Earthweek: a diary of the planet
CO2 Surge
A three-year decline in the amount of carbon dioxide being spewed into the atmosphere by the United States ended in 2018 with a surge that saw emissions rise by 3.4 percent. A report by the Rhodium Group, an independent economic research firm, said the spike occurred even though a record number of U.S. coal-fired power plants closed last year. But prolonged cold spells in many areas and a hot summer increased demand for heating and air conditioning, fueling the surge.
Earthquakes
The latest in a series of recent strong tremors along the Iran-iraq border injured about 75 people in Iran’s Kermanshah province.
• Earth movements were also felt in southern Spain, western Uganda, western Java, islands around Indonesia’s Molucca Sea, eastern Taiwan, far southern Japan and the Mississippi Delta. Cleanup setback
A giant U-shaped floating barrier designed to corral debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch has been broken apart by the constant wind and waves of the North Pacific winter. The prototype was towed to the patch between Hawaii and California last September, and early reports said it was moving slower than the plastic, allowing the trash to escape. “This is an entirely new category of machine that is out there in extremely challenging conditions,” said the device’s inventor, Boyan Slat. He said his Ocean Cleanup project will examine the device and perform any repairs that are needed.
Volcanic cleansing
The end of an eruption that began in 1983 at Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano has left the Big Island with its first sparkling days of clean air in decades. The island had been plagued with unrelenting plumes of volcanic fog, or vog, that was sometimes so thick that it looked like wildfire smoke. With no more volcanic gases spewing over Hawaii, vog-related health problems have eased and the skies are clear.
Massive migrations
About 2 billion birds cross the Gulf of Mexico during the spring migration season, according to a new study that combined data from 11 weather radar stations and observations from citizen scientists. Researcher Kyle Horton of Cornell University’s Lab of Ornithology said that while climate change has caused the earliest seasonal migrations to begin 1.5 days earlier per decade, the peak has remained during the same period: April 19 to May 7.
Microbe rain
Spanish scientists say they have confirmed that every time it rains or snows, microbes from high in the atmosphere fall with the precipitation to the surface. And those airborne organisms are not falling at random, but instead have seasonal varieties just like the plants on the land below. The team found that among the 1,200 distinct types of bacteria cataloged, soil-loving species were common in winter, while desert-dwelling types from North Africa fell in abundance during summer.
Tropical cyclones
Cyclone Pabuk left four people dead in storm-related accidents as it passed over the central Malay Peninsula.
• Tropical storm-force Cyclone Mona triggered minor flooding and landslides as it looped around Fiji.
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