Earthweek: a diary of the planet
Arctic voyager
An Arctic fox was tracked by Norwegian researchers as it wandered for 2,737 miles from northern Norway to Greenland, then finally into Canada’s far north. Researchers say it is one of the longest treks ever recorded for an Arctic fox.
A tracking device put on the animal in July 2017 allowed a team from the Norwegian Polar Institute to follow the now 2-year-old female as it moved across vast stretches of sea ice and glaciers. The animal traveled about 29 miles daily for 76 days. But at times, she walked nearly 100 miles in a single day. No other of the species tracked by the institute wandered beyond Norway.
Tropical cyclones
Residents of New Orleans and other areas along the Gulf of Mexico were preparing late in the week for the arrival of Tropical Storm Barry. The slow-moving storm was expected to hover over the same areas for a long time, likely dropping large amounts of rain and adding to what already is widespread flooding. Evacuations were ordered in many areas of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and the Florida Panhandle. The storm was expected to make landfall by Saturday and arrive as a hurricane.
Meanwhile, Hurricane Barbara dissipated southwest of the Big Island of Hawaii. Tropical Storm Mun drenched northern Vietnam, including the capital of Hanoi. And Tropical Storm Cosme formed briefly over the eastern Pacific, just off the Mexican mainland.
Rugged weeds
Weeds around the world are evolving resistance to numerous herbicides, which researchers warn will have economic and environmental consequences after weedkillers quit working on them.
“It is not a matter of ‘if’ but ‘when’ we are going to be losing chemical control of these weeds,” says Adam Davis of the University of Illinois at Urbanachampaign. Davis said that once control is lost, the “super weeds” will cause massive crop losses and increased food prices.
Hotter reality
European researchers say the type of record heat that scorched a wide area of Europe during June is now at least five times more likely due to climate change. The team from the World Weather Attribution group says man-made global warming also makes such heat waves about 7 degrees hotter than they would have been a century ago.
Geert Jan van Oldenborgh of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute says the estimate of such heat waves being five times more likely is conservative, and he believes they could actually now be up to 100 times more likely.
Stromboli eruption
Two huge explosions and flows of lava from an unexpected eruption of Italy’s Stromboli volcano July 3 killed one hiker and sent tourists fleeing into the sea or barricading themselves inside.
“It was like being in hell because of the rain of fire coming from the sky,” local priest Giovanni Longo told Italian media. The eruption also ignited wildfires on the western side of the small Mediterranean island of the same name. Stromboli is one of the world’s most active volcanoes and has been almost continuously active since 1932.
Arctic ‘megafires’
The record warming of the Arctic sparked massive wildfires from northern Alaska to Siberia during June, releasing vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Mark Parrington, of the European Center for Medium-range Weather Forecasts in Oxford, England, estimates 50 megatons of CO2 have been released by the Siberian blazes alone, comparable to Sweden’s total 2017 carbon emissions.
Earthquakes
Hundreds of aftershocks jolted California’s high desert region following a magnitude 7.1 earthquake July 5. Also this past week, a regional tsunami warning was briefly issued after a magnitude 6.9 quake struck beneath the seabed east of Indonesia’s Sulawesi island. And earth movement was felt in southwestern Iran.
©2019 Earth Environment Service