Earth Week: A diary of the planet

Climate change is bringing an increased risk of freak weather events to various parts of the world where they have never before been experienced. Scientists have dubbed the new freak events “gray swans,” which were considered impossible by Europeans until colonists discovered such birds in Australia. The term is comparable to “black swans,” which are unpredictable events that have major impacts. Writing in the journal Nature Climate Change, Princeton University researcher Ning Lin says there is a developing risk of tropical cyclones forming in the Persian Gulf for the first time on record, threatening such cities as Dubai and Doha. Lin and colleague Kerry Emanuel of MIT suggest that Tampa, Florida, which averages an extreme hurricane about once every 1,000 years, could be hit by one every 60 to 450 years by the late 21st century due to climate change. They predict that the Queensland, Australia, resort of Cairns could also become more vulnerable to Coral Sea cyclones.

Plastic Pollution

Plastic pollution has become so pervasive around the world that a new study finds an alarming 90 percent of the planet’s seabirds have ingested plastic. Writing in this month’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of Australia-based scientists says their latest computer forecast models project that about 99 percent of all seabirds will have plastic in their guts before they die by the year 2050. Co-author Britta Denise Hardesty, from the research agency CSIRO, says she has seen an entire glow stick and three balloons inside a single short-tailed shearwater. Most of the debris is ingested when the birds mistake floating plastic for fish eggs and other food.

Parched Euro Summer

A European Commission report shows that a wide swath of the continent has just endured an exceptionally dry and hot summer. It documents how nuclear and fossil-fuel power plants that rely on rivers for cooling were forced to reduce power or even shut down. Rainfall up to 60 percent below normal halted some river traffic, killed crops and sparked more frequent wildfires. But the news wasn’t bad for solar-power production, wine producers and tourism that involved outdoor activities, the report says. Areas experiencing the heat and lack of rainfall include France, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Hungary, the Czech Republic, northern Italy and northern Spain.

Tropical Cyclones

Hurricane Fred went into the record books as the easternmost such storm ever to form in the tropical Atlantic, and it was also the first hurricane to strike the 10-island Cape Verde archipelago since modern records began in 1892. Fred caused scattered damage, mainly on the islands of Boa Vista and Sal.

• Tropical Storm Erika killed at least 20 people when it lashed the Caribbean island of Dominica.

• Typhoon Kilo and hurricanes Ignacio and Jimena churned the open waters of the Pacific.

Earthquakes

Buildings in Lima shook on Aug. 28 when a 4.7- magnitude quake struck just to the east of the Peruvian capital. No significant damage was reported.

• Earth movements were also felt in the Los Angeles suburb of Compton, eastern Washington and north-central Oklahoma.

Marine Noise

A team of researchers argues that high-decibel noise from explosive seismic testing for oil and gas in the world’s oceans should be regulated and monitored like pollution. Scientists from leading universities and conservation groups warn that new regulations are urgently needed because of pending government approval of oil and gas exploration as little as three miles from the U.S. Atlantic Coast. Writing in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, they caution that blasts from seismic tests are loud enough to harm whales and other marine life that rely on natural sounds to find food, communicate, navigate and avoid predators. Lead author Douglas P. Nowacek of Duke University says that less-intrusive technology, including a “marine vibrator” that uses low-pressure sound waves to conduct seismic surveys, will soon be available.

Epic Melting Refugees

The disappearance of late-summer sea ice on both sides of the Bering Strait during most years since 2007 has once again forced tens of thousands of walruses to crowd onto small stretches of coast in Alaska and Siberia. The marine animals used to rely on the floating ice as platforms to rest on and for easy access to clams, sea snails and other food on the shallow ocean bottom. But the ice has receded into the Arctic Ocean to waters up to two miles deep, far beyond the diving range of an adult walrus. The sea-ice coverage over the past winter fell to a new low, and this summer has again seen record heat in the Arctic.