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Guam
Typhoon Mawar Hits Guam
Typhoon Mawar hit northern Guam as a Category 4 storm yesterday and continues to increase in intensity. This typhoon is the strongest ever recorded to hit the U.S. Pacific territory, forcing many residents to take refuge in typhoon shelters. Wind speeds reached up to 140 miles per hour (225 km/h) as it passed Guam, and has leveled up to a Category 5 storm with sustained winds over 143 miles per hour (230 km/h). It is now approaching the Philippines with anticipated landfall in the northern edge of the island nation either tomorrow or Saturday.
This map depicts Typhoon Mawar’s path through Guam. Click on the map to learn more.
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Graphic Source: CNBC
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Russia
Putin Misuses 400 Year Old Map
Russian President, Vladimir Putin, presented a 17th-century French map to support his claim that Ukraine is not a real country. Putin has used this argument before to justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and repeated the claim during a recorded meeting with the chairman of Russia’s constitutional court, Valery Zorkin. However, the map itself clearly marks part of the territory as “Ukraine.” The map, made by French cartographer Hubert Jaillot, shows eastern Europe and Asia, with “Ukraine” labeled next to the Dnipro River. While Russia absorbed parts of Ukraine in the 18th century and Ukraine briefly became independent after the 1917 Russian Revolution, it was only after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 that Ukraine regained its independence as a sovereign nation.
This map is a 17th-century French depiction of the Eurasian continent. Click on the map to learn more.
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Graphic Source: Yahoo
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Israel
Red Sea Epidemic Spreads
A deadly epidemic spreading through the Red Sea has killed off a species of sea urchin in the area, threatening the region’s coral reefs. Researchers from Tel Aviv University found the Gulf of Eilat, on the Red Sea’s northern shore, experienced a rapid black sea urchin die-off over the past several months, as well as in the waters of surrounding countries such as Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Black sea urchins are essential to a healthy coral reef ecosystem as they help regulate the growth of algae. The findings suggest the epidemic is being caused by an unidentified pathogen. Researchers have submitted a report to Israeli environmental authorities, and emergency steps to protect the already-endangered coral reefs are reportedly being examined.
This map depicts the location of the spreading epidemic of dying sea urchins in the Gulf of Eilat in the Red Sea. Click on the map to learn more.
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Q: As a result of increased water use and compounding drought conditions, what American river no longer empties into the Gulf of California?
A: Colorado River
For nearly six million years, the Colorado River – America’s seventh largest – has begun high up in the Rocky Mountains, flowing south for some 1,500 miles (2,414 km) and traversing through deserts, canyons, and wetlands, before emptying in the Gulf of California. Around the 1920s, western states began dividing up the river’s water supply, building dams and irrigation channels that diverted water towards fast-growing cities such as Los Angeles, San Diego, and Phoenix. The Colorado River now serves 40 million people across seven states and parts of Mexico, and around 70 percent of the water is used to irrigate over 3.5 million acres of cropland. While creating dams and irrigation systems to divert the water has been seen as an engineering feat, the water supplies have run especially low as wildfires, heatwaves, droughts, and climate change impact the American West. The Colorado River still makes its way through the Grand Canyon and reaches Arizona’s Lake Mead, however the drying of the river has prevented it from reaching its final destination in the Gulf of California in Mexico, and instead dies off in a trickle in the desert sands.
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Q: What is the only landlocked nation in Southeast Asia?
Stay tuned for the answer to today’s question in tomorrow’s DailyGeo.
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