Earthweek: a diary of the planet
For the week ending Friday, April 24.
Record heat persists
The first three months of this year were the hottest worldwide since record-keeping began 136 years ago. The warm spell was punctuated by a record-setting March, when Earth’s average temperature was 56.4 degrees, breaking the previous record set in 2010 by 0.09 degree, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Climate experts there and at NASA also say that the past 12 months have been the hottest ever recorded. NOAA said that pools of warm water across the tropical Pacific and in the northeastern Pacific Ocean contributed to the record warmth.
Eruption
Southern Chile’s Calbuco volcano erupted for the first time in more than 42 years, spewing a huge ash cloud that prompted authorities to evacuate about 1,500 nearby residents. Aviation officials diverted air traffic around the mountain. The 6,500-foot Calbuco produced its last eruption in 1972 and is considered one of Chile’s three most threatening volcanos.
Primitive diversity
Samples of germs taken from once-isolated indigenous people in Venezuela’s Amazon region found that the tribesmen’s seclusion until recently has allowedallo them to keep the highest diversitydiv of bodily bacteria ever observedob among humans. The trillionstril of mainly beneficial bacteriaba our bodies need for digestion and immunity have come under assault over the past 75 years by the use of antibiotics.
Brazilian twister
A rare Brazilian tornado killed two people and injured about 120 others in the southern city of Xanxere, also damaging about 500 houses as it tore through the community. Authorities in the state of Santa Catarina said 200,000 homes and businesses were left without power.
Worm rain
Out of all of the various reports of creatures falling from the sky, Norway’s rain of worms may be among the hardest to believe. The media were peppered with reports of earthworms apparently falling from the sky as the landscape near Bergen began to melt in mid-April. Biology teacher Karstein Erstad came across an untold number of the invertebrates, lying on top of snow up to 3 feet deep. Experts believe the worms could have been swept up by strong winds after they emerged from the ground and carried to the snow-covered area.
Poisoning ‘success’
New Zealand’s contentious program to eradicate rats, possums and stoats by dropping and placing traps has brought the populations of those pests to undetectable or very low levels, officials say. The country announced that its monitoring of shows that a small number of the endangered birds the program was intended to protect died. But they said a 1-in-15-year bumper crop of beech seeds would have fueled a huge explosion of the invasive pests had the poisoning program not been started.