December 16-17 2008
Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Tuesday afternoon:
Lihue, Kauai – 77
Honolulu, Oahu – 80
Kaneohe, Oahu – 80
Kahului, Maui – 84
Hilo, Hawaii – 80
Kailua-kona – 82
Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level, and on the highest mountains…at 4 p.m. Tuesday afternoon:
Kahului, Maui – 84F
Lihue, Kauai – 75F
Haleakala Crater – 52 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 41 (near 14,000 feet on the Big Island)
Precipitation Totals – The following numbers represent the largest precipitation totals (inches) during the last 24 hours on each of the major islands, as of Tuesday afternoon:
4.77 Omao, Kauai
2.07 Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
0.04 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.07 Ulupalakua, Maui
0.53 South Point, Big Island
Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a low pressure system located to the west of the islands, and a high pressure cell far to the northeast, which will keep winds across the state easterly to southeasterly through Thursday.
Satellite and Radar Images: To view the cloud conditions we have here in Hawaii, please use the following satellite links, starting off with the Infrared Satellite Image of the islands to see all the clouds around the state during the day and night. This next image is one that gives close images of the islands only during the daytime hours, and is referred to as a Close-up visible image. This next image shows a larger view of the Pacific…giving perspective to the wider ranging cloud patterns in the
Aloha Paragraphs
Great sunrise and sunset colors now!
Photo Credit: Flikr.com
Easterly trade winds are blowing over some areas, with returning southeasterlies across the state later Wednesday into Thursay. Low pressure remains anchored to the west, with a high pressure center to the northeast. This pressure configuration will keep winds generally light to moderately strong…although locally more gusty. As those breezes split around the Big Island, they will pick up volcanic haze, carrying it northwest over other sections of the island chain in places too. The computer models suggest that once the southeast wind flow returns statewide, it will continue through the rest of this week. It may become south near Kauai and perhaps Oahu in a couple of days, when the trough of low pressure edges potentially closer.
The island of Kauai, which will be closest to the trough to our west, will find the best chance of showers, or rain as we move through the week. Meanwhile, the east to southeast wind flow will carry some moisture into our area, with showers falling over favored terrain. Thus, we can look for a few showers here and there, although the heavy stuff is now gone for the most part. As the trough edges closer later this week, it’s eastern edge may bring locally heavy showers to the Kauai side of the island chain. Meanwhile, the southeast and east sides will find some showers arriving now, carried that way by the winds coming in from those directions. Those areas in a wind shadow, where the winds are blocked by mountains, may see an afternoon upcountry shower as well.
It’s early Tuesday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I start writing this last super long paragraph. There were finally some breaks in the high overcast today, which allowed some bright unshine to beam down over those lucky sections across the Hawaiian Islands. Looking at this looping satellite image, we see the counterclockwise rotation of the developing low pressure system to our west. This low is sending lots of clouds our way, which are coming into our area from the southwest aloft. Meanwhile, checking out this looping radar image, we see some locally heavy showers falling to the west of Kauai. The breezes down near the Big Island and Maui seem to be coming in from the east, or slight south of that direction. Our winds will remain from the southeast direction statewide generally though, which will bring up volcanic haze over the Aloha state at times. ~~~ Maui was very lucky during the day Tuesday, as a big break in the high overcast brought mostly sunny skies for a period. Looking out the window here in kihei, before I take the drive upcountry to Kula, it seems to be getting cloudy again. Most of the clouds appear to be of the high cirrus variety, which could spark a colorful sunset, like we saw at sunrise this morning! ~~~ I’ll be back very early Wednesday morning with your next new weather narrative. Wednesday’s TV weather program will be almost at the end of the line for Kauai, Oahu, and the Big Island, which ends almost 18 years of continous service this Friday. I’ve received a lot of email lately, letting me know how difficult it is for folks to see it end. I’m going through my own changes in that regard, trust me! At any rate, I hope you have a great Tuesday night wherever you happen to be reading from. Either here in the islands, or someplace over on the cold mainland…brrr! Aloha for now…Glenn.
Interesting: "We’ve known for years that mercury is toxic to the brain and other organs in varying amounts depending on the individual’s status. For FDA to suddenly change the equation to say that benefits outweigh risks is like once again declaring the earth is flat after discovering it was round," concluded Jane M. Hightower, M.D., an internal medicine physician in San Francisco, Calif., who published a landmark study that brought the issue of mercury in seafood to national attention. "Simply stated, FDA’s proposed recommendation to eat more fish is likely based on flawed science." In 2004, the FDA joined the EPA in releasing advice to restrict the species and amounts of fish eaten by pregnant women and children due to exposure risks to mercury. On Friday, in a draft report submitted to the White House, the FDA proposed to not only rescind that advice, but recommend that sensitive populations eat more mercury-contaminated fish.
"Talk about getting hooked on fish stories," said Michael Bender, director of the Mercury Policy Project, which produced the report. "FDA has really gone overboard this time by casting out the science and reeling in the industry ‘line’ instead," said Bender, referring to an industry report released prior to the FDA report that reached strikingly similar conclusions. Exposure and toxic effects in adults and children are well-documented. Dr. Hightower’s new book, Diagnosis: Mercury: Money, Politics and Poison, catalogues her patients’ mercury poisoning case histories. "Patients in my private medical practice, as well as at other doctor’s offices around the country, have been diagnosed with mercury toxicity from eating too much fish. Ignoring the presence of a known neurotoxin in one’s diet is simply asking for trouble," said Dr. Hightower.
Interesting2: More than 2 trillion tons of land ice in Greenland, Antarctica, and Alaska, have melted since 2003, according to new NASA satellite data that show the latest signs of what scientists say is global warming. More than half of the loss of landlocked ice in the past five years has occurred in Greenland, based on measurements of ice weight by NASA’s GRACE satellite, said NASA geophysicist Scott Luthcke. The water melting from Greenland in the past five years would fill up about 11 Chesapeake Bays, he said, and the Greenland melt seems to be accelerating. NASA scientists planned to present their findings Thursday at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco. Luthcke said Greenland figures for the summer of 2008 aren’t complete yet, but this year’s ice loss, while still significant, won’t be as severe as 2007. The news was better for Alaska.
After a precipitous drop in 2005, land ice increased slightly in 2008 because of large winter snowfalls, Luthcke said. Since 2003, when the NASA satellite started taking measurements, Alaska has lost 400 billion tons of land ice. In assessing climate change, scientists generally look at several years to determine the overall trend. Melting of land ice, unlike sea ice, increases sea levels very slightly. In the 1990s, Greenland didn’t add to world sea level rise; now that island is adding about half a millimeter of sea level rise a year, NASA ice scientist Jay Zwally said in a telephone interview from the conference. Between Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska, melting land ice has raised global sea levels about one-fifth of an inch in the past five years, Luthcke said. Sea levels also rise from water expanding as it warms. There is other research being presented this week, at the geophysical meeting point, to more melting concerns from global warming, especially with sea ice.
Interesting3: Rocky Mountain ski areas face dramatic changes this century as the climate warms, including best-case scenarios of shortened ski seasons and higher snowlines and worst-case scenarios of bare base areas and winter rains, says a new Colorado study. The study indicates snowlines — elevations below which seasonal snowpack will not develop — will continue to rise through this century, moving up more than 2,400 feet from the base areas of Colorado’s Aspen Mountain and Utah’s Park City Mountain by 2100, said University of Colorado at Boulder geography Professor Mark Williams. Williams and Brian Lazar of Stratus Consulting Inc. of Boulder combined temperature and precipitation data for Aspen Mountain and Park City Mountain with general climate circulation models for the study.
The pair came up with three scenarios for each of the two ski havens for the years 2030, 2075 and 2100. The low-emissions scenario is based on the presumption that the world begins reducing CO2 emissions, said Williams. The "business-as-usual" scenario assumes the future rate of CO2 increase will be similar to the current rate, while the high-emissions scenario assumes future CO2 emissions will increase over the present rate. Their forecasts indicate the "business as usual" scenario will cause average temperatures to rise by nearly 4 degrees Fahrenheit at Aspen and Park City by 2030 and 8.6 degrees F in Aspen and 10.4 degrees F for Park City by 2100, said Williams. A paper by Williams and Lazar was presented at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union held Dec. 15-19 in San Francisco.
Interesting4: Parts of Australia endured some of their driest and hottest years on record in 2008, while it will likely go down as the planet’s 10th warmest year on record, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) says. Releasing its annual statement on the global climate, the Geneva-based world weather body said climate extremes – including floods, persistent droughts, snow storms and heat waves – were recorded in many parts of the world. While Arctic Sea ice dropped to its second-lowest level since satellite measurements began in 1979, regions such as southern Australia experienced long periods of scorching temperatures. Adelaide endured 15 consecutive days of maximum temperatures above 35 degrees, its longest-running heat wave on record, while Victoria had its ninth driest year since records began, the WMO noted.
"These conditions exacerbated severe water shortages in the agriculturally important Murray-Darling Basin, resulting in widespread crop failures in the area," the WMO said. Conversely, several significant rainfall events affected eastern Australia early in the year, causing major flooding, particularly in Queensland, while widespread heavy rains across most of the continent in November ended an extremely dry period in central Australia. Climatologist Andrew Watkins said while things averaged out over the globe, overall Australia had been warmer than the global average, adding that recent rain events were welcome but more were needed to break the drought.
Interesting5: So far this year, the Earth’s surface air temperature is the coolest it’s been since 2000, according to data released today from NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies. Despite the coolness, the year was still 3/4 of a degree warmer than the long-term average and was the ninth-warmest since instrumental measurements began in 1880. All nine of the period’s warmest years have occurred in the past 11 years, since 1998. This data encompasses the past 12 months of data, from December 2007 through November 2008. The final tally for the year may shift slightly once the information for this month is factored in. The world has been quite warm this year, especially across Europe, Asia, and the Antarctic Peninsula. North America has been close to its long-term average.
Much of the Pacific Ocean was cooler than normal, due to the effects of a strong La Nina, a natural cycle of cooler ocean water in the Pacific. As is noted in the NASA press release about this, this data has been thoroughly checked for mistakes, and does not include the errors in the October data that caused a media firestorm last month. Meanwhile, a separate analysis of temperature data released today by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center reports that the global temperature for the month of November was the fourth-warmest all-time. NCDC’s data also confirms that the Earth’s temperature for the year 2008 should be the ninth-warmest on record.
Interesting6: Scientists are expanding the search for extraterrestrial life — and they’ve set their sights on some very unearthly planets. Cold "Super-Earths" — giant, "snowball" planets that astronomers have spied on the outskirts of faraway solar systems — could potentially support some kind of life, they have found. Such planets are plentiful; experts estimate that one-third of all solar systems contain super-Earths. "We know there are a lot of super-Earths out there, and the next generation of telescopes will be even better at spotting them," said Scott Gaudi, assistant professor of astronomy at Ohio State University. Despite the name, a super-Earth has little in common with the Earth that we know — other than the fact it has a solid surface. A super-Earth is covered with ice, and may have a substantial atmosphere – perhaps much thicker than the Earth’s.
Yet Gaudi joined with Eric Gaidos of the University of Hawaii and Sara Seager of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to model whether such planets might harbor a liquid ocean that could support life, and whether they might be detectable from Earth. Gaidos reported the team’s early results at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. "It turns out that if super-Earths are young enough, massive enough, or have a thick atmosphere, they could have liquid water under the ice or even on the surface," Gaudi said. "And we will almost certainly be able to detect these habitable planets if they exist." The most promising technique for finding super-Earths is the one Gaudi prefers: gravitational micro-lensing. When one star happens to cross in front of another as seen from Earth, it magnifies the light from the more distant star like a lens. If planets are orbiting the lens star, they boost the magnification briefly as they pass by.
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