March Disaster

Where I live, March is one of the those months you just have to get through.  It's usually cold, grey, and blustery, with the kind of wind that frosts your skin and makes your eyes tear up.  So far, this one is a far cry from most.  Of course, it's still early.  Mother Nature may just be waiting for me to take off my snow tires.

This time of year, seeing new shoots of crocus, daffodil and tulip poke their noses, either through frozen earth or though snow, is welcome.  As is the daylight that's now arriving earlier and sticking around longer. 

Accordingly, it seems appropriate that this month's silly way for the world to end should involve the soil.

This premise is a big complicated, probably too complex for one short story.  So, I'm going to break it into more than one.  (And yes, this is also a marvelous way for me to cheat, piggybacking more than one disaster off the same cause.)

So, anyway, here's my base:

With global warming, the great ice sheets of the Antarctic are melting.  Among other things, ancient creatures are being set free.  Microbes, and perhaps other things, have survived. 

The depletion of the ozone layer means that these microbes are now being subjected to more radiation.  Some of them mutate.  When combined with warm soil and water, they reproduce rapidly.

And here's March's disaster:

These microbes are depleting the soil of nutrients, making them unavailable for plant and animal life alike.  Food production drops.  If our scientist hero can't find a way to tame this rogue microbe population, the entire planet may starve to death.