EARTHWEEK

Vanishing beaches

The effects of global heating will erode approximately half of the world’s existing beaches by the end of this century if efforts to cut carbon emissions fail, according to a study by the Joint Research Center of the European Commission.

It says more than 22,400 miles of sandy coastline will be eroded by rising tides and stormier seas during the next 30 years before conditions worsen and far more beaches disappear during the latter half of the century.

Writing in the journal Nature

Climate Change, study author Michalis Vousdoukas says that even modest efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions could prevent about 17% of the shoreline retreat by 2050 and 40% by 2100.

Earthquakes

The central Philippines’ Leyte Island was jolted by a 5.5 magnitude temblor that caused scattered damage.

• Two moderate tremors were felt in Trinidad and nearby areas of northeastern Venezuela.

Failing lungs

A new study finds that the forests in the heart of Africa and across the Amazon will stop absorbing carbon dioxide emissions as a whole in as little as 15 years, forcing scientists and politicians to rethink their strategies on combating the global climate crisis.

In what researcher Simon Lewis at the University of Leeds describes as the most worrying paper he’s ever written, he describes how CO2 absorption in the Amazon has already plunged.

Fortunately, the amount of emissions being absorbed by forests around the world has actually increased due to higher temperatures and more tree growth in temperate regions.

Ebola’s end

Health officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo say they are optimistic that the country’s protracted Ebola outbreak is finally coming to an end.

The World Health Organization says the last surviving patient was just released from a clinic in the northeastern town of Beni.

A 42-day waiting period has just begun, and if no more people are found to be infected during that time, the outbreak can be declared officially over.

The second-worst outbreak on record has killed 2,264 of the 3,444 people believed infected since it began in August 2018.

Eastern swarms

Farmers in parts of Pakistan are battling the worst locust plague in nearly 30 years after heavy rains from earlier tropical cyclones provided perfect conditions for unprecedented breeding and explosive population growth of the insects.

While most recent headlines have highlighted the damage the vast desert locust crisis has inflected on eastern Africa, other swarms have spread eastward from around the Red Sea to Iran, Pakistan and into parts of India.