Earthweek: Diary of a Changing World
Week ending Friday, March 17 , 2023 ‘Arachnicide’
A growing population of invasive brown widow spiders is wiping out native black widows in southern parts of the United States even though there seems to be enough food and space for both species to coexist.
Since arriving in Florida from what’s believed to be their native Africa, the more aggressive brown widows have quickly expanded across the country, outbreeding and killing off their darker cousins.
This should be of some comfort to residents in the region since brown widow bites are far less venomous to humans than those of black widows, with symptoms usually limited to mild skin irritations.
Earthquakes
Bogota residents rushed outside in the middle of the night as a sharp temblor struck to the north of the Colombian capital. No major damage was reported.
• Tremors were also felt in southern Peru, southern Colorado, eastern Papua New Guinea and the Hindu Kush region from eastern Afghanistan to northern Pakistan.
Oceans of Plastic
The amount of microplastic debris littering the world’s oceans has undergone a dramatic surge since 2005, with researchers saying there are now about 2.75 million tons of it in the world’s seas.
Marcus Eriksen and Lisa Erdle at the 5 Gyres Institute in Santa Monica, California, and their colleagues say scarce data on plastic pollution between 1979 and 1990 make it impossible to see how fast it was increasing during that period.
Observations between 1990 and 2004 show it was fluctuating with no clear trend. But concentrations have risen in recent years to more than 10 times their levels in 2005.
A legally binding treaty among 175 countries to control plastic pollution is expected to be drafted and debated by 2024.
Croc Tragedy
Approximately 10,000 rare white crocodiles have died of starvation and thirst as Kenya’s Lake Kamnarok, Africa’s second-largest crocodile habitat, dried up during the past year.
A shift in climate has also caused many other lakes across the East African nation, as well as the rivers that feed them, to became parched landscapes.
Kamnarok’s surviving crocs have been forced to move upstream in the lake’s diminishing watershed. This is increasing their sometimes violent contacts with the human population and livestock.
Record Cyclone
Hundreds of people across Mozambique and neighboring Malawi perished in catastrophic flooding and mudslides, triggered by Cyclone Freddy’s second passage over southeastern Africa.
The storm was the longest-lived and most forceful tropical cyclone over time on record due to it crossing the entire width of the Indian Ocean and making landfall twice in Mozambique during its lifespan of five weeks and four days.
By Steve Newman Earliest Blooms
The famed cherry trees of Tokyo began to blossom on March 14, matching the earliest date on record since observations began in 1953.
The Japan Meteorological Agency said the “Somei Yoshino” variety buds appeared at the Yasukuni Shrine on the same day in 2020 and 2021 as well, which is 10 days earlier than the longterm average.
The agency says the trees should be in full bloom across the capital in the next week and should soon burst forth earlier than normal in other parts of the country, due to rising temperatures.
Residents will be able to gather in public spaces to enjoy the blooms for the first time since the pandemic.
Java Eruption
A blast from Indonesia’s Mount Merapi volcano spewed a massive plume of ash that blanketed nearby farms and villages on the island of Java.
Merapi’s last major eruption in 2010 killed more than 300 people and forced 280,000 others to evacuate their homes for months.