Earthweek: a diary of the planet

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 Kaitlyn Gaynor, a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley.

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 night owls.

Earthquakes

At least five people perished when a strong earthquake rocked metropolitan Osaka, Japan, toppling bookcases and walls onto victims. Hundreds of others were injured. Earth movements also were felt in northwestern Taiwan, northern New Zealand, central Tunisia, southwestern Iceland and southern Guatemala. 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.

Warming deadline

The United Nations will soon issue its most dire warning to date that the planet will exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius (34.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming by around 2040, which was the most ambitious limit agreed to in the 2015

Paris agreement.

Experts believe that 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 that only “rapid and far-reaching” changes in the world economy can now restrict warming to that level.

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 twothirds reduction in the use of coal. Planting vast amounts of forests, and rapid technological advances, might also be needed to remove the accumulating carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the report will conclude.

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 could bring even worse inundations within the next two years. NOAA found that this past 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 the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warns that 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 earlier 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. As many as 28 people might have been killed by the disease since it re-emerged in early April.

Eruptions

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