Earthweek: a diary of the planet
Warming factor
Earth’s atmosphere reacts far more to greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought, leading experts to predict the planet’s surface temperature will rise by an average of 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100. Writing in the journal Nature, a team of Australia-based researchers says it has found how cloud formation plays a role in climate, which has been one of the greatest uncertainties in the prediction of global warming. The group says that while climate models show a relatively low global temperature reaction to carbon dioxide emissions, those models currently do not factor in all the water vapor released into the atmosphere. The report concludes that “real world observations” show the accepted models are wrong. They point to fewer clouds forming than the models project, which means more sunlight will enter the atmosphere, making the atmosphere far more sensitive to the warming effects of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. “Climate skeptics like to criticize climate models for getting things wrong, and we are the first to admit they are not perfect,” said lead author Steven Sherwood. “But what we are finding is that the mistakes are being made by those models (that) predict less warming, not those that predict more.”
Earthquakes
One person was killed and 30 others were injured by a quake in southern Iran’s Hormozgan province.
• Tremors in Baja California are believed to have contributed to the collapse of a stretch of coastal highway near Ensenada.
• Earth movements were also felt in Palm Springs, central Oklahoma, the Canary Islands, southern Italy, southern Turkey, northeastern Japan and Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula.
Solar flip
The sun’s magnetic field underwent a total reversal of polarity during the closing days of 2013. The flip marked the midpoint of Solar Cycle 24, which has generated the weakest solar activity in a century. Powerful eruptions on the sun often spew massive clouds of superheated particles into space, sometimes directed toward Earth. But such solar storms have rarely been seen during the current solar cycle even though the total number of generally weaker storms hasn’t declined much. “None of us alive has ever seen such a weak cycle. So we will learn something,” said Leif Svalgaard of Stanford University. NASA’s Tony Phillips says the sun’s magnetic influence extends outward for billions of miles, well beyond the orbit of Pluto.
Tropical cyclones
Category-2 Cyclone Christine uprooted trees and damaged homes along parts of northwest Australia’s Pilbara coast. The storm made landfall with winds of up to 124 mph.
• Cyclone Bejisa brushed the
Indian Ocean island of Reunion late in the week as a Category-3 storm.
Eruption
El Salvador’s San Miguel volcano (also known as Chaparrastique) produced its most powerful eruption since 1976 with a plume of ash that soared 3 miles above the Central American country. The volcanic debris fell on nearby coffee plantations and forced aviation officials to suspend more than 36 international flights. The eruption sent more than 1,600 people fleeing into emergency shelters, but officials said some were refusing to evacuate from the volcano’s slopes. The 7,025-foot volcano is about 30 miles from the city of San Miguel and about 90 miles east of the capital, San Salvador.
Locust swarms
Starvation looms for some residents of the Arab nation of Yemen as a plague of desert locusts has devoured vast tracts of crops there. Unusually heavy rainfall during the past several months has created perfect breeding conditions for the insects, according to agriculture officials. About 75 percent of Yemen’s population relies on agriculture for a living, and many farmers may not have any crops left to harvest in the aftermath of the swarms. The Food and Agriculture Organization says that ground spraying has been conducted along Yemen’s Red Sea coast, where new generations of the insects were emerging. The U.N. agency says that the insects can lay waste to entire farming regions within days.
Polar birthday
About 5,000 polar bear cubs were born in the Arctic around New Year’s Day, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The end of December is typically when the bears give birth — a time when the northern polar region is blanketed by some of the coldest and darkest conditions of the year. WWF celebrates the polar bears’ birthday on Dec. 29 and estimates the global population of the iconic animal is between 20,000 and 25,000. The bears, which can typically live to be about 25 years old, are threatened by poachers, global warming and pollution. They have become the “poster animal” for climate change and the resulting melt of their Arctic ice cap homes.