Earthweek: a diary of the planet
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.
Earthquakes
A brief tsunami alert was issued after a sharp tremor struck beneath Indonesia’s Banda Sea. Shaking was felt as far away as Darwin, Australia. Earth movements also were felt in the central Papua New Guinea aftershock zone and
from northern Pakistan to eastern Afghanistan.
Eruption
The 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.”
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 pachyderm
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 her truck, placing them in her mouth and exhaling with a large plume of ash. In a selfmedicating 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 greenhousegas 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. Though the United States 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.
Tropical cyclones
Australia’s Cape York Peninsula, in far northern Queensland, was drenched by Category-2 Cyclone Nora. The storm intensified rapidly after forming over the Gulf of Carpentaria. Also this past week, Tropical Storm Iris passed over the Coral Sea. And Tropical Storm Jelawat became Typhoon Jelawat — the first typhoon of 2018 —as it spun up near Yap, then moved northward over the open waters of the Pacific.