Earthweek: Diary of a Changing World
Week ending Friday, September 23, 2016
Record Melt
The Arctic’s sea ice shrank to its second-lowest coverage since scientists began measuring it by satellite in the late 1970s.
The U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center says the sea ice reached its summer minimum on Sept. 10, when it covered only 1.6 million square miles around the North Pole. This virtually tied with the summer of 2007 for second place.
The all-time minimum was reached in 2012 with only 1.3 million square miles of ice remaining on Sept. 17.
Eruptions
Five explosions at Costa Rica’s restive Turrialba volcano spewed ash high above the heart of the counWU\ SURPSWLQJ RIÀFLDOV WR VKXW down the main international airport when ash began falling on the runways.
Quieter Spring
The skies across much of North America have become increasingly more quiet over recent decades as the bird populations plummeted by 1.6 billion, according to a new study.
Scientists say that of the 86 species studied, 22 have lost at least half of their population since 1970.
“We’re really getting down to the dregs of some of these populations,” said study coauthor Judith Kennedy of Environment Canada.
Domestic cats are believed to kill more than 2 billion birds each year, while farming disrupts habitats of grassland birds and adulterates the landscape with pesticides.
Logging has also thinned the forests used by many migrating birds as resting and refueling stops.
Ravenous Pests
The Nigerian government warns that swarms of locusts, grasshoppers and quelea birds are about to descend on northern parts of the country just as farmers are preparing to harvest bumper crops.
“If they arrive, within hours and days they will wipe out everything that our farmers have put on the ÀHOG µ VDLG 0LQLVWHU RI $JULculture Audu Ogbeh.
Some northern farmers say their crops have already been ravaged by quelea birds, a common pest across sub-Saharan Africa.
Wood Wide Web
A German forester says he has found evidence that trees have some long-overlooked abilities to feel loneliness, scream in pain and communicate with each other through what has been dubbed by scientists the “Wood Wide Web.”
Peter Wohlleben says he made those observations while studying nearly 3,000 acres of forest in western Germany, primarily of EHHFK RDN ÀU DQG VSUXFH WUHHV
He says he found fungus in the ground acts like the internet in allowing the elaborate networks of arboreal communication.
“The fungal connections transmit signals from one tree to the next, helping the trees exchange news about insects, drought and other dangers,” said Wohlleben.
Writing in his book The Hidden Life of Trees, he concludes that humans would pay more attention to trees if they recognized just how similar the plants are in many ways to animals.
Wohlleben also talks metaphorically of tree brains and their ability to hear, learn and remember. Wohllenben says trees can also experience things like friendships, language and etiquette.
Tropical Storms
The death toll from TySKRRQ 0HUDQWL·V IXU\ DFURVV Taiwan and mainland China rose to 28. It was the strongest typhoon to hit southern Fujian province since 1949.
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7URSLFDO VWRUPV .DUO DQG Lisa churned the Atlantic.
+XUULFDQH 3DLQH ORVW force before moving ashore in northern Baja California.
Earthquakes
0RUH WKDQ D GR]HQ tremors jolted the Oklahoma-Kansas border region in the aftermath of the region’s strongest temblor on record, which struck on Sept. 3.
(DUWK PRYHPHQWV ZHUH also felt in Los Angeles, Japan’s remote Izu Islands, eastern Indonesia’s Papua province and southern Iceland.