Earthweek: A Diary of the Planet (2014 in Review)

Hottest Year Yet
Early calculations indicated that 2014 was likely to be the hottest year on average worldwide since records began.  As the year drew to a close, it had already surged ahead of 1998 and 2010, which tied for the hottest years in modern times.  Deke Arndt, climate monitoring chief for NOAA's National Climatic Data Center, says the global heat is driven by the recent extraordinary warmth of the world's oceans.
Magnetic Weakening
Earth's magnetic field weakened during the year, possibly leaving the world more vulnerable to cosmic radiation and charged particles from the sun, scientists said.  Initial readings from a new three-satellite observation network for the planet's magnetic field also revealed that the magnetic north pole is drifting southward toward Siberia.
Earthquakes
Northern Chile was jolted on April 1 by a "great" earthquake that killed six people and triggered a tsunami that smashed dozens of boats near the offshore epicenter.
*      The San Francisco Bay Area's strongest quake in 25 years killed one person, sparked fires and inflicted hundreds of millions of dollars in damage around the city of Napa on Aug. 24.
*      A 6.9 magnitude temblor centered near the Mexico-Guatemala border on July 7 killed four people in the Mexican state of Chiapas.
*      At least 617 people perished in southwestern China's Yunnan province as a 6.1 magnitude temblor caused widespread destruction on Aug. 3.
*      Eight people were killed on Sept. 27 when a 4.9 magnitude quake wrecked buildings in Peru's southern village of Misca, near Cusco.
Tropical Cyclones
The Philippines was ravaged by five deadly cyclones.  Forty people were killed when Tropical Storm Lingling raked the southern island of Mindanao in mid-January.  Tropical Storm Kajiki killed three others two weeks later as it cut through the same part of the country devastated by Typhoon Haiyan late the previous year.  Typhoons Rammasun and Hagupit, and Tropical Storm Fung-Wong, left a total of 51 people dead across the eastern and northern Philippines.
*       Cyclone Ian wreaked catastrophic damage on Jan. 10 to the South Pacific island nation of Tonga.  One person died, and about $4 million in damage was reported due to the storm.
*       High winds and flooding from Typhoon Halong killed 10 people and injured nearly 100 others as the storm raked southern Japan on Aug. 9-10.
*       Typhoon Phanfone left at least seven dead when it drenched much of Japan two months later.
Eruptions
Flying stones, poisonous gas and superheated ash killed 57 people in Japan's worst volcanic disaster in 90 years.  The victims had climbed Mount Ontake before it erupted without warning on Sept. 27.
*       Periodic violent blasts throughout the year from Sumatra's Mount Sinabung left 16 people dead and wiped out large tracts of crops.  More than 3,000 people were forced into evacuation shelters for several months.
*       A powerful explosion on Feb. 14 from Indonesia's Mount Kelud volcano killed four people near Bali when the roofs of their homes collapsed beneath the weight of accumulated ash.
*       A long flow of lava from Hawaii's Kilauea volcano set one home ablaze in November and destroyed a few other structures around Pahoa.
Ill Wind
Scientists say wind currents blowing out of northeastern China could be the main carriers of a mysterious childhood disease that was first identified in 1961 and can lead to a fatal heart condition.  Research at the Kawasaki Disease Research Center at the University of California, published in May, suggests an airborne toxin in seasonal winds could be infecting children in Japan and as far away as Hawaii and California.   Kawasaki disease has been found to peak only when winds originate from a vast cereal-farming region in northeastern China.
Earliest Earth
Scientists announced in May that a zircon crystal discovered in Western Australia during 2010 has been accurately determined to be 4374 billion years old by two independent methods.  That makes it the oldest rock ever discovered on the planet.  The gem was formed only about 100 million years after the world was covered by a magma ocean.
Other Ebola Victims
The Ebloa virus that has killed more than 6,800 people in West Africa this year has also devasted the continent's wild ape population.  Ecologist Peter Walsh with the University of Cambridge says he observed that 90 to 95 percent of the gorillas he was studying disappeared during two earlier Ebola outbreaks.  He warned that Ebola, and human diseases, are joining the bush meat trade as the primary reasons the apes are vanishing.  Infections have exploded among wild primates, mainly from humans encroaching into isolated habitats.