Earthweek: A Diary of the Planet (Nov. 21, 2014)

Solar Lightning
While recent findings point to the likelihood of more lightning around the world as the planet warms, other resesarch suggests lightning strikes in some areas are already affected by solar activity.  In a report published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, scientists say the orientation of the sun's magnetic field plays a significant role in the number of lightning strikes, at least in the United Kingdom.  "What we found was there is significantly more lightning in the U.K. when the field is pointing towards the sun than when it's pointing away, which was surprising," said lead author Matt Owens from the University of Reading.  He believes that the sun's pushing or pulling on Earth's magnetic field lets energetically charged particles filter down into the atmosphere, triggering the lightning.  Owens and colleagues found that between 2001 and 2006, there was a 50 percent increase in thunder and lightning in Britain when the solar magnetic field pointed away from Earth.
Record Ocean Warmth
A 13-year pause in the overall warming of the world's ocean surface ended earlier this year with the average global mean sea surface temperature soaring to the warmest ever recorded.  "The 2014 global ocean warming is mostly due to the North Pacific, which has warmed far beyond any recorded value and has shifted hurricane tracks, weakened trade winds and produced coral bleaching in the Hawaiian Islands," said climate scientist Axel Timmermann of the University of Hawaii at Manoa.  He says sea-surface temperatures started to rise quickly in January across the North Pacific, followed by a surge of very warm water from the western Pacific to the eastern Pacific along the equator.
Starfish Killer Revealed
The cause of a massive dieoff of more than 20 species of starfish along the Pacific coast from Alaska to Baja California may have been identified.  Since June 2013, millions of what marine biologists refer to as sea stars have wasted away from disease that causes their limbs to pull away from their bodies and their organs to extrude through their skin.  "They basically fall apart into a pile of goo on the bottom of the seafloor," said Cornell University biological oceanographer Ian Hewson.  He and colleagues say the deaths are likely due to a parvovirus dubbed the sea star-associated densovirus.  Hewson suggests the tiny virus has gone mainly unnoticed at low levels for many years, but has been found in museum samples taken from the Pacific in 1942, 1980, 1987 and 1991.  Cornell ecologist Drew Harvell told Reuters the outbreak is "probably the largest epidemic in marine wildlife that we know of."
Earthquakes
A sharp temblor centered beneath northern Indonesia's Molucca Sea sent people fleeing buildings in several nearby cities.  It also generated a small tsunami that failed to cause any damage.
*       Earth movements were also felt in New Zealand's North Island, southern Greece, southern Scotland, northwestern Montana and northwestern Nevada.
Tropical Cyclone
The season's first cyclone in the northwestern Indian Ocean formed from an area of disturbed weather to the south of the remote U.S. Diego Garcia military base.  Cyclone Adjali briefly produced sustained winds of about 60 mph before slowly losing force.
Alaskan Eruption
An unusually powerful blast from Alaska's second most active volcano sent a column of ash soaring high above the Alaska Peninsula for several hours.  The eruption of Pavlof, located about 625 miles southwest of Anchorage, prompted aviation officials to briefly warn aircraft flying near the volcano of the ash hazard.  The Alaska Volcano Observatory said the eruption was much more energetic than any Pavlof has produced in the last decade or so.  The major eight-hour blast was preceded by a lower-level eruption that began three days earlier.  Geologists say the remote volcano has erupted more than 40 times in recorded history, including eruptions earlier this year and in 2013.
Heat Casualties
Thousands of fruit bats fell dead from trees in one area of eastern Australia as a heat wave pushed temperatures as high as 111 degrees Fahrenheit.  The dead mammals, also known as flying foxes, piled up on the ground in Casino and the Richmond Valley of northern New South Wales, where wildlife officials warned residents not to touch the animals due to the danger of catching viruses or other illnesses.  Hundreds of infant bats left orphaned were being cared for by animal-rescue workers who said they were overwhelmed by the environmental disaster.  "Some areas along the riverbank are inaccessible, and the stench from the rotting carcasses will be   quite unbearable for some time yet," council manager John Walker told Sydney's The Daily Telegraph.  Last January, an unprecedented heat wave in neighboring Queensland killed as many as 100,000 flying foxes.