Week ending Friday, October 9, 2020
Iceless Winters
Warmer winters brought on by the deepening climate crisis are bringing more ice-free years to lakes around the Northern Hemisphere, according to a new study. Researchers writing in the journal Geophysical Research Letters say that beyond the ecological changes this causes, communities around some of those lakes are suffering because they depend on frozen festivals and winter recreation. The lack of ice also makes the lakes more prone to toxic algal blooms, which could harm fish and make swimming more dangerous. “This isn’t just happening in one lake in the northern United States. It’s happening in thousands of lakes around the world,” said lead author Alessandro Filazzola.
Earthquakes
One of the largest swarms of tremors on record in Southern California’s Imperial Valley subsided after the strongest quakes tossed items off shelves.
• Tremors were also felt in southern Utah and the India-Myanmar border area.
Night Warming
The first worldwide assessment of how global heating is affecting temperatures during the day and night reveals that nights are warming up much faster for much of the planet. Scientists from Britain’s University of Exeter found that while days did warm more quickly in some locations, the nighttime warming was twice as great worldwide. “Greater nighttime warming is associated with the climate becoming wetter, and this has been shown to have important consequences for plant growth and how species, such as insects and mammals, interact,” wrote lead author Daniel Cox in the journal Global Change Biology. Species that are active only at night are the most affected, the study says.
COVID Risks
Researchers say they have identified more than two dozen animals frequently in contact with humans that may be vulnerable to COVID-19 infection.
The University College London study found that a protein in sheep, great apes and bonobos may be susceptible to becoming bound with the spike protein from COVID, allowing them to become infected as strongly as humans. Lead researcher Christine Orengo says those animals at risk include some endangered species, and that they all would have the potential to infect humans they later come in close contact with.
Devilish Return
A small number of Australia’s iconic Tasmanian devils have been transplanted to a forest near Sydney in a test project to repopulate the predators on the mainland. The devils died out there more than 3,000 years ago after dingos were likely brought to Australia by prehistoric immigrants from Indonesia. And about 90% have been wiped out in their only remaining habitats on Tasmania by a deadly tumor cancer since the 1990s. The “rewilding” project of healthy devils by Aussie Ark is designed to ensure the survival of the species and help restore Australia’s ecological balance.
Arctic Greening
The record heating of the Arctic since the turn of the century has caused the polar region to be 40% greener than in 1985, researchers discovered. Writing in the journal Nature Communications, the authors say they looked at vast amounts of satellite data from across the Canadian and Eurasian Arctic, which confirm reports from Arctic indigenous people that their homelands are becoming more verdant. Since the warming Arctic is affecting much of Earth’s climate, the scientists say the trend is alarming.
Tropical Cyclones
Hurricane Delta raked Cancún and other parts of the Yucatán Peninsula as a Category-3 storm before taking aim on the Louisiana Gulf Coast late in the week.
• Tropical Storm Gamma had drenched the same area of México just days earlier.
• Typhoon Chan-hom skirted southern and eastern Japan, while Tropical Storm Norbert remained weak in the eastern Pacific.
Dist. by: Andrews McMeel Syndication
©MMXX Earth Environment Service
