Earthweek: a diary of the planet
Ice-free Yukon
Unusual warmth in northwestern Canada has for a second winter in a row prevented a seasonal “ice bridge” from forming over the Yukon River to connect Dawson City with West Dawson. In summer, the two sides are connected by a ferry. But in winter, residents have to wait for the river to freeze over to make the crossing. The ice bridge has historically been open to traffic by mid-December. Crews worked for a week to create an “ice Band-Aid” by spraying a cold mist to cap a 300-foot-wide stretch of the river with ice. But the project failed when daytime temperatures rose above freezing. The typical Dawson high temperature for January is about minus 8 Fahrenheit.
Avian PTSD
The cacophony of man-made sound in the modern world could be causing symptoms in birds similar to what humans experience in post-traumatic stress disorder. Researchers from the Florida Museum of Natural History studied birds exposed to the constant noise of natural-gas compressors
and found skewed stress hormone levels, possibly caused by increased anxiety, distraction and hyper-vigilance. Report co-author Rob Guralnick believes the noise could act as an “acoustic blanket,” muffling the sound clues that birds rely on to detect predators, competitors for food and their own species. “They’re perpetually stressed because they can’t figure out what’s going on,” Guralnick said.
Stalking raiders
A northern Namibian village was raided by a herd of 28 elephants that wrecked 18 homes, uprooted trees and destroyed the village well. Residents of Otjorute said the animals often come from a nearby conservation
area during harvest, but this month’s raids were unprecedented. The villagers said the pachyderms arrived early one morning and left a trail of uprooted or damaged trees. The New Era daily reported that at least one elephant followed people’s footprints until it got into their houses.
Running dry
Residents of Cape Town have been warned that the city could run out of water as soon as April because of a protracted drought across parts of South Africa. Each resident will be rationed 13 gallons of water per day beginning this Thursday. Reservoirs dwindled to less than 10 percent of capacity, as the worst drought on record has persisted for three years. A huge awareness campaign is being combined with increased leak detection and repairs to help conserve what water is left for the 3.7 million residents.
Earthquakes
One person was killed and hundreds of homes were wrecked on the Indonesian island of Java by a magnitude 6.0 earthquake. Much of Alaska was jolted by an intense magnitude 7.9 earthquake beneath the Gulf of Alaska, which prompted a brief tsunami watch down to California and Hawaii. The powerful jolt caused water levels in wells to briefly fluctuate as far away as Florida. Earth movements also were felt in eastern Australia, western India, northwestern Mexico and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Eruptions
Flying rocks and landslides from an eruption of Japan’s Mount Kusatsu-Shiranesan killed one person and injured at least 25 others at a nearby ski resort. A fiery eruption of Mount Mayon in the central Philippines has forced about 75,000 people to evacuate. Volcanic ash was continuing to darken the sky and falling on nearby villages into the weekend.
Ocean warming
Chinese researchers say 2017 was the warmest year on record for the world’s oceans. A report by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, says the increase in heat content in the ocean’s upper 6,500 feet last year occurred in most regions of the world. It exceeded the previous record warmth set in 2015. Scientists say the record warmth of 2017 resulted in a 1.7-millimeter rise in global sea level, along with a further decline in ocean oxygen and an increase in the bleaching of coral reefs.