San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Earthweek: a diary of the planet
For the week ending Friday, Jan. 14.
Polar flashes
Scientists say they are alarmed at the sudden and rapid increase in lightning strikes across the high Arctic in the past few years. The 7,278 lightning bolts north of 80 degrees latitude in 2021 were nearly double the number in the previous nine years combined. The trend was highlighted by the Finnish scientific instrument manufacturer Vaisala, which issues an annual report on lightning. The more frequent lightning bolts are being caused by disappearing sea ice, which means more water is able to evaporate, and the greater atmospheric instability caused by Arctic warming that is occurring at four times the global average.
Galapagos lava
Ecuador’s Wolf Volcano, the tallest in the Galapagos archipelago, spewed lava across parts of Isabela Island, home to only 211 surviving pink iguanas. But officials said the eruption appeared not to have harmed wildlife and occurred far from any human settlements.
Methane alarm
The global level of methane has reached a record high, growing at twice the rate of the long-term average in what scientists are calling a “fire alarm moment” for curbing climate change. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says methane concentrations reached a record 1,900 parts per billion in September, the highest in almost four decades of regular monitoring. The gas is 80 times more potent in contributing to global heating than carbon dioxide.
Summer scorch
The height of southern summer has brought some of the hottest weather on record to northern Argentina and parts of western Australia. The Argentine heat wave caused the power grid around Buenos Aires to collapse as temperatures approached the hottest ever recorded in South America. A temperature of 123 degrees Fahrenheit in Pilbara, Australia, tied for the hottest ever recorded in the entire Southern Hemisphere since 1960.
History’s hottest
Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service says the past seven years have been the hottest on record, with 2021 coming in as the world’s fifth-hottest year. A report says the trend is obvious “by a clear margin” and that the average global temperature last year was 1.1 to 1.2 degrees Celsius above 1850-1900 levels. Another report, published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, says Earth’s oceans are warming eight times faster than before the late 1980s. Researchers say the top 6,600 feet of the oceans were the hottest on record during 2021 despite the expanding La Niña cooling.