capital of Athens [4.3], eastern Afghanistan [5.3], southern Myanmar [6.0], northern Taiwan [4.7] and Christchurch, New Zealand [4.0].



Tropical cyclones

• Cyclone Berguitta became the strongest storm to lash the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius since 2002.
• Tropical storm-force Cyclone Joyce drenched northwestern Australia.



Eruption

Long streams of lava flowing down the slopes of Mayon volcano in the Philippines prompted more than 34,000 people to flee. Ash also fell on several villages, threatening to contaminate crops and water.



Arctic churnings

Dramatic climate change in the Arctic during the past few years is threatening to have significant impacts on the region’s coastal food webs and animal populations, a new study by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution reveals. Researchers found that the record melt of sea ice has increased wave action on the shallow Arctic coastal shelves, which is likely stirring up nutrients, carbon and other chemicals stored in the coastal sediment. The scientists made the conclusion after finding levels of radium-228 in the middle of the Arctic Ocean had doubled over the past decade. Researchers believe the naturally occurring isotope was also stirred up by the increased coastal wave action and carried across the polar region by ocean currents.



Climate survival

The continued existence of the human species is threatened more by extreme weather in a changing climate than by weapons of mass destruction, according to a global survey by the World Economic Forum. It was released just prior to the foundation’s annual meeting of global leaders in Davos, Switzerland. The survey of nearly 1,000 international experts and decision makers reveals that in terms of likelihood and impact, extreme weather around the world is listed as the top concern. The survey points to how catastrophic hurricane damage and wildfires last year demonstrate that environmental events can result in devastation of infrastructure and food supplies.



Warming demographics

One of the world’s largest sea turtle colonies is becoming almost entirely female due to a warming climate. Scientists from the United States and Australia write in the journal Current Biology that sand temperatures determine the gender of turtle hatchlings. And because warmer temperatures result in more females, virtually no male turtles are hatching on the hotter nesting beaches of Australia’s northern Great Barrier Reef. This is the first direct evidence that global warming is altering the gender of sea turtle offspring. Sea turtles are among the most ancient species roaming the world’s oceans, and they have adjusted to shifting climates through the ages. But the modern climate may be changing more quickly than turtles can adjust to it.



Collateral damage

Wildlife in more than 70 percent of Africa’s nature preserves was decimated by the ravages of war between 1946 and 2010, causing populations to enter what a new report describes as a “downward spiral.” Writing in the journal Nature, Joshua Daskin and Robert Pringle of Princeton University point to the deaths of 90 percent of the large herbivores in Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park during that country’s decades-long struggle for liberation from Portugal and subsequent civil war. The decline in wildlife across Africa has also been compounded by poaching for ivory, hides and other animal parts, often sold on the black market to purchase weapons.


• Extreme Temperatures: -75°F Oimyakon, Siberia; 110°F Twee Riviere, South Africa

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January 15, 2018 (for the week ending January 12)



Earthquakes

• [With a magnitude 5.5], one of the strongest of eight temblors that struck the Iran-Iraq border region injured at least 21 people in western Iran.
• A rare, [magnitude 3.2] temblor around the northern Dutch city of Groningen cracked buildings.
• Earth movements were also felt in the western Caribbean [magnitude 7.6] and northern Georgia [2.4].



Tropical cyclones

• At least 36 people were left dead in Madagascar after Category-2 Cyclone Ava raked the island’s east coast.
• Cyclone Irving churned the open waters of the central Indian Ocean as a threat only to shipping lanes.



Historic eruption

A volcano on a remote Papua New Guinea island spewed ash for days during its first eruption in recorded history. Some of the 2,000 residents of Kadovar Island were forced to paddle to the nearby island of Blup Blup, while others were evacuated to other islands. But officials warned that a stronger eruption could also create a tsunami capable of striking nearby islands.



Ocean suffocation

Areas of the world’s oceans, bays and lakes with little or no oxygen are dramatically expanding, according to a new study by the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. 'The decline in ocean oxygen ranks among the most serious effects of human activities on the Earth’s environment,' said marine ecologist Denise Breitburg. About half of Earth’s oxygen comes from the oceans, and global warming is said to be the main cause of the decline. But in coastal dead zones, most of the oxygen depletion is caused by fertilizer and sewage runoff from land. Breitburg says reducing that runoff on a local level could go a long way to solving that problem.



Ozone hole healing

NASA has found the first direct evidence that the depletion of stratospheric ozone is slowing, allowing a sluggish but steady recovery of the ozone hole above Antarctica. The ozone layer protects life on the Earth’s surface from harmful solar radiation. The agency’s scientists say the 1989 ban on the man-made chlorofluorocarbons responsible for most of the depletion now appears to be working. Those compounds were once widely used in aerosols, refrigerators and appliances. But when leaked into the air, they can rise high into the stratosphere where they are broken down by ultraviolet radiation from the sun, releasing ozone-killing chlorine in the process.



Itchy infestations

Fleas from domestic pets now infest wildlife and feral animals on all continents except Antarctica. A University of Queensland-led global study showed that so-called cat fleas — the main flea species found on domestic dogs and cats — are carried by more than 130 wildlife species around the world, representing nearly 20 percent of all the mammal species sampled. Dog fleas are less widespread and were reported on only 31 mammal species. The study warns that the fleas have the potential to transmit harmful bacteria back to pets and humans, including those that cause bubonic plague and typhus.



Deadly heat

Areas around Sydney experienced their hottest day in 79 years. The heat that baked three southeastern states also melted asphalt roadways, sparked dozens of fires and caused bats whose brains were said to have 'fried' to fall dead from the trees. Australia just experienced its third-hottest year on record in 2017.


• Extreme Temperatures: -66°F Ostrov Kotel'nyy, Russia; 117°F Penrith, Australia

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January 08, 2018 (for the week ending January 05)



Earthquakes

• Residents of the San Francisco Bay Area were awakened by an overnight magnitude 4.4 tremor.
• Earth movements were also felt in the far southern Philippines [magnitude 5.2], western India [3.2], grater Athens [5.0], the northeastern Caribbean [4.2], far northern Chile [5.2] and El Salvador [5.1].



Tropical cyclones

• Heavy rain from Tropical Depression Bolaven left at least two people dead from floods and mudslides in the central Philippines.
• Tropical Cyclone Ava was approaching the eastern coast of Madagascar late in the week.



Eclipse ripples

The total solar eclipse across North America on Aug. 21 caused waves to ripple through the top of Earth’s atmosphere, which scientists say they observed for the very first time. Data from 2,000 sensors placed along the path of totality found that the brief but rapid cooling and heating of the ionosphere during the eclipse made V-shaped atmospheric waves, similar to those made by a boat traveling through water. While there was indeed a disruption of the charged particles in parts of Earth’s geomagnetic field during the eclipse, scientists say it was tiny compared to the geomagnetic disturbances caused by solar storms.



Vaquita war

An anti-poaching drone being used to protect the critically endangered vaquita porpoise in the northern Gulf of California was shot down by poachers just before the New Year. The conservation group Sea Shepherd said the drone was being used in conjunction with its two ships that were patrolling the Upper Gulf of California Biosphere Reserve. Live video streaming from the drone showed a fisherman firing repeatedly from a speedboat before the video feed cut out. Illicit net fishing in the vaquita’s habitat has devastated the tiny porpoises’ population by inadvertently snaring and drowning the animals. Only about 30 of the marine mammals are believed to still be alive.



Bat cave cure?

A way to wipe out the deadly white-nose syndrome that has devastated bat populations by the millions across North America may have been found. Scientists from the U.S. Forest Service say the fungus responsible for the condition is highly sensitive to ultraviolet light. The researchers say Pseudogymnoascus destructans is unable to repair DNA damage caused by the UV light, which could lead to new treatments. A few seconds of moderate UV-C exposure resulted in less than 1 percent of the fungus surviving. Tests on infected bats are planned.



Mass migration

The wildebeest migration in Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park is back in full force, thanks to the removal of herds of livestock that had encroached into the reserve. Spokesman Susuma Kusekwa of the country’s National Parks Authority says there has been a significant increase in the number of the migratory animals in parts of the park after the livestock eviction. An estimated 1.4 million wildebeest, as well as a half-million Thomson’s gazelles and about 200,000 zebras, travel north and south between Kenya’s Masai Mara and the Serengeti as they follow seasonal rainfall patterns that provide lush grazing lands for the animals.



Growing bonanza

A new “speed breeding” method for growing common crops has the potential to help feed the world’s expanding population, scientists say.
Australian researchers write in the journal Nature Plants that they have developed a way of using specially calibrated LEDs to accelerate plant growth in spurts of up to 22 hours per day. The technique allows them to grow six generations of wheat, chickpea and barley in a year rather than the single generation of those crops that farmers now can typically grow annually. Scientists at the University of Sydney, the University of Queensland and the John Innes Center say the crops grown under far-red spectrum LEDs also look healthier than those grown in standard conditions.


• Extreme Temperatures: -61°F Oimyakon, Siberia; 114°F Boulia, Queensland, Australia

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January 01, 2018 (2017 Year in Review)



Earthquakes

• The year’s deadliest temblor, a magnitude 7.3 temblor centered along the Iran-Iraq border, killed at least 530 people in Iran and 10 others in Iraq on Nov. 12.
• Two people were killed and hundreds injured on the Greek island of Kos and the Turkish resort of Bodrum by a powerful magnitude 6.6 quake on July 21.
• Mexico was ravaged by two quake disasters. At least 98 people were killed in Chiapas state on Sept. 7 by a magnitude 8.2-quake, the country’s second-strongest temblor on record. On Sept. 19, areas around Mexico City were devastated by a magnitude 7.1 quake that killed 370 people and injured 6,000 others.
• A magnitude 7.0 temblor on Aug. 8 in a scenic corner of China’s Sichuan province killed 25 people.



Tropical cyclones

• It was a very active year for deadly tropical cyclones around the world.
• The Atlantic basin underwent its most active period since records began, with hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria causing catastrophic damage from Texas and Florida to Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Windward Islands. Hurricane Ophelia came closer to Europe than any other storm in history before dissipating over Ireland.
• Deadly storms also lashed Central America, the South Pacific, eastern and southern Asia, and the Indian Ocean.



Warming mismatch

The seasonal clock that guides migratory songbirds across North America is being disrupted by climate change, leaving some species unable to reach their summer homes by the key dates necessary for breeding success. They are now arriving out of sync with some of their food sources.



arctic tsunami

A huge landslide near the western Greenland settlement of Nuugaatsiaq spawned a tsunami on June 17 that killed four people and washed 11 buildings into the sea.



Ozone hole

The hole in Earth’s protective stratospheric ozone layer above Antarctica was the smallest since 1988 at the time of year it typically reaches its greatest expanse. The hole was at its peak on Sept. 11, covering about 7.6 million square miles before its annual shrinking.



Carbon spike

A three-year pause in the rise of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions ended in 2017, mainly due to greater coal use in China brought on by that country’s booming economy. Man-made production of the greenhouse gas had been rising about 3 percent each year so far this century before leveling off between 2014 and 2016. But the Global Carbon Project, a group of 76 scientists in 15 countries, predicted carbon emissions would rise about 2 percent in 2017, reaching a new record high of about 37 billion metric tons. Climate scientists have warned that a peak in CO2 emissions must occur before 2020 to avoid catastrophic global warming.



A warmer world

The official United Nations weather agency predicted that 2017 would be among the top three hottest years on average worldwide. It would also be the warmest year on record that was not influenced by the El Niño ocean warming.



Cosmic crashes

New research finds that subatomic particles striking Earth from deep space sometimes wreak havoc on smartphones, computers and other electronic devices. Researcher Bharat Bhuva of Vanderbilt University says when cosmic rays strike the Earth’s atmosphere, they create bursts of other subatomic particles that can interact with circuits, sometimes altering bits of stored data.



Penguin starvation

A sharp accumulation of ice around an Antarctic island caused all but two of 18,000 Adélie penguin chicks there to starve. The extensive sea ice had forced the adults to venture 60 miles farther than usual to find food for their young.


• Extreme Temperatures: -111°F Vostok, Antarctica; 127°F Death Valley, California

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December 25, 2017 (for the week ending December 22)



Earthquakes

• Three people were killed and hundreds of buildings were damaged by a magnitude 6.5 temblor that rocked the southern coast of Java for nearly a minute.
• Earth movements were also felt in northern Iran [magnitude 5.2], northern Kentucky [2.8] and along the southern Texas Gulf Coast [3.0].



Tropical cyclones

• Typhoon Kai-Tak left at least 45 people dead and dozens more missing as it lashed the central Philippines. The tropical storm-force typhoon also destroyed large tracts of crops, according to officials.
• Remnants of Kai-Tak were approaching the Malay Peninsula late in the week.



Sumatran eruption

Ongoing activity at Indonesia’s Sinabung volcano sent clouds of hot debris soaring high above northern Sumatra Island. Residents were also warned of possible floods of cold debris cascading down the volcano in heavy rain. More than 2,000 people have been displaced by a string of blasts at Sinabung that began in 2013.



Deafening spawn

Dolphins and other sea mammals swimming in Mexican waters may be made deaf from exposure to the loud noises generated in the spawning frenzies of one fish species. A new report documents how this happens at a single site each spring in the far northern Gulf of California when Gulf corvina gather by the millions to spawn. “These spawning events are among the loudest wildlife events found on planet Earth,” said researcher Timothy Rowell of the University of California San Diego. The sounds, which are described as resembling “a really loud machine gun,” could at least temporarily deafen nearby seals, sea lions and dolphins.



Plastic pollution

Tiny pieces of plastics now contaminate even the most remote waters of the Arctic, where they are being consumed by marine life. New Norwegian research finds there are more microplastics in the blue mussels on the country’s Arctic Barents Sea coast than in the water near Oslo. The plastic is likely getting swept north into the Arctic by currents and wind. Chinese scientists say that while fish and other ocean creatures are eating the plastics, mollusks are early indicators of where plastic pollution has arrived because they live on the seabed where many plastic bits settle.



Wildlife selfies

A leading animal welfare organization has warned tourists to beware using wildlife for selfie backdrops because the act can be dangerous for both the humans and animals. World Animal Protection says the greatest concern is for the more than half-million wild animals kept in captivity and used to earn money from tourists. “There are more than 550,000 wild animals in captivity,” said spokeswoman Edith Kabesiime. “Many are starved, beaten into submission, poorly kept or even abandoned when it becomes too expensive to keep or too big to take care of.” She also cautioned that diseases can be passed between people and wildlife.



Snake intruders

Firefighters in Bangkok are being called on almost 30,000 times a year to remove snakes slithering in homes across the Thai capital. Many residents have had to call for help multiple times. The problem became chronic in recent years as the sprawling metropolis of about 10 million people expanded into the lush surrounding wetlands. Most of the snakes are harmless, with about 70 percent of those caught being pythons. But some cobras and other venomous types are captured and taken to a facility that uses them to create serum for treating poisonous snakebites.


• Extreme Temperatures: -53°F Oimyakon, Siberia; 113°F Oodnadatta, S. Australia

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December 18, 2017 (for the week ending December 15)



Earthquakes

• Iran was hit by two tremors, with a magnitude 5.4 quake rocking the border with Iraq, where a stronger temblor last month killed at least 530 people. The other temblor had a magnitude of 5.9.
• Earth movements were also felt in northern India's Himalayan Jammu and Kashmir state [magnitude 4.6], the Czech-Polish border region [3.4] and northwest Oregon [4.0].



Iceland rumblings

Iceland’s dormant Skjaldbreidur volcano is showing signs of unrest, with more than 100 tremors of magnitudes up to 3.8 rattling the glacier that covers it. Skjaldbreidur is Iceland’s most dangerous volcano. It last erupted in 1727-1728.



New Arctic 'normal'

A new “report card” on how climate change is affecting the Arctic reveals that permafrost is now thawing more quickly, as polar sea ice melts at its fastest pace in 1,500 years. “2017 continued to show us we are on this deepening trend where the Arctic is a very different place than it was even a decade ago,” said NOAA arctic researcher Jeremy Mathis. He told the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union that what’s happening in the Arctic is affecting the rest of the planet.
Earlier studies found that changes in Arctic sea ice and temperature can alter the jet stream — a major influence on weather across North America, Europe and Asia. “The Arctic has traditionally been the refrigerator to the planet, but the door of the refrigerator has been left open,” Mathis said.



Aspen clone

An explosion in the number of Utah’s mule deer is threatening the largest and possibly the oldest living organism on the planet. The Pando clone is a forest of more than 47,000 quaking aspens that share a single root system and are genetically identical.
The colony emerged about 80,000 years ago from a single seed. But foresters say the Pando clone is “tired” and aging because its young sprouts are being munched on by the deer, which have grown in numbers since the native wolves disappeared. Its oldest trees, between 110 and 130 years old, aren’t being replaced by new growth because the deer find the sprouts irresistible. A study suggests fencing in young growth can protect it from the deer and cattle that occasionally tromp on the clone’s root system.



Noisy seas

The noise pollution produced by ships and marine construction projects in the Gulf of Maine is drowning out the sounds that Atlantic cod and haddock need to communicate with each other, according to a new study. The U.S. environment agency NOAA says this is altering the behavior, feeding, mating and socializing of the commercially important fish. The study concludes that since the fish make sounds to attract mates and listen for predators, not hearing those signals could threaten their breeding success and survival.



Social arachnophilia

Images of giant and scary-looking spiders posted on social media are helping scientists identify dozens of species that may never have been documented. Writing in the journal Insect Conservation and Diversity, researcher Heather Campbell, formerly of the University of Pretoria, says she made the discoveries after getting involved with a group of “massive spider nerds.” They venture out at night looking for southern African baboon spiders, then post their findings online. Together, Campbell and the adventurers published the Baboon Spider Atlas, which used various Facebook photos posted by the group and other curious arachnophiles. The atlas may have identified 20 to 30 new species.



Antarctic refuge

The world’s largest marine reserve has just been established in Antarctica’s Ross Sea in what conservationists hail as a “watershed moment” for conservation. The agreement began protecting 600,000 square miles of the Ross Sea effective Dec. 1. It bans commercial fishing in about 72 percent of the reserve.


• Extreme Temperatures: -64°F Oimyakon, Siberia; 110°F Julia Creek, Queensland, Australia

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December 11, 2017 (for the week ending December 08)



Earthquakes

• At least 42 people in southeastern Iran were injured by a magnitude 6.0 quake that destroyed several homes near the provincial capital of Kerman.
• A strong [magnitude 6.0] earthquake centered near Ecuador’s Pacific coast caused damage to some buildings and knocked out power.
• Earth movements were also felt in New Zealand's North Island [magnitude 4.9], the central Philippines [5.0], northern India [5.1], northern Oklahoma [4.2] and around Anchorage, Alaska [magnitude 3.9].



Tropical cyclones

• Dozens of people perished in storm-related accidents across Sri Lanka and southern India from Cyclone Ockhi, which briefly attained Category-3 force.
• Short-lived Tropical Storm Dahlia churned the Indian Ocean between Java and northwestern Australia.



Eruption update

Indonesian officials warned residents near Bali’s Mount Agung volcano to remain alert, even though the volcano calmed down after days of explosive eruptions.



Rescue failure

A desperate attempt to save the 30 surviving members of the world’s most endangered marine mammal species by capturing them and keeping them in human care has been abandoned. The plan to rescue the vaquitas by patrolling their small habitat in the Gulf of California with the help of dolphins trained by the U.S. Navy was halted soon after the first vaquita captured quickly showed signs of extreme stress and had to be released.
A second died a few hours after being caught. “This is a very, very serious setback,” said project scientist Barbara Taylor, of the U.S. agency NOAA. She said the vaquita’s only hope now is to curb the illegal net fishing that inadvertently ensnares them.



Heated growth

The “urban heat island” effect is causing trees around the world’s cities to grow faster than those in the country, a new study finds.
Concrete and other heat-absorbing materials that make up the urban landscape store more heat than the ground in the country. This keeps cities significantly warmer, especially at night. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich compared core samples of 1,400 trees from several countries around the world in both urban and rural settings. They found that city trees of the same age as country trees were larger because they grew faster in the excess heat. Earlier studies found that global warming is causing faster tree growth in both urban and rural trees.



Global cleansing

Nations of the world have agreed to move toward a pollution-free planet, curbing contamination of the oceans, rivers, soil and air.
Every day, nine out of 10 people worldwide breathe in pollution that exceeds health guidelines, with 17,000 dying prematurely from it. Wildlife is also being poisoned. Meeting at a U.N.
Environment Assembly in Nairobi, members also called for a shift in how goods are produced and used, especially plastics that wind up in the world’s oceans. But the non-binding declaration has no timetable and has not been signed onto by the United States.



Macaque mischief

Forestry authorities in southwestern China’s Yunnan province captured a troublesome and elusive wild monkey that had repeatedly broken into homes at night. The macaque evaded capture for about two weeks before being cornered in a school dormitory, according to the China News Service.
Macaques are notorious for their thievery and even extortion, according to researchers who recently published a study in the journal Primates.
But as a protected species, the serial intruder will be released back into the wild after it gets a clean bill of health from a veterinarian.


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

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December 04, 2017 (for the week ending December 01)



Earthquakes

• At least 36 people were injured when a magnitude 4.5 quake jolted the western Iran-eastern Iraq border, near where a much stronger temblor killed 530 earlier in November.
• Earth movements were also felt in southern Turkey [magnitude 5.1] and south-central Alaska [magnitude 5.3].



Southern cyclone

• Indonesia’s meteorological agency said the first tropical cyclone of the season in the Southern Hemisphere formed just south of the island of Java. As it was forming, Cyclone Cempaka killed at least 19 people on Java, mainly in a landslide triggered by heavy rainfall.



Bali eruptions

Indonesia’s Mount Agung belched plumes of ash and created tremors that shook parts of Bali during a string of eruptions that ended the volcano’s 54-year slumber. Authorities told 100,000 residents around the volcano to leave the area as ash also forced the extended closure of Bali’s international airport.



Light pollution

Artificial light on the Earth’s surface at night grew by about 2 percent in each of the last five years, causing concerns that the light pollution could affect people and wildlife. The U.S. environment agency NOAA cautions that the satellite sensors used to detect the planet’s lighting can’t observe some of the increasingly common LED lighting, meaning the analysis of the observations could be underestimating the amount of light pollution. Ecologist Franz Hölker, of Germany’s Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, warned that the light “threatens biodiversity through changed night habits, such as reproduction or migration patterns of many different species: insects, amphibians, fish, birds, bats and other animals.”



Disease drones

An international team of researchers suggests that the common fly can be used as a kind of bionic drone to monitor and predict the progression of disease outbreaks. Writing in the journal Scientific Reports, the scientists say they found swarms of flies can carry several hundred species of bacteria, some of which can be harmful to humans. Singapore researcher Stephan Schuster and his colleagues suggest that flies bred to be germ-free could be released into the environment, then captured in bait traps to see if they had picked up any dangerous pathogens.



Israeli snow birds

Ornithologists say climate change has prompted some of the 500 million migratory birds that used to stop off only briefly in Israel to stay for the winter rather than cross an increasingly hostile and expanding desert region to the south. Because 40,000 newly wintering cranes like to feast on the corn and peanuts growing around Agamon Hula Lake, Israel has resorted to feeding the birds up to 9 tons of corn a day to keep them away from the crops. “It’s harder for the birds to cross a much larger desert, and they just cannot do it. There is not enough fuel, there are not enough ‘gas stations’ on the way, so Israel has become their biggest gas station, their biggest restaurant,” said ornithologist Shay Agmon.



Antimatter bolt

New studies have revealed that the intense power introduced into the atmosphere by lightning can result in matter-antimatter annihilation in a series of radioactive decays that follow some strikes. Writing in the journal Nature, a team of Japanese researchers found that electric fields within thunderstorms are able to accelerate electrons to extremely high energies, generating a zone that contains unstable isotopes of oxygen and nitrogen. Radioisotopes and even positrons — the antimatter equivalent of electrons — are formed in the process. More research is needed to determine if the powerful flashes pose a radiation hazard to people on the ground.


• Extreme Temperatures: -65°F Oimyakon, Siberia; 106°F Telfer, W. Australia

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