Earthweek: a diary of the planet
Shrinking winter
Researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego say California’s snowy winters are becoming shorter under climate change, threatening the annual cycle of snow and melt that is crucial to water supplies in the state. It’s also said to bring an increased risk of fires. The findings were presented at the American Geophysical Union annual meeting, held in December in Washington, D.C. They show that the trend toward shorter winters is now occurring around much of the Northern Hemisphere.
Seismic calming
The number of earthquakes jolting Oklahoma due to the operation of injection wells associated with oil and gas extraction has decreased for a third straight year, following regulatory curbs on the practice. The Oklahoma Geological Survey says the number of quakes fell from 903 in 2015 to 196 during 2018. State seismologist Jake Walter told the Tulsa World that the quakes will continue for at least a decade “because earthquakes beget other earthquakes.” Extreme victims
Increased episodes of severe weather are causing populations of some species around the world to fall, and have even brought on local extinctions, scientists warn.
“The growing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as cyclones, droughts and floods is causing unpredictable and immediate changes to ecosystems,” researcher Sean Maxwell of the University of Queensland in Australia said. Writing in the journal “Diversity and Distributions,” Maxwell and colleagues say that birds, fish, plants and reptiles are under the greatest threat from stronger and more frequent cyclones. Mammals and amphibians are said to be among the most threatened by drought. But the scientists point out that all kinds of plants and animals could be affected by the weather extremes.
Child of Krakatau
Eruptions of the Indonesian volcano that triggered a deadly tsunami in late December caused the mountain to lose two-thirds of its height, scientists say.
Anak Krakatau’s crater partially collapsed during that eruptive phase, generating a titanic ocean surge that killed more than 400 people on the shores of the Sunda Strait. Indonesia’s volcanology agency said the recent series of eruptions also made the volcano lose between 200 and 235 million cubic yards of material that had built up since it emerged from Krakatau’s caldera in 1928.
Aerial assault
An invasive Asian hornet that has decimated bee populations and killed some humans across the Iberian Peninsula will now be attacked by a fleet of armed drones. Experts are teaching local firefighters to fill drones with insecticide, then fire the payload into hornets’ nests. The pest is native to China and has spread southward into Spain at about 20 miles per year since arriving in France two decades ago. Stings from the aggressive hornets have killed two people so far in Spain, and the numbers of honeybees and butterflies have plummeted there since 2010. Tropical cyclones
At least 87 people in the central Philippines died in floods and landslides triggered by Tropical Storm Usman. In addition, more than 40 people were injured. Late this past week, authorities were evacuating islands off Thailand that are popular with tourists, as Tropical Storm Pabuk was predicted to drench the central Malay Peninsula, then emerge in the Bay of Bengal during the coming week. In addition, Tropical Storm Penny formed over Australia’s Gulf of Carpentaria before passing through far northern Queensland and spinning over the open waters of the Coral Sea.
Earthquakes
About 30 people were injured in Sicily when a magnitude 4.8 tremor damaged buildings in Santa Venerina and Zafferana Etnea two days after nearby Mount Etna produced a vigorous eruption. Earth movements also were felt in metropolitan Cairo, the far southern Philippines, northern New Zealand, northwestern Venezuela and Anchorage, Alaska.
©2019 Earth Environment Service