Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Sunday afternoon: Lihue, Kauai – 76
Honolulu, Oahu – 79 Kaneohe, Oahu – 78 Kahului, Maui – 84 Hilo, Hawaii – 78
Kailua-kona – 81 Air Temperaturesranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level, and on the highest mountains…at 4 p.m. Sunday afternoon: Kahului, Maui– 82F Lihue, Kauai – 75F
Haleakala Crater – 57 (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 Sunday afternoon: 0.82 Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.04 Poamoho 2, Oahu
0.05 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe 0.01 West Wailuaiki, Maui
0.07 Glenwood, Big Island Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather mapshowing atrough far to the west and a high far to the northeast, which will maintain moderate east to southeast winds. Winds will shift to easterly statewide by later Tuesday or Wednesday as the high settles in far north of the state.
Satellite and Radar Images: To view the cloud conditions we have here in Hawaii, please use the following satellite links, starting off with theInfrared 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 Pacific Ocean. To help you keep track of where any showers may be around the islands, here’s the latest animatedradar image.
Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live webcam on the summit of near 14,000 footMauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. The tallest peak on the island of Maui is theHaleakala Crater, which is near 10,000 feet in elevation. These two webcams are available during the daylight hours here in the islands…and when there’s a big moon rising just after sunset for an hour or two! Plus, during the nights and early mornings you will be able to see stars, and the sunrise too…depending upon weather conditions.
Aloha Paragraphs
Hilo harbor on the Big Island Photo Credit: Flikr.com
High pressure to the northeast of Hawaii, will keep our winds coming in from the east on the Big Island through Oahu…and east-southeast or southeast towards Kauai.These winds will blow in the light to moderately srong realms, although a bit more breezy over the Big Island and Maui waters. These breezes remain strong enough Sunday evening to require small craft wind advisories across the Alenuihaha Channel between Maui and the Big Island…down across some of the coastal waters on the Big Island. Looking further ahead, the trades will prevail through the upcoming week.
The rainfall enhancing low to our west has given way to a rainfall limiting area of high pressure aloft and at the surface, with generally fine weather expected. As the trade winds continue blowing across the Hawaiian Islands, we’ll see just a few showers falling over the windward coasts and slopes. The leeward sides will find dry conditions, although will continue to see some clouds. This trade wind weather pattern will remain in place through the Christmas holiday, finally giving way to some changes Friday into the weekend. The latest models show a trough of low pressure arriving over the state, with a possible increase in windward showers then.
It’s early Sunday evening here in Kula, Maui, as I start writing this last paragraph.Weather conditions here in the islands will be just fine through Christmas Day…which is good news. We may see more numerous showers arriving on our windward sides Friday into next weekend. ~~~The northern hemisphere is now into its first day of the winter season, with the winter solstice officially having begun at 2:04am Hawaiian Standard Time…early Sunday morning. We slept through the longest night of the year, giving us the shortest day of the year to enjoy today. The daylight hours between sunrise and sunset today will only be approximately 10 hours and 50 minutes long, compared with the summer solstice in mid-June 2009 when the daylight hours will be approximately 13 hours and 26 minutes.~~~ Sunday was a good day statewide, a great day to get out there a do the last Christmas shopping excursions. It was a dry day overall, which allowed just about all of our outdoor activities to be accomplished…both in the sports and recreational worlds, and at home domestically. I spent the day on the home front, gettting lots of things completed that have needed working on. There’s still a bit of haze around the edges, although the returning trade winds will push that away soon. There’s still some thin high clouds around too, which may give us another nice looking sunset. I’ve been invited to my neighbors for dinner, so that will be pleasant. ~~~ I’ll be back very early Monday morning with your next weather narrative from paradise. I hope you have a good Sunday night wherever you happen to be spending it. Aloha for now…Glenn. Interesting: Rising water levels in China’s giant Three Gorges Dam have triggered dozens of landslides in recent months, damaging houses, land and infrastructure worth millions of dollars. In July, China finished evacuating residents from the last town to be submerged by the massive 400-mile long reservoir on the Yangtze River, ending an exodus of some 1.4 million people that began four years ago. The 2,309-meter-long dam, the world’s largest, aims to tame the river and provide cheap, clean energy for the country’s rapid development. But critics say rising water levels in the reservoir are eroding already fragile slopes and triggering landslides which could worsen as levels reach their maximum height next year. The reservoir’s administration began withholding water outflows in September to push the reservoir’s water level up to 175 meters.
But since then, the rising water level had "further induced geological harm including landslides and collapsing of the reservoirs’ banks," the Xinhua news agency quoted Chongqing government spokesman Wen Tianping as saying. "(These) have caused damage or created a latent threat to … infrastructure, land and housing in dam areas above the evacuation line," Wen said. He added that 93 "surface threats" had emerged in 12 regions and counties around the dam area, causing direct losses of $53 million, but had not caused any injury or loss of life. He however said the problems were anticipated during the dam’s feasibility study and that there was no cause for concern. Officials said last year $1.75 billion had been spent on repairs around the massive dam in past years and were confident such efforts were successful. But in April, a large mudslide hit a village in the Gaoyang area near the dam in April, sweeping into a school playground. A landslide nearby killed 35 people late last year. Finished in 2003, the dam’s water level has risen in stages, reaching 156 meters in 2006. It is expected to reach its final height next year.
Interesting2: The world’s first cargo ship partly propelled by solar power took to the seas on Friday in Japan, aiming to cut fuel costs and carbon emissions when automakers ship off their exports. Auriga Leader, a freighter developed by shipping line Nippon Yusen K.K. and oil distributor Nippon Oil Corp, took off from a shipyard in the western city of Kobe, officials of the two firms said. The huge freighter capable of carrying 6,400 automobiles is equipped with 328 solar panels at a cost of 150 million yen (S$2.4 million dollars), the officials said. The ship will initially transport vehicles being sent for sale overseas by Japan’s top automaker Toyota Motor Corp. The project was conceived before the global economic crisis, which has forced automakers to drastically cut production as sales dwindle.
Company officials said the 60,213-ton, 200m long ship is the first large vessel in the world with a solar-based propulsion system. So far solar energy has been limited to supporting lighting and crew’s living quarters. The solar power system can generate 40 kilowatts, which would initially cover only 0.2 per cent of the ship’s energy consumption for propulsion, but company officials said they hoped to raise the ratio. The shipping industry has come under growing pressure to take part in efforts to curb global warming, which is blamed on carbon emissions. Estimates say maritime transport accounts for anything from 1.4 per cent to 4.5 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. But the industry remains largely unregulated due to its international nature. Nippon Yusen, Japan’s largest shipping company, has set a goal of halving its fuel consumption and carbon-dioxide emissions by 2010.
Interesting3: Cows, sheep and goats may seem like innocent victims of humanity’s appetite for meat, but when it comes to climate change they have a dark secret. Forget cars, planes or even power stations, some of the world’s worst greenhouse gas emitters wander idly across rolling pastures chewing the cud, oblivious to the fact that their continuous belching (and to a lesser degree, farting) is warming the planet. Take New Zealand, where 34.2 million sheep, 9.7 million cattle, 1.4 million deer and 155,000 goats emit 48 per cent of the country’s greenhouse gases in the form of methane and nitrous oxide. Worldwide, livestock burps are responsible for 18 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions – more than produced from all forms of transport combined. Methane accounts for the bulk of ruminant green house gas emissions, one ton of the gas has 25 times the global warming potential of the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide. Rising populations and incomes are expected to double the global demand for meat and milk from 229 to 465 million ton and 580 to 1043 million ton, respectively, by 2050. This will almost double the amount of greenhouse gases produced by livestock, dwarfing attempts to cut emissions elsewhere. Apart from all of us turning to a vegetarian diet, can anything be done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from livestock?
Several ideas have been proposed to raise animals that are kinder to the environment. In New Zealand, researchers are testing different diets, food additives, vaccines and drug therapies, as well as breeding low-methane animals. One Australian team has even suggested we wean ourselves from cattle and sheep altogether and eat kangaroo instead – they do not emit methane. Concern for the climate isn’t the only factor driving the research. Eight per cent of the energy expended by a ruminant’s metabolism goes on producing methane. If livestock stopped making this gas, the energy saved could be diverted into making more meat. So why do ruminants give off so much methane? It’s all down to their stomachs. Sheep and cattle have a pregastric stomach, or rumen, where microbes digest plant matter and produce hydrogen, carbon dioxide and fatty acids. The fatty acids are a useful source of energy to aid animal growth, but the hydrogen and carbon dioxide are not. This is where microorganisms called methanogens come in: they have co-evolved with the animal to consume the carbon dioxide "
Interesting4:Jumbo squid are long-distance commuters. Every day, these gangly creatures migrate more than 500 hundred vertical feet. It’s a high-energy lifestyle — and one that’s going to suffer as a result of global warming, according to a new study. Squid now appear to be joining the list of marine creatures at risk from rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. As the oceans absorb some of this CO2 load, pH levels drop, and the water becomes more acidic. Previous research has shown that ocean acidification makes it harder for corals, mollusks and other calcifying organisms to build skeletons and shells. The new study suggests that the effects of acidification are more complicated and far-reaching than many scientists expected.
"For the first time we’ve definitively proven important negative effects of high carbon dioxide levels on uncalcifying organisms like squid," said Rui Rosa, an animal physiologist at the University of Lisbon. "We’ve proven that CO2 will have a tremendous impact on their ability to move by the end of the century." Not to be confused with the mysterious giant squid, which can exceed 40 feet in length, jumbo squid (Dosidicus gigas) are common and well studied. Also known as Humboldt squid, these animals can grow up to 8-plus feet long and weigh up to 110 pounds. They are a commercially important fishery catch in Mexico and South America. Interesting5: A widespread and severe coral bleaching episode is predicted to cause immense damage to some of the world’s most important marine environments over the next few months.A report from the US Government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicts severe bleaching for parts of the Coral Sea, which lies adjacent to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, and the Coral Triangle, a 5.4 million square kilometer expanse of ocean in the Indo-Pacific which is considered the centre of the world’s marine life. “This forecast bleaching episode will be caused by increased water temperatures and is the kind of event we can expect on a regular basis if average global temperatures rise above 2 degrees,” said Richard Leck, Climate Change Strategy Leader for WWF’s Coral Triangle Program. The bleaching, predicted to occur between now and February, could have a devastating impact on coral reef ecosystems, killing coral and destroying food chains. There would be severe impacts for communities in Australia and the region, who depend on the oceans for their livelihoods. The Coral Triangle, stretching from the Philippines to Malaysia and Papua New Guinea, is home to 75 per cent of all known coral species. More than 120 million people rely on its marine resources.
“Regular bleaching episodes in this part of the world will have a massive impact on the region’s ability to sustain local communities,” said Leck. “In the Pacific many of the Small Island Developing States, such as the Solomon Islands, rely largely on the coast and coastal environments such as coral reefs for food supply. This is a region where alternative sources of income and food are limited. “Time is crucial and Australia needs to step up to the plate. Following the government’s lack of resolve to seriously reduce future domestic carbon emissions, Australia has a huge role to play in assisting Coral Triangle countries and people to adapt to the changes in their climate.“ The Australian government this week announced a 2020 target for reducing its greenhouse gas pollution by 5 per cent, which WWF criticized as completely inadequate. Reductions of at least 25 per cent by 2020 are needed to set the world on a pathway to meaningful cuts in greenhouse pollution. Australia’s Coral Sea, which will also be affected by coral bleaching and climate change, is a pristine marine wilderness covering almost 1,000,000 square kilometers and is extraordinarily rich in marine life, including sharks and turtles, with a series of spectacular reefs rising thousands of meters from the sea floor.
Interesting6: Global warming will likely put enormous strain on California’s water supply and energy systems and have a devastating impact on certain crops. Stanford researchers predict this outcome based on projections from two different emission scenarios. One assumes a continuing moderate increase in greenhouse gas emissions until 2100; the other assumes emissions would increase until mid-century and then start dropping off. Both of the scenarios indicate there will be more frequent heat waves and generally rising temperatures, the only difference being just how dramatic the increases will be. "We will very likely see our current high temperatures much more often and also temperatures hotter than anything we’ve seen before under both projected levels of carbon dioxide emissions," said Michael Mastrandrea, a lecturer in the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Environment and Resources and a research associate at the Woods Institute for the Environment.
"This is something that’s going to be a huge challenge for California to deal with in the future." Mastrandrea developed temperature projections using output from a set of global climate models scaled to reflect potential climate changes in California under both higher and lower emissions scenarios. In the next 50-100 years, average temperatures are expected to increase approximately 4-9 degrees Fahrenheit. Both the climate scenarios were developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore.
Interesting7:Evidence of a key mineral on Mars has been found at several locations on the planet’s surface, suggesting that any microbial life that might have been there back when the planet was wetter could have lived comfortably. The findings offer up intriguing new sites for future missions to probe, researchers said. Observations NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which just completed its primary mission and started a second two-year shift, found evidence of carbonates, which don’t survive in conditions hostile to life, indicating that not all of the planet’s ancient watery environments were as harsh as previously thought. The findings are detailed in a study in the Dec. 19 issue of the journal Science and will be presented today at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
Over the past several years, evidence for water on Mars has been stacking up: Scientists have found gullies formed by running water, possible ancient lakes, and minerals formed by interaction with water. But just how much water there was and how suitable it was for Martian microbes or other primitive life forms have been harder puzzles to solve. Most evidence has pointed to a period when water on the planet’s surface formed clay-rich minerals, followed by a time of drier conditions, when salt-rich, acidic water affected much of the planet. These later conditions would have proven difficult for any Martian life — if it ever existed — to endure or to leave any traces for scientists to find. Because carbonates dissolve quickly in acid, finding them shows at least some areas of the planet escaped the acid bath and was less hostile to life. If primitive life sprang up in these pockets, it could have persisted and left clues of its existence.
Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Saturday afternoon: Lihue, Kauai – 77
Honolulu, Oahu – 80 Kaneohe, Oahu – 78 Kahului, Maui – 83 Hilo, Hawaii – 78
Kailua-kona – 82 Air Temperaturesranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level, and on the highest mountains…at 5 p.m. Saturday evening: Barking Sands, Kauai – 80F Molokai airport – 73F
Haleakala Crater – 50 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 36 (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 Saturday afternoon
0.15 Mount Waialeale, Kauai 2.17 Poamoho 2, Oahu
0.11 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe 0.97 West Wailuaiki, Maui
0.74 Waiakea Uka, Big Island Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather mapshowing a low pressure system northwest of Kauai, which will slowly move northward through Tuesday. High pressure will build northeast of the state, where it will remain through Thursday. East to east-southeasterly trade winds remaining active.
Satellite and Radar Images: To view the cloud conditions we have here in Hawaii, please use the following satellite links, starting off with theInfrared 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 Pacific Ocean. To help you keep track of where any showers may be around the islands, here’s the latest animatedradar image.
Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live webcam on the summit of near 14,000 footMauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. The tallest peak on the island of Maui is theHaleakala Crater, which is near 10,000 feet in elevation. These two webcams are available during the daylight hours here in the islands…and when there’s a big moon rising just after sunset for an hour or two! Plus, during the nights and early mornings you will be able to see stars, and the sunrise too…depending upon weather conditions.
The departing low pressure system to our northwest, is allowing trade winds to return to our Hawaiian Islands now.Light to moderately strong trade winds blew across the Big Island and Maui, which were showing up on Oahu and Kauai out of the east-southeast. These breezes were strong enough Saturday to require small craft wind advisories across most of the coastal waters. Looking further ahead, they will prevail through most of the upcoming work week, then get lighter and veer around to the southeast again next weekend.
Despite the departing low pressure system, the upper winds are still carrying quite a bit of high clouds to the islands…although the atmosphere is generally dry now. As the trade winds firm-up across the Hawaiian Islands, we’ll see a few showers falling over the windward coasts and slopes. The leeward sides will find generally dry conditions, although will continue to see some clouds. This trade wind weather pattern will remain in place through the Christmas week, finally giving way to some changes next weekend. The latest models show a trough arriving over the state, with more volcanic haze arriving again then.
It’s early Saturday evening here in Kula, Maui, as I start writing this last paragraph.Our weather will remain favorably inclined now into the Christmas week ahead. There will be clouds at times, making for cloudy conditions in generally locally. These clouds won’t drop much rain though, as drier air is now flooding in from the east. ~~~I went over to the beach in Paia late this morning with my neighbor, where we sat on the beach and took in the warm sunshine. I took a nice swim out to the breaking waves to cool off, and enjoyed letting the foam of those waves wash over me. It was then to the health food store, to stock up on food for the coming week. It was so nice to soak in those warm sun rays, and to relax on the warm sand!~~~We are about to embark into our winter season, with the winter solstice officially beginning at 2:08am Hawaiian Standard Time…early Sunday morning. So by the time I come back online, Sunday morning, it will no longer be autumn. I know that the mainland has been feeling the chill of this turn of the seasons for the last several days, or longer. ~~~ It’s just past sunset here on Maui, with totally cloudy skies, much like we’ve seen at this time for the past several days. It’s dry however, as you can see by taking a quick look at this radar image of the islands. What you can’t see is the high clouds that are blanketing many areas of the state. I’ll be back Sunday morning with your next new weather narrative. I hope you have a great Saturday night wherever you happen to be spending it! Aloha…Glenn. Interesting: Rising water levels in China’s giant Three Gorges Dam have triggered dozens of landslides in recent months, damaging houses, land and infrastructure worth millions of dollars. In July, China finished evacuating residents from the last town to be submerged by the massive 400-mile long reservoir on the Yangtze River, ending an exodus of some 1.4 million people that began four years ago. The 2,309-meter-long dam, the world’s largest, aims to tame the river and provide cheap, clean energy for the country’s rapid development. But critics say rising water levels in the reservoir are eroding already fragile slopes and triggering landslides which could worsen as levels reach their maximum height next year. The reservoir’s administration began withholding water outflows in September to push the reservoir’s water level up to 175 meters.
But since then, the rising water level had "further induced geological harm including landslides and collapsing of the reservoirs’ banks," the Xinhua news agency quoted Chongqing government spokesman Wen Tianping as saying. "(These) have caused damage or created a latent threat to … infrastructure, land and housing in dam areas above the evacuation line," Wen said. He added that 93 "surface threats" had emerged in 12 regions and counties around the dam area, causing direct losses of $53 million, but had not caused any injury or loss of life. He however said the problems were anticipated during the dam’s feasibility study and that there was no cause for concern. Officials said last year $1.75 billion had been spent on repairs around the massive dam in past years and were confident such efforts were successful. But in April, a large mudslide hit a village in the Gaoyang area near the dam in April, sweeping into a school playground. A landslide nearby killed 35 people late last year. Finished in 2003, the dam’s water level has risen in stages, reaching 156 meters in 2006. It is expected to reach its final height next year.
Interesting2: The world’s first cargo ship partly propelled by solar power took to the seas on Friday in Japan, aiming to cut fuel costs and carbon emissions when automakers ship off their exports. Auriga Leader, a freighter developed by shipping line Nippon Yusen K.K. and oil distributor Nippon Oil Corp, took off from a shipyard in the western city of Kobe, officials of the two firms said. The huge freighter capable of carrying 6,400 automobiles is equipped with 328 solar panels at a cost of 150 million yen (S$2.4 million dollars), the officials said. The ship will initially transport vehicles being sent for sale overseas by Japan’s top automaker Toyota Motor Corp. The project was conceived before the global economic crisis, which has forced automakers to drastically cut production as sales dwindle.
Company officials said the 60,213-ton, 200m long ship is the first large vessel in the world with a solar-based propulsion system. So far solar energy has been limited to supporting lighting and crew’s living quarters. The solar power system can generate 40 kilowatts, which would initially cover only 0.2 per cent of the ship’s energy consumption for propulsion, but company officials said they hoped to raise the ratio. The shipping industry has come under growing pressure to take part in efforts to curb global warming, which is blamed on carbon emissions. Estimates say maritime transport accounts for anything from 1.4 per cent to 4.5 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. But the industry remains largely unregulated due to its international nature. Nippon Yusen, Japan’s largest shipping company, has set a goal of halving its fuel consumption and carbon-dioxide emissions by 2010.
Interesting3: Cows, sheep and goats may seem like innocent victims of humanity’s appetite for meat, but when it comes to climate change they have a dark secret. Forget cars, planes or even power stations, some of the world’s worst greenhouse gas emitters wander idly across rolling pastures chewing the cud, oblivious to the fact that their continuous belching (and to a lesser degree, farting) is warming the planet. Take New Zealand, where 34.2 million sheep, 9.7 million cattle, 1.4 million deer and 155,000 goats emit 48 per cent of the country’s greenhouse gases in the form of methane and nitrous oxide. Worldwide, livestock burps are responsible for 18 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions – more than produced from all forms of transport combined. Methane accounts for the bulk of ruminant green house gas emissions, one ton of the gas has 25 times the global warming potential of the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide. Rising populations and incomes are expected to double the global demand for meat and milk from 229 to 465 million ton and 580 to 1043 million ton, respectively, by 2050. This will almost double the amount of greenhouse gases produced by livestock, dwarfing attempts to cut emissions elsewhere. Apart from all of us turning to a vegetarian diet, can anything be done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from livestock?
Several ideas have been proposed to raise animals that are kinder to the environment. In New Zealand, researchers are testing different diets, food additives, vaccines and drug therapies, as well as breeding low-methane animals. One Australian team has even suggested we wean ourselves from cattle and sheep altogether and eat kangaroo instead – they do not emit methane. Concern for the climate isn’t the only factor driving the research. Eight per cent of the energy expended by a ruminant’s metabolism goes on producing methane. If livestock stopped making this gas, the energy saved could be diverted into making more meat. So why do ruminants give off so much methane? It’s all down to their stomachs. Sheep and cattle have a pregastric stomach, or rumen, where microbes digest plant matter and produce hydrogen, carbon dioxide and fatty acids. The fatty acids are a useful source of energy to aid animal growth, but the hydrogen and carbon dioxide are not. This is where microorganisms called methanogens come in: they have co-evolved with the animal to consume the carbon dioxide "
Interesting4:Jumbo squid are long-distance commuters. Every day, these gangly creatures migrate more than 500 hundred vertical feet. It’s a high-energy lifestyle — and one that’s going to suffer as a result of global warming, according to a new study. Squid now appear to be joining the list of marine creatures at risk from rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. As the oceans absorb some of this CO2 load, pH levels drop, and the water becomes more acidic. Previous research has shown that ocean acidification makes it harder for corals, mollusks and other calcifying organisms to build skeletons and shells. The new study suggests that the effects of acidification are more complicated and far-reaching than many scientists expected.
"For the first time we’ve definitively proven important negative effects of high carbon dioxide levels on uncalcifying organisms like squid," said Rui Rosa, an animal physiologist at the University of Lisbon. "We’ve proven that CO2 will have a tremendous impact on their ability to move by the end of the century." Not to be confused with the mysterious giant squid, which can exceed 40 feet in length, jumbo squid (Dosidicus gigas) are common and well studied. Also known as Humboldt squid, these animals can grow up to 8-plus feet long and weigh up to 110 pounds. They are a commercially important fishery catch in Mexico and South America. Interesting5: A widespread and severe coral bleaching episode is predicted to cause immense damage to some of the world’s most important marine environments over the next few months.A report from the US Government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicts severe bleaching for parts of the Coral Sea, which lies adjacent to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, and the Coral Triangle, a 5.4 million square kilometer expanse of ocean in the Indo-Pacific which is considered the centre of the world’s marine life. “This forecast bleaching episode will be caused by increased water temperatures and is the kind of event we can expect on a regular basis if average global temperatures rise above 2 degrees,” said Richard Leck, Climate Change Strategy Leader for WWF’s Coral Triangle Program. The bleaching, predicted to occur between now and February, could have a devastating impact on coral reef ecosystems, killing coral and destroying food chains. There would be severe impacts for communities in Australia and the region, who depend on the oceans for their livelihoods. The Coral Triangle, stretching from the Philippines to Malaysia and Papua New Guinea, is home to 75 per cent of all known coral species. More than 120 million people rely on its marine resources.
“Regular bleaching episodes in this part of the world will have a massive impact on the region’s ability to sustain local communities,” said Leck. “In the Pacific many of the Small Island Developing States, such as the Solomon Islands, rely largely on the coast and coastal environments such as coral reefs for food supply. This is a region where alternative sources of income and food are limited. “Time is crucial and Australia needs to step up to the plate. Following the government’s lack of resolve to seriously reduce future domestic carbon emissions, Australia has a huge role to play in assisting Coral Triangle countries and people to adapt to the changes in their climate.“ The Australian government this week announced a 2020 target for reducing its greenhouse gas pollution by 5 per cent, which WWF criticized as completely inadequate. Reductions of at least 25 per cent by 2020 are needed to set the world on a pathway to meaningful cuts in greenhouse pollution. Australia’s Coral Sea, which will also be affected by coral bleaching and climate change, is a pristine marine wilderness covering almost 1,000,000 square kilometers and is extraordinarily rich in marine life, including sharks and turtles, with a series of spectacular reefs rising thousands of meters from the sea floor.
Interesting6: Global warming will likely put enormous strain on California’s water supply and energy systems and have a devastating impact on certain crops. Stanford researchers predict this outcome based on projections from two different emission scenarios. One assumes a continuing moderate increase in greenhouse gas emissions until 2100; the other assumes emissions would increase until mid-century and then start dropping off. Both of the scenarios indicate there will be more frequent heat waves and generally rising temperatures, the only difference being just how dramatic the increases will be. "We will very likely see our current high temperatures much more often and also temperatures hotter than anything we’ve seen before under both projected levels of carbon dioxide emissions," said Michael Mastrandrea, a lecturer in the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Environment and Resources and a research associate at the Woods Institute for the Environment.
"This is something that’s going to be a huge challenge for California to deal with in the future." Mastrandrea developed temperature projections using output from a set of global climate models scaled to reflect potential climate changes in California under both higher and lower emissions scenarios. In the next 50-100 years, average temperatures are expected to increase approximately 4-9 degrees Fahrenheit. Both the climate scenarios were developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore.
Interesting7:Evidence of a key mineral on Mars has been found at several locations on the planet’s surface, suggesting that any microbial life that might have been there back when the planet was wetter could have lived comfortably. The findings offer up intriguing new sites for future missions to probe, researchers said. Observations NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which just completed its primary mission and started a second two-year shift, found evidence of carbonates, which don’t survive in conditions hostile to life, indicating that not all of the planet’s ancient watery environments were as harsh as previously thought. The findings are detailed in a study in the Dec. 19 issue of the journal Science and will be presented today at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
Over the past several years, evidence for water on Mars has been stacking up: Scientists have found gullies formed by running water, possible ancient lakes, and minerals formed by interaction with water. But just how much water there was and how suitable it was for Martian microbes or other primitive life forms have been harder puzzles to solve. Most evidence has pointed to a period when water on the planet’s surface formed clay-rich minerals, followed by a time of drier conditions, when salt-rich, acidic water affected much of the planet. These later conditions would have proven difficult for any Martian life — if it ever existed — to endure or to leave any traces for scientists to find. Because carbonates dissolve quickly in acid, finding them shows at least some areas of the planet escaped the acid bath and was less hostile to life. If primitive life sprang up in these pockets, it could have persisted and left clues of its existence.
Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Friday afternoon: Lihue, Kauai – 76
Honolulu, Oahu – 79 Kaneohe, Oahu – 77 Kahului, Maui – 83 Hilo, Hawaii – 80
Kailua-kona – 81 Air Temperaturesranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level, and on the highest mountains…at 4 p.m. Friday afternoon: Kahului, Maui – 79F Hilo, Hawaii – 76F
Haleakala Crater – 48 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 37 (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 Friday afternoon 5.71 Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.48 Kahuku, Oahu
0.00 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe 0.04 Kaupo Gap, Maui
0.44 Pahala, Big Island Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather mapshowing an area of low pressure center west of Kauai, which will move slowly out of the area through Monday. High pressue will then strengthen over area from the northeast with moderate trade winds returning Tuesday.
Satellite and Radar Images: To view the cloud conditions we have here in Hawaii, please use the following satellite links, starting off with theInfrared 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 Pacific Ocean. To help you keep track of where any showers may be around the islands, here’s the latest animatedradar image.
Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live webcam on the summit of near 14,000 footMauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. The tallest peak on the island of Maui is theHaleakala Crater, which is near 10,000 feet in elevation. These two webcams are available during the daylight hours here in the islands…and when there’s a big moon rising just after sunset for an hour or two! Plus, during the nights and early mornings you will be able to see stars, and the sunrise too…depending upon weather conditions.
Aloha Paragraphs
Lovely sandy beach…makes me want to walk Photo Credit: Flikr.com
A low pressure system remains in place to the west, with a high pressure center to the northeast, although this long last low pressure system has started its movement away from our islands…as expected. This pressure configuration, the way the winds move between the high and low, gives us southeast winds here in the islands. The computer models suggest that once the low pressure system gets a bit further away, our local winds will soften-up, although remain from the southeast this weekend…veering around to the trade winds by Monday or Tuesday.
As the low pressure system moves away, our overlying atmosphere will become drier, and less shower prone…certainly eliminating the threat of heavy showers. Meanwhile, the southeast wind flow will continue to bring some moisture our way, where a few showers may fall on those southeast sides of the islands. As the trade winds fill in after the weekend, the bias for showers will concentrate over the windward coasts and slopes. The leeward sides will find generally dry conditions, with lots of sunshine during the days by then.
It’s early Friday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I start writing this last paragraph.As noted above, the low pressure system, which has kept the threat of heavy rains around Kauai, is now pulling out. We should see drier and more stable air moving in our direction, in the wake of the departing low pressure cell. It may take a little longer to rid our skies of the high and middle level clouds, which have been making for cloudy skies during the afternoon hours. There will be a few showers too, although we’re now moving into a considerably drier reality. This weekend should have good weather in general, which will stick around into the new week ahead. As the trade winds come back, we’ll see the usual showers along the windward sides, but nothing unusual is expected. ~~~I did my last TV weather show for Kauai, Oahu, and the Big Island Friday morning. It was a bit emotional, as a good friend came into the studio while I was doing the show live, and presented me with a tuberose flower lei, and thanked me for doing the show for so long…wow! When he left the studio, and as I went on with the broadcast, I almost broke down and started to cry, it was too close for comfort! I’ll be back for the last three shows for Maui, Molokai and Lanai, this next week, and then it will be over, after almost 18 years of continuous airing…another wow!~~~I’m going to see a new film this evening called What Just Happened? starring Robert De Niro, Robin Wright Penn, Bruce Willis, and Stanley Tucci, among others. The statement that I found that sort of summarizes this film was this: "if you’re going to make a film about Hollywood greed, hypocrisy and lust, you have to be willing to burn your bridges". Here’s atraileron the film, which gives you a peek at what this might be saying.I’ll be back early Saturday morning with my honest opinion.~~~I’m about ready to leave Kihei, for the drive over to Kahului, to the Maui Arts and Cultural Center, where this film is playing. Looking out the window before I leave, its majorly cloudy out there, but I don’t see any rain falling. I hope you have a great Friday night wherever you happen to be spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn. Interesting: Rising water levels in China’s giant Three Gorges Dam have triggered dozens of landslides in recent months, damaging houses, land and infrastructure worth millions of dollars. In July, China finished evacuating residents from the last town to be submerged by the massive 400-mile long reservoir on the Yangtze River, ending an exodus of some 1.4 million people that began four years ago. The 2,309-meter-long dam, the world’s largest, aims to tame the river and provide cheap, clean energy for the country’s rapid development. But critics say rising water levels in the reservoir are eroding already fragile slopes and triggering landslides which could worsen as levels reach their maximum height next year. The reservoir’s administration began withholding water outflows in September to push the reservoir’s water level up to 175 meters.
But since then, the rising water level had "further induced geological harm including landslides and collapsing of the reservoirs’ banks," the Xinhua news agency quoted Chongqing government spokesman Wen Tianping as saying. "(These) have caused damage or created a latent threat to … infrastructure, land and housing in dam areas above the evacuation line," Wen said. He added that 93 "surface threats" had emerged in 12 regions and counties around the dam area, causing direct losses of $53 million, but had not caused any injury or loss of life. He however said the problems were anticipated during the dam’s feasibility study and that there was no cause for concern. Officials said last year $1.75 billion had been spent on repairs around the massive dam in past years and were confident such efforts were successful. But in April, a large mudslide hit a village in the Gaoyang area near the dam in April, sweeping into a school playground. A landslide nearby killed 35 people late last year. Finished in 2003, the dam’s water level has risen in stages, reaching 156 meters in 2006. It is expected to reach its final height next year.
Interesting2: The world’s first cargo ship partly propelled by solar power took to the seas on Friday in Japan, aiming to cut fuel costs and carbon emissions when automakers ship off their exports. Auriga Leader, a freighter developed by shipping line Nippon Yusen K.K. and oil distributor Nippon Oil Corp, took off from a shipyard in the western city of Kobe, officials of the two firms said. The huge freighter capable of carrying 6,400 automobiles is equipped with 328 solar panels at a cost of 150 million yen (S$2.4 million dollars), the officials said. The ship will initially transport vehicles being sent for sale overseas by Japan’s top automaker Toyota Motor Corp. The project was conceived before the global economic crisis, which has forced automakers to drastically cut production as sales dwindle.
Company officials said the 60,213-ton, 200m long ship is the first large vessel in the world with a solar-based propulsion system. So far solar energy has been limited to supporting lighting and crew’s living quarters. The solar power system can generate 40 kilowatts, which would initially cover only 0.2 per cent of the ship’s energy consumption for propulsion, but company officials said they hoped to raise the ratio. The shipping industry has come under growing pressure to take part in efforts to curb global warming, which is blamed on carbon emissions. Estimates say maritime transport accounts for anything from 1.4 per cent to 4.5 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. But the industry remains largely unregulated due to its international nature. Nippon Yusen, Japan’s largest shipping company, has set a goal of halving its fuel consumption and carbon-dioxide emissions by 2010.
Interesting3: Cows, sheep and goats may seem like innocent victims of humanity’s appetite for meat, but when it comes to climate change they have a dark secret. Forget cars, planes or even power stations, some of the world’s worst greenhouse gas emitters wander idly across rolling pastures chewing the cud, oblivious to the fact that their continuous belching (and to a lesser degree, farting) is warming the planet. Take New Zealand, where 34.2 million sheep, 9.7 million cattle, 1.4 million deer and 155,000 goats emit 48 per cent of the country’s greenhouse gases in the form of methane and nitrous oxide. Worldwide, livestock burps are responsible for 18 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions – more than produced from all forms of transport combined. Methane accounts for the bulk of ruminant green house gas emissions, one ton of the gas has 25 times the global warming potential of the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide. Rising populations and incomes are expected to double the global demand for meat and milk from 229 to 465 million ton and 580 to 1043 million ton, respectively, by 2050. This will almost double the amount of greenhouse gases produced by livestock, dwarfing attempts to cut emissions elsewhere. Apart from all of us turning to a vegetarian diet, can anything be done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from livestock?
Several ideas have been proposed to raise animals that are kinder to the environment. In New Zealand, researchers are testing different diets, food additives, vaccines and drug therapies, as well as breeding low-methane animals. One Australian team has even suggested we wean ourselves from cattle and sheep altogether and eat kangaroo instead – they do not emit methane. Concern for the climate isn’t the only factor driving the research. Eight per cent of the energy expended by a ruminant’s metabolism goes on producing methane. If livestock stopped making this gas, the energy saved could be diverted into making more meat. So why do ruminants give off so much methane? It’s all down to their stomachs. Sheep and cattle have a pregastric stomach, or rumen, where microbes digest plant matter and produce hydrogen, carbon dioxide and fatty acids. The fatty acids are a useful source of energy to aid animal growth, but the hydrogen and carbon dioxide are not. This is where microorganisms called methanogens come in: they have co-evolved with the animal to consume the carbon dioxide "
Interesting4:Jumbo squid are long-distance commuters. Every day, these gangly creatures migrate more than 500 hundred vertical feet. It’s a high-energy lifestyle — and one that’s going to suffer as a result of global warming, according to a new study. Squid now appear to be joining the list of marine creatures at risk from rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. As the oceans absorb some of this CO2 load, pH levels drop, and the water becomes more acidic. Previous research has shown that ocean acidification makes it harder for corals, mollusks and other calcifying organisms to build skeletons and shells. The new study suggests that the effects of acidification are more complicated and far-reaching than many scientists expected.
"For the first time we’ve definitively proven important negative effects of high carbon dioxide levels on uncalcifying organisms like squid," said Rui Rosa, an animal physiologist at the University of Lisbon. "We’ve proven that CO2 will have a tremendous impact on their ability to move by the end of the century." Not to be confused with the mysterious giant squid, which can exceed 40 feet in length, jumbo squid (Dosidicus gigas) are common and well studied. Also known as Humboldt squid, these animals can grow up to 8-plus feet long and weigh up to 110 pounds. They are a commercially important fishery catch in Mexico and South America. Interesting5: A widespread and severe coral bleaching episode is predicted to cause immense damage to some of the world’s most important marine environments over the next few months.A report from the US Government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicts severe bleaching for parts of the Coral Sea, which lies adjacent to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, and the Coral Triangle, a 5.4 million square kilometer expanse of ocean in the Indo-Pacific which is considered the centre of the world’s marine life. “This forecast bleaching episode will be caused by increased water temperatures and is the kind of event we can expect on a regular basis if average global temperatures rise above 2 degrees,” said Richard Leck, Climate Change Strategy Leader for WWF’s Coral Triangle Program. The bleaching, predicted to occur between now and February, could have a devastating impact on coral reef ecosystems, killing coral and destroying food chains. There would be severe impacts for communities in Australia and the region, who depend on the oceans for their livelihoods. The Coral Triangle, stretching from the Philippines to Malaysia and Papua New Guinea, is home to 75 per cent of all known coral species. More than 120 million people rely on its marine resources.
“Regular bleaching episodes in this part of the world will have a massive impact on the region’s ability to sustain local communities,” said Leck. “In the Pacific many of the Small Island Developing States, such as the Solomon Islands, rely largely on the coast and coastal environments such as coral reefs for food supply. This is a region where alternative sources of income and food are limited. “Time is crucial and Australia needs to step up to the plate. Following the government’s lack of resolve to seriously reduce future domestic carbon emissions, Australia has a huge role to play in assisting Coral Triangle countries and people to adapt to the changes in their climate.“ The Australian government this week announced a 2020 target for reducing its greenhouse gas pollution by 5 per cent, which WWF criticized as completely inadequate. Reductions of at least 25 per cent by 2020 are needed to set the world on a pathway to meaningful cuts in greenhouse pollution. Australia’s Coral Sea, which will also be affected by coral bleaching and climate change, is a pristine marine wilderness covering almost 1,000,000 square kilometers and is extraordinarily rich in marine life, including sharks and turtles, with a series of spectacular reefs rising thousands of meters from the sea floor.
Interesting6: Global warming will likely put enormous strain on California’s water supply and energy systems and have a devastating impact on certain crops. Stanford researchers predict this outcome based on projections from two different emission scenarios. One assumes a continuing moderate increase in greenhouse gas emissions until 2100; the other assumes emissions would increase until mid-century and then start dropping off. Both of the scenarios indicate there will be more frequent heat waves and generally rising temperatures, the only difference being just how dramatic the increases will be. "We will very likely see our current high temperatures much more often and also temperatures hotter than anything we’ve seen before under both projected levels of carbon dioxide emissions," said Michael Mastrandrea, a lecturer in the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Environment and Resources and a research associate at the Woods Institute for the Environment.
"This is something that’s going to be a huge challenge for California to deal with in the future." Mastrandrea developed temperature projections using output from a set of global climate models scaled to reflect potential climate changes in California under both higher and lower emissions scenarios. In the next 50-100 years, average temperatures are expected to increase approximately 4-9 degrees Fahrenheit. Both the climate scenarios were developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore.
Interesting7:Evidence of a key mineral on Mars has been found at several locations on the planet’s surface, suggesting that any microbial life that might have been there back when the planet was wetter could have lived comfortably. The findings offer up intriguing new sites for future missions to probe, researchers said. Observations NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which just completed its primary mission and started a second two-year shift, found evidence of carbonates, which don’t survive in conditions hostile to life, indicating that not all of the planet’s ancient watery environments were as harsh as previously thought. The findings are detailed in a study in the Dec. 19 issue of the journal Science and will be presented today at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
Over the past several years, evidence for water on Mars has been stacking up: Scientists have found gullies formed by running water, possible ancient lakes, and minerals formed by interaction with water. But just how much water there was and how suitable it was for Martian microbes or other primitive life forms have been harder puzzles to solve. Most evidence has pointed to a period when water on the planet’s surface formed clay-rich minerals, followed by a time of drier conditions, when salt-rich, acidic water affected much of the planet. These later conditions would have proven difficult for any Martian life — if it ever existed — to endure or to leave any traces for scientists to find. Because carbonates dissolve quickly in acid, finding them shows at least some areas of the planet escaped the acid bath and was less hostile to life. If primitive life sprang up in these pockets, it could have persisted and left clues of its existence.
Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Thursday afternoon: Lihue, Kauai – 78
Honolulu, Oahu – 82 Kaneohe, Oahu – 79 Kahului, Maui – 84 Hilo, Hawaii – 80
Kailua-kona – 81 Air Temperaturesranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level, and on the highest mountains…at 4 p.m. Thursday afternoon: Kahului, Maui – 83F Princeville, Kauai – 73F
Haleakala Crater – 55 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 39 (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 Thursday afternoon: 0.78 Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.63 Poamoho 2, Oahu
0.00 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe 0.07 Oheo Gulch, Maui
0.58 South Point, Big Island Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather mapshowing a low pressure system, which will persist west and northwest of Kauai through the period, while high pressure prevails far northeast of the islands. Although locally strong today, east to southeast winds will be moderate to fresh into the weekend.
Satellite and Radar Images: To view the cloud conditions we have here in Hawaii, please use the following satellite links, starting off with theInfrared 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 Pacific Ocean. To help you keep track of where any showers may be around the islands, here’s the latest animatedradar image.
Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live webcam on the summit of near 14,000 footMauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. The tallest peak on the island of Maui is theHaleakala Crater, which is near 10,000 feet in elevation. These two webcams are available during the daylight hours here in the islands…and when there’s a big moon rising just after sunset for an hour or two! Plus, during the nights and early mornings you will be able to see stars, and the sunrise too…depending upon weather conditions.
Aloha Paragraphs
Chance of heavy rains on Kauai and Niihau Photo Credit: Flikr.com
Our long lasting spell of southeast winds will continue…finally giving way to more normal trade winds early next week. A low pressure system remains in place to the west, with a high pressure center to the east-northeast. This gives us southeast winds, which are strong enough to have triggered a small craft wind advisory in some places around Maui and the Big Island. These winds may carry some volcanic haze up some of the islands at times…from the Big Island. The computer models suggest that once the low pressure system lifts out, starting later Friday into the weekend, our local winds will fade from the southeast, veering around to the trade winds after the weekend.
The persistent area of low pressure to the west Hawaii, may send rain our way soon…impacting Niihau and Kauai. Meanwhile, the southeast wind flow will carry some moisture towards us too, which will find a few showers arriving at times on the other islands. As the trade winds fill in after the weekend, the bias for showers will concentrate over the windward coasts and slopes. The leeward sides will find generally dry conditions, with lots of sunshine during the days then. The GFS model shows a cold front dropping down over the state, from the north around Christmas…more on that over the next couple of days.
It’s early Friday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I start writing this last paragraph.Thursday was generally a nice day, although the threat of heavy rains loomed just to the west of Kauai! Looking at thislooping satellite image, we find that large area of rainy clouds close to our state, which may bring localized heavy showers over Kauai soon. Meanwhile, checking out thislooping radar image, we see showers approaching Kauai…with some lighter showers being carried in the southeast wind flow elsewhere.~~~As I was mentioning this morning, its getting right down to the wire now, with the tv weather show on Kauai, Oahu, and the Big Island, ending tomorrow morning! I’m not too sure what to say quite honestly, after serving up these live broadcast weather programs for almost 18 years. I’m sure I’ll figure out something to say, and then next week, I have the last show ever anywhere, when on Wednesday it will be the last show that Maui, Molokai and Lanai will see. At any rate, fortunately I will continue doing this website well into the future, although for my tv audience, it won’t be the same, I realize that!~~~I’m about ready to head out for the drive upcountry to Kula, and looking out the window, I see quite a bit of sunshine beaming down, although at quite a low angle. It should be a nice sunset out there, with the array of high and middle level clouds overhead. I hope you have a great Thursday night, either here in Hawaii, or on the still cold mainland! I’ll be back with your next new weather narrative very early Friday morning. Aloha for now…Glenn. Interesting: Indulging in just one small chocolate truffle can induce cravings for more sugary and fatty foods—and even awaken a desire for high-end status products, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. In a study that examined goals and behavior in consumers, authors Juliano Laran (University of Miami) and Chris Janiszewski (University of Florida) found that study participants who consumed a chocolate truffle desired ice cream, pizza, and potato chips more than people who were told to resist eating a truffle. When participants were allowed eat a truffle, they unconsciously activated a goal of indulgence, the authors explain. Likewise, those who were asked to resist the treat activated health goals. Once people felt their goals were met, they tended to reverse their behaviors.
For example, when people who resisted the truffle were told they did a good job, they indicated that they desired fatty foods more than healthy foods. "Once people feel like they have achieved a certain goal, they tend to pursue the opposing goal. When asked about their behaviors, no participant related their desires to the initial chocolate consumption, indicating the operation of a non-conscious system that guides people’s behaviors," write the authors. Interestingly, truffles served as triggers for more expensive indulgences as well. "A second study again had people eat or resist a chocolate truffle and asked them to indicate how much they desired several products that are symbols of status (a nice shirt, an Apple computer, a fine watch). People who ate the truffle desired the status products significantly more than those who had to resist the truffle," the authors write.
Interesting2: A report released at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union on December 16 provides new insights on the potential for abrupt climate change and the effects it could have on the United States, identifying key concerns that include faster-than-expected loss of sea ice, rising sea levels and a possibly permanent state of drought in the American Southwest.The analysis is one of 21 of its type developed by a number of academic and government agency researchers for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program. The work incorporates the latest scientific data more than any previous reports, experts say, including the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. While concluding that some projections of the impact of climate change have actually been too conservative – as in the case of glacier and ice sheets that are moving and decaying faster than predicted – others may not pose as immediate a threat as some scenarios had projected, such as the rapid releases of methane or dramatic shifts in the ocean current patterns that help keep Europe warm. "We simulate the future changes with our climate models, but those models have not always incorporated some of our latest data and observations," said Peter Clark, a professor of geosciences at Oregon State University and a lead author on the report.
"We now have data on glaciers moving faster, ice shelves collapsing and other climate trends emerging that allow us to improve the accuracy of some of our future projections." Some of the changes that now appear both more immediate and more certain, the report concludes, are rapid changes at the edges of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, loss of sea ice that exceeds projections by earlier models, and hydro-climatic changes over North America and the global subtropics that will likely intensify and persist due to future greenhouse warming. "Our report finds that drying is likely to extend poleward into the American West, increasing the likelihood of severe and persistent drought there in the future," Clark said. "If the models are accurate, it appears this has already begun. The possibility that the Southwest may be entering a permanent drought state is not yet widely appreciated." Climate change, experts say, has happened repeatedly in Earth’s history and is generally believed to be very slow and take place over hundreds or thousands of years. However, at times in the past, climate has also changed surprisingly quickly, on the order of decades. "Abrupt climate change presents potential risks for society that are poorly understood," researchers wrote in the report.
Interesting3: The common wisdom is that the invention of the steam engine and the advent of the coal-fueled industrial age marked the beginning of human influence on global climate. But gathering physical evidence, backed by powerful simulations on the world’s most advanced computer climate models, is reshaping that view and lending strong support to the radical idea that human-induced climate change began not 200 years ago, but thousands of years ago with the onset of large-scale agriculture in Asia and extensive deforestation in Europe. What’s more, according to the same computer simulations, the cumulative effect of thousands of years of human influence on climate is preventing the world from entering a new glacial age, altering a clockwork rhythm of periodic cooling of the planet that extends back more than a million years. "This challenges the paradigm that things began changing with the Industrial Revolution," says Stephen Vavrus, a climatologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Climatic Research and the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. "If you think about even a small rate of increase over a long period of time, it becomes important."
Interesting4: For years, scientists have wondered why only males of the rarely seen family of beaked whales have “tusks,” since they are squid-eaters and in many of the species, these elaborately modified teeth seem to actually interfere with feeding. A newly published study help explain the evolutionary origin of these distinctive “tusks” in beaked whales, a rather mysterious family of whales that live in the deep oceans. Although the tusks are known to be used in competition between males, another purpose seems to be to attract female beaked whales – and to avoid mistakes in choosing a mate. The study, by researchers in Oregon, New Zealand and Australia, is being published this month in the journal Systematic Biology. It describes one of the first examples of “sexual selection” implicated in the radiation of a group of mammals outside ungulates (deer, elk and antelope).
“Beaked whales are among the least known, least understood and, frankly, most bizarre whales in the ocean,” said Scott Baker, associate director of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University and a co-author of the article. “Because they live in the deep, they are rarely seen alive and many are described only from specimens found stranded dead on the beach. They are the only cetacean species with tusks and scientists have long wondered why, since their diet primarily is squid and the females are essentially toothless. “It turns out that tusks are largely an ornamental trait that became a driver in species separation,” Baker added. “The tusks help females identify males within their species, which could otherwise be difficult as these species are quite similar to each other in shape and coloration.” Interesting5: A new study in the Review of Agricultural Economics compares fast food and table service meals at restaurants. Results show that both are larger and have more calories than meals prepared at home, with the typical fast food meal being smaller and having fewer calories than the average meal from a table service restaurant. James K. Binkley of Purdue University used data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals, which is the most recently available large sample of information regarding nutritional intake, to analyze fast food, table service restaurant meals, and meals prepared at home. Fast food was found to be more energy dense than food from a table service restaurant. However, Binkley found that fast food meals tend to be smaller.
Consequently, the typical fast food meal had fewer calories than the average meal from a table service restaurant, whether the diner is an adult, teenager, or child. But, the study found that table service diners are more likely to reduce their food consumption during the rest of the day than are those eating at fast food restaurants, most likely because of the difference in energy density. As a result, fast food may ultimately result in more calories. Perhaps the most surprising result of the study was the finding that fast food had the largest effects for adults, and that children’s caloric intakes were greatest when they ate at table service restaurants. “It is misleading to focus concerns about the nutritional effects of increased food away from home primarily on fast food. All food away from home should be considered,” Binkley concludes.
Interesting6: Good quality extra-virgin olive oil contains health-relevant chemicals, ‘phyto-chemicals’, that can trigger cancer cell death. New research sheds more light on the suspected association between olive oil-rich Mediterranean diets and reductions in breast cancer risk. Javier Menendez from the Catalan Institute of Oncology and Antonio Segura-Carretero from the University of Granada in Spain led a team of researchers who set out to investigate which parts of olive oil were most active against cancer. Menendez said, “Our findings reveal for the first time that all the major complex phenols present in extra-virgin olive oil drastically suppress over-expression of the cancer gene HER2 in human breast cancer cells”. Extra-virgin olive oil is the oil that results from pressing olives without the use of heat or chemical treatments. It contains phyto-chemicals that are otherwise lost in the refining process. Menendez and colleagues separated the oil into fractions and tested these against breast cancer cells in lab experiments. All the fractions containing the major extra-virgin phyto-chemical polyphenols (lignans and secoiridoids) were found to effectively inhibit HER2.
Interesting7:It’s not the kind of wanted ad you see every day: "Couple sought to run lighthouse bed and breakfast on island in San Francisco Bay. "The job includes living quarters on the island and a priceless view of the San Francisco skyline. And the pay isn’t bad: up to 100,000 dollars a year for the shared position. Could this possibly be a dream job? "There’s no perfect job," said Katy Stewart, 32. She should know. For nearly three years she has lived with her husband Elan, two dogs and – for the last 11 months – their son, Drake, on the half-hectare size island. Their job is to maintain the East Brother Light Station and keep its bed and breakfast up and running. "This is a romantic place," Stewart said. "But it’s like running an inn in a place that’s a lot more difficult." Most couples hold the job for two years; the longest stayed for seven.
"We’d probably stay forever, if we had figured out how to get a pizza delivered out here," joked the young mother. "We are glad for the time we had, but we want to leave while we are still happy. There is a lot of isolation." The East Brother Light Station lies on the northern end of San Francisco Bay. Nearly 200 meters from the coast, the location offers a breathtaking panorama view of the city, 10 kilometers away, the Golden Gate Bridge and the southern foothills on the Marin Peninsula. Whales occasionally swim by, seals bark on the rocky beaches and seagulls provide wildly romantic musical accompaniment. However, finding a neighbor to talk to requires a short journey and a bit of effort. A boat has to be hoisted into the sometimes stormy bay with a crane.
The ride to the mainland takes a quarter of an hour, then there is a drive on an old harbor road that’s full of potholes, Stewart said, describing the arduous trip to the nearest town. It’s no wonder that friends hardly every drop by. "One friend came by in three years unannounced," Stewart said. "He arrived in an inflatable kayak and asked, ‘Can I come in for some coffee?’" The 65-hour-a-week job does not leave much time for chatting anyway. Duties include ferrying guests to the island by boat "and all other tasks from chef to maid," according to the job description posted at the East Brother Light Station’s website (www.ebls.org). The inn is open four days a week. Guests receive a four-course evening meal and a full breakfast the next morning. The five rooms in the old Victorian wooden house must be made up and the guests must be led on a tour of the lighthouse, built in 1874.
Visitors pay between 215 and 415 dollars per night, depending on the room and the season, for the unique experience of staying on the island. And there is strict water rationing, baths and showers are not available to guests who stay only one night. Water rationing also applies to the innkeepers. "This is not a job for someone who likes to take long hot showers," Stewart laughingly said. The island’s cistern is often low, especially in years when there’s little rain. Drinking water is brought over from the mainland, where the laundry must be done. The old buildings housing the light and fog signals are still standing, although their operations have been switched over to an automated system. The lighthouse operator position became unnecessary in 1970 and the island was unoccupied for 10 years. But a non-profit association stepped in, restored the tower and opened the bed and breakfast. The income it generates pays for ongoing restoration and maintenance costs of the what has been declared an historical site.
Every 20 seconds the fog horn sounds, but it’s "not nearly as loud as it used to be," said Stewart. She said she doesn’t consciously hear it any more. Earplugs are available for guests with sensitive hearing. "I will miss the sound of the waves and the birds," said Stewart. "But I’m looking forward to going on really long walks." It currently takes just five minutes to walk across the island. A couple who can take over the job by April is sought. Stewart already has received a flood of inquiries. Among the prerequisites are a commercial boat operator’s license and culinary skills. A solid partnership is also useful, said the former film student, speaking from experience. She spent 10 months with her husband on a sail boat before taking the job. Given the isolation of the island, it’s hard to imagine a better preparation than that.
Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Wednesday afternoon: Lihue, Kauai – 76
Honolulu, Oahu – 80 Kaneohe, Oahu – 79 Kahului, Maui – 84 Hilo, Hawaii – 79
Kailua-kona – 82 Air Temperaturesranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level, and on the highest mountains…at 4 p.m. Wednesday afternoon: Kahului, Maui – 81F Lihue, Kauai – 73F
Haleakala Crater – missing (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 37 (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 Wednesday afternoon: 1.82 Kapahi, Kauai
1.07 Poamoho 2, Oahu
0.00 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe 0.05 Oheo Gulch, Maui
0.46 Waiakea Uka, Big Island Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather mapshowing a high pressure system located far northeast of the islands, in combination with low pressure system far west of the state, which will maintain an east to southeast flow over the islands through Friday.
Satellite and Radar Images: To view the cloud conditions we have here in Hawaii, please use the following satellite links, starting off with theInfrared 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 Pacific Ocean. To help you keep track of where any showers may be around the islands, here’s the latest animatedradar image.
Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live webcam on the summit of near 14,000 footMauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. The tallest peak on the island of Maui is theHaleakala Crater, which is near 10,000 feet in elevation. These two webcams are available during the daylight hours here in the islands…and when there’s a big moon rising just after sunset for an hour or two! Plus, during the nights and early mornings you will be able to see stars, and the sunrise too…depending upon weather conditions.
Our local winds will vary between east and southeast…gradually becoming trade winds after the weekend. A low pressure system remains in place 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 near the Big Island. The winds are strong enough around the Big Island, that a small craft wind advisory is active locally. The computer models suggest that once the low pressure system to our west, lifts out this weekend, the trade winds will take over thereafter.
The state will have a few showers, with still the chance that Kauai may get wetter over the next few days…and perhaps Oahu too. Meanwhile, the east to southeast wind flow will carry some moisture over the area as well. As the low pressure system to our west edges closer, it’s eastern edge may bring locally heavy showers to Kauai and perhaps Oahu later Thursday into Friday.Meanwhile, the southeast and east sides of all the islands will find some showers arriving at times too. As the trade winds fill in after the weekend, the bias for showers will concentrate over the windward coasts and slopes. The leeward sides will find generally dry conditions, with lots of sunshine then.
It’s early Wednesday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I start writing this last paragraph.There were lots of blue skies Wednesday, that is between intrusions of high level cirrus clouds. Looking at thislooping satellite image, we continue to see the counter-clockwise rotation of the low pressure system to our west. This low will slowly migrate eastward, which may put localized heavy showers over that Kauai with time. Meanwhile, checking out this looping radar image, we see some showers at times taking aim on both Kauai and Oahu…with some coming in towards the Big Island too.~~~It appears that Thursday into Friday will be the time when Kauai, and maybe Oahu, will see the threat of more rainfall. The soils haven’t had a chance to dry out, so that more heavy precipitation wouldn’t be a good thing…and we’re hoping that the rains stay away. Once the trade winds return, our weather will improve markedly by early next week. ~~~Wednesday was a nice day here on Maui, a very nice day compared to the last week or so, when we saw copious amounts of high cirrus clouds streaming overhead. We will be seeing more of that stuff, although the way it looks from here, the islands of Maui and the Big Island will miss the rains that may occur again on Kauai and perhaps Oahu. I’m about ready to take the drive upcountry, up to Kula, and it looks nice out there…which will likely make for great sunset conditions. I’ll be back very early Thursday morning with your next new weather narrative, I hope you have a great Wednesday night. By the way, stay warm out there if you’re on the mainland, as its cold over there! Alohaa for now…Glenn. Interesting: It has been described as a geologist’s dream – a unique opportunity to study up close the volcanic processes that built the Earth’s continents.Drillers looking for geothermal energy in Hawaii have inadvertently put a well right into a magma chamber. Molten rock pushed back up the borehole several metres before solidifying, making it perfectly safe to study. Magma specialist Bruce Marsh says it will allow scientists to observe directly how granites are made. "This is unprecedented; this is the first time a magma has been found in its natural habitat," the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, professor told BBC News. "Before, all we had to deal with were lava flows; but they are the end of a magma’s life. They’re lying there on the surface, they’ve de-gassed. It’s not the natural habitat. "It’s the difference between looking at dinosaur bones in a museum and seeing a real, living dinosaur roaming out in the field." Professor Marsh has been discussing the discovery here at the American Geophysical Union’s Fall Meeting 2008.
This is not the first time drillers have encountered magma; the depth of the hit and the setting are, however, thought to be unique. The exploratory well was being put down in the east of Hawaii’s Big Island, through the basalt lava fields formed by Kilauea Volcano. The idea was to find steam from waters heated deep underground in fractured rock, to drive turbines on the surface to generate electricity. The company behind the project, Puna Geothermal Venture, has had a successful power operation in the area for 15 years. But the drillers were shocked – not only to hit magma but to also hit such a big heat source at the relatively shallow depth of 2.5km. "It’s hotter than hell; it’s over a thousand degrees centigrade," said Professor Marsh. Bill Teplow, a consulting geologist with US Geothermal Inc, who oversaw the drilling, stressed there was no risk of an explosion or of a volcanic eruption at the site. "It was easily controlled in the well bore because of the magma’s highly viscous nature. It flowed up the well bore 5-10m but then the cool drilling fluid caused it to solidify and stop flowing," said Mr Teplow. "At no time were we in danger of losing control of the well."
Interesting2: The harsh winter weather is expected to continue this week across the north Midwest with further heavy snowfall and ice expected. Much of northern Illinois and Iowa received around 2 to 5 inches of snow on Tuesday with an additional 1 to 3 inches expected by Wednesday. A winter weather warning remains in effect for the Chicago area. Bitterly cold air followed in behind the snowstorms with temperatures dipping down to 18F on Tuesday across Illinois and Iowa. The National Weather Service is warning of yet more wintry weather to hit the north Midwest and the northeast on Thursday, bringing more heavy snowfall to areas already affected.
Meanwhile, parts of the west have also been battered by winter storms with California and Arizona bearing the brunt. Heavy snow is still falling in Arizona. The National Weather Service warned of accumulations of snow up to 2 feet across the higher ground of southern Arizona through Tuesday and into Wednesday. However, the winter weather will subside across the western US as milder air moves later this week. Very cold arctic air spreading down from Canada and colliding with low pressure systems over central USA has been responsible for the wintry weather across the north Midwest and the northeast. Winter storms are expected to continue through much of this week with lethal combinations of heavy snow and ice.
Interesting3: The milder winters and longer growing seasons predicted under global warming forecasts could boost populations of crop-munching insects in the Midwest’s corn country over the coming decades, new research suggests. Purdue University scientists said their findings could mean lower yields for corn and other crops — and higher pest control costs for farmers — as the climate warms up. The researchers examined how global warming could impact winter’s lowest readings and lengthen the growing season across the continental U.S. based on what the study’s lead author said is a conservative climate change model. They then used that data to determine the regions where four insects that feed on corn and other crops could survive until spring, based on forecasts of warmer winter readings.
All four pests, they concluded, would expand their ranges into areas where they are currently not a problem — or not found at all — because each would have more spring survivors and more time in the spring and summer to feed, mate and reproduce. "The range of each of these pests expanded — not only in areas of the Midwest where corn is the dominant crop but also in areas of the western U.S.," said Noah Diffenbaugh, a Purdue associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences. Diffenbaugh, who led the study, said the warmer readings could mean the insects will be capable of producing up to three generations of their kind in a single growing season, filling fields with their hungry offspring. The findings were recently published online in the Environmental Research Letters.
Interesting4:Earth’s magnetic field, which shields our planet from particles streaming outward from the Sun, often develops two holes that allow the largest leaks, according to researchers sponsored by NASA and the National Science Foundation. "The discovery overturns a long-standing belief about how and when most of the solar particles penetrate Earth’s magnetic field, and could be used to predict when solar storms will be severe. Based on these results, we expect more severe storms during the upcoming solar cycle," said Vassilis Angelopoulos of the University of California, Los Angeles, Principal Investigator for NASA’s THEMIS mission (Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms).
THEMIS was used to discover the size of the leak. Earth’s magnetic field acts as a shield against the bombardment of particles continuously streaming from the sun. Because the solar particles (ions and electrons) are electrically charged, they feel magnetic forces and most are deflected by our planet’s magnetic field. However, our magnetic field is a leaky shield and the number of particles breaching this shield depends on the orientation of the sun’s magnetic field. It had been thought that when the sun’s magnetic field is aligned with that of the Earth, the door is shut and that few if any solar particles enter Earth’s magnetic shield. The door was thought to open up when the solar magnetic field direction points opposite to Earth’s field, leading to more solar particles inside the shield.
Interesting5: Dinosaur hunters on a month-long expedition to the Sahara desert have returned home in time for Christmas with more than they ever dreamed of finding. They have unearthed not one but two possible new species of extinct animals. Their success marks one of the most exciting discoveries to come out of Africa for 50 years. The team has discovered what appears to be a new type of pterosaur and a previously unknown sauropod, a species of giant plant-eating dinosaur. Both would have lived almost one hundred million years ago. The palaeontologists discovered a large fragment of beak from a giant flying reptile and a more than one metre long bone from a sauropod, which indicates an animal of almost 65 feet in length.
The discovery of both is extremely rare. The expedition was composed of scientists from the University of Portsmouth, University College Dublin (UCD) and the Université Hassan II in Casablanca and was led by UCD palaeontologist, Nizar Ibrahim. Ibrahim, who is an expert on North African dinosaurs, said: “Finding two specimens in one expedition is remarkable, especially as both might well represent completely new species.” Dr David Martill, a reader in Palaeobiology at the University of Portsmouth, said: “Plant eaters are uncommon in this deposit, extremely rare in this region and to find one this large is very exciting. It’s a major discovery.”
Interesting6: Two giant plumes of hot rock deep within the earth are linked to the plate motions that shape the continents, researchers have found. The two super-plumes, one beneath Hawaii and the other beneath Africa, have likely existed for at least 200 million years, explained Wendy Panero, assistant professor of earth sciences at Ohio State University. The giant plumes — or "super-piles" as Panero calls them — rise from the bottom of Earth’s mantle, just above our planet’s core. Each is larger than the continental United States. And each is surrounded by a wall of plates from Earth’s crust that have sunk into the mantle. She and her colleagues reported their findings at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.
Computer models have connected the piles to the sunken former plates, but it’s currently unclear which one spawned the other, Panero said. Plates sink into the mantle as part of the normal processes that shape the continents. But which came first, the piles or the plates, the researchers simply do not know. "Do these super-piles organize plate motions, or do plate motions organize the super-piles? I don’t know if it’s truly a chicken-or-egg kind of question, but the locations of the two piles do seem to be related to where the continents are today, and where the last supercontinent would have been 200 million years ago," she said. That supercontinent was Pangea, and its breakup eventually led to the seven continents we know today.
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 Temperaturesranged 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 mapshowing 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 theInfrared 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 Pacific Ocean. To help you keep track of where any showers may be around the islands, here’s the latest animatedradar image.
Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live webcam on the summit of near 14,000 footMauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. The tallest peak on the island of Maui is theHaleakala Crater, which is near 10,000 feet in elevation. These two webcams are available during the daylight hours here in the islands…and when there’s a big moon rising just after sunset for an hour or two! Plus, during the nights and early mornings you will be able to see stars, and the sunrise too…depending upon weather conditions.
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 thislooping 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 thislooping 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.
Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Monday afternoon: Lihue, Kauai – 76
Honolulu, Oahu – 81 Kaneohe, Oahu – 80 Kahului, Maui – 86 Hilo, Hawaii – 78
Kailua-kona – 82 Air Temperaturesranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level, and on the highest mountains…at 4 p.m. Monday afternoon: Kahului, Maui – 82F Lihue, Kauai – 72F
Haleakala Crater – 46 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 34 (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 Monday afternoon:
0.19 Mount Waialaele, Kauai
1.05 Schofield Barracks, Oahu
0.12 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.05 Kahoolawe 1.03 Kaupo Gap, Maui 1.69 Pali 2, Big Island Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather mapshowing a low pressure system developing to the west of Hawaii, over the offshore waters…and high pressure system located well to the northeast, which will keep winds near the islands mainly from the southeast through Saturday.
Satellite and Radar Images: To view the cloud conditions we have here in Hawaii, please use the following satellite links, starting off with theInfrared 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 Pacific Ocean. To help you keep track of where any showers may be around the islands, here’s the latest animatedradar image.
Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live webcam on the summit of near 14,000 footMauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. The tallest peak on the island of Maui is theHaleakala Crater, which is near 10,000 feet in elevation. These two webcams are available during the daylight hours here in the islands…and when there’s a big moon rising just after sunset for an hour or two! Plus, during the nights and early mornings you will be able to see stars, and the sunrise too…depending upon weather conditions.
Aloha Paragraphs
Some clouds, showers…and haze Photo Credit: Flikr.com
A trough of low pressure to the west of Kauai, will keep our atmosphere somewhat shower prone, especially on Kauai and the Big Island for the time being. The latest weather maps show this trough being pushed westward, west of Kauai Monday night. This pushing motion is being caused by generally light southeast breezes…although they are locally gusty near the Big Island. Southeast winds is carrying volcanic haze to the other islands. Our winds will become more generally southeast to even south or southwest in a few days, as a new developing low and trough form over the ocean…to the west of Kauai. We may begin to see the trade winds by the upcoming weekend.
The trough to the west of Kauai, and where the southeast breezes meet land…will be where the most showers fall into Tuesday. A few heavy showers have moved across Kauai late in the day Monday. At the same time, we find showery clouds moving along in the SE breezes, bringing moisture to the Big Island too. The showers on the southeast side of the Big Island were quite generous Monday morning. The next several days will find a mixed bag, with clouds, some sun, and some showers. Looking a bit further ahead, the next low pressure system to the west, may or may not bring showers or rain…back into the forecast later this week on Kauai.
It’s early Monday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I start writing this last paragraph.Looking at this looping satellite image, we see clouds, much of which are the high cirrus variety, streaking across island skies from the west and southwest of the islands. Meanwhile, checking out thislooping radar image, we see whatever showers that are falling, being carried along by the generally southeast winds. The breezes down near the Big Island seem to be coming in from the southeast…along the Kau coast. Our winds will remain from the southeast direction statewide, which is bringing up lots of volcanic haze over the Aloha state.~~~The computer models haven’t quite decided where the rains will be located later this week. One possibility is to the west of Kauai, over the ocean…or over Niihau and Kauai? We will know better over the next day or two. I’d say, with all things considered, and the still soggy ground on both Oahu and Kauai…that keeping more heavy rains away from those two western islands would be a favorable choice!~~~ Looking at that satellite image just above, we see a ton of clouds sweeping-up over the state, closest to the island of Kauai now…although all the islands are getting their fair share…more than that perhaps! If you look to the west, you will see the first signs of that newly developing low pressure system. Look for the counterclockwise rotating area to the left of that major swath of clouds. Looking at the radar loop, most of the showers, at least at the time of this writing, are located over the ocean to the west of Kauai…although some showers are taking aim on the garden isle of Kauai as well. ~~~ Speaking of clouds, looking out the window here in Kihei, before I take the drive upcountry to Kula, it is totally cloudy, no sunshine or blue skies anywhere. It’s hazy outside too. I’ll come back online when I get home if I run into showers, otherwise, I’ll catch up with you very early Tuesday morning. Aloha for now…Glenn. Interesting:Researchers watching the loss of ice flowing out from the giant island of Greenland say that the amount of ice lost this summer is nearly three times what was lost one year ago. The loss of floating ice in 2008 pouring from Greenland’s glaciers would cover an area twice the size of Manhattan Island in the U.S., they said. Jason Box, an associate professor of geography at Ohio State, said that the loss of ice since the year 2000 is 355.4 square miles, or more than 10 times the size of Manhattan. "We now know that the climate doesn’t have to warm any more for Greenland to continue losing ice," Box said.
"It has probably passed the point where it could maintain the mass of ice that we remember. "But that doesn’t mean that Greenland’s ice will all disappear. It’s likely that it will probably adjust to a new ‘equilibrium’ but before it reaches the equilibrium, it will shed a lot more ice. "Greenland is de-glaciating and actually has been doing so for most of the past half-century." Box, a researcher with Ohio State’s Byrd Polar Research Center, along with graduate students Russell Benson and David Decker, presented their findings at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. Interesting2: Researchers in Nevada are reporting that waste coffee grounds can provide a cheap, abundant, and environmentally friendly source of biodiesel fuel for powering cars and trucks. In the new study, Mano Misra, Susanta Mohapatra, and Narasimharao Kondamudi note that the major barrier to wider use of biodiesel fuel is lack of a low-cost, high quality source, or feedstock, for producing that new energy source. Spent coffee grounds contain between 11 and 20 percent oil by weight. That’s about as much as traditional biodiesel feedstocks such as rapeseed, palm, and soybean oil. Growers produce more than 16 billion pounds of coffee around the world each year. The used or "spent" grounds remaining from production of espresso, cappuccino, and plain old-fashioned cups of java, often wind up in the trash or find use as soil conditioner.
The scientists estimated, however, that spent coffee grounds can potentially add 340 million gallons of biodiesel to the world’s fuel supply. To verify it, the scientists collected spent coffee grounds from a multinational coffeehouse chain and separated the oil. They then used an inexpensive process to convert 100 percent of the oil into biodiesel. The resulting coffee-based fuel — which actually smells like java — had a major advantage in being more stable than traditional biodiesel due to coffee’s high antioxidant content, the researchers say. Solids left over from the conversion can be converted to ethanol or used as compost, the report notes. The scientists estimate that the process could make a profit of more than $8 million a year in the U.S. alone. They plan to develop a small pilot plant to produce and test the experimental fuel within the next six to eight months.
Interesting3:Massive swarms of stinging jellyfish and jellyfish-like animals are transforming many world-class fisheries and tourist destinations into veritable jellytoriums that are intermittently jammed with pulsating, gelatinous creatures. Areas that are currently particularly hard-hit by these squishy animals include Hawaii, the Gulf of Mexico, the east coast of the U.S., the Bering Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, Australia, the Black Sea and other European seas, the Sea of Japan, the North Sea and Namibia. Massive jellyfish swarms–some of which cover hundreds of square miles–have caused injuries and even occasional deaths to water enthusiasts, and have caused serious damage to fisheries, fish farms, marine mines, desalination plants, ships and nuclear power plants.
Since the 1980s, jellyfish swarms have cost the world’s fishing and tourism industries alone hundreds of millions of dollars and perhaps even billions of dollars. From large swarms of potentially deadly, peanut-sized jellyfish in Australia to swarms of hundreds of millions of refrigerator-sized jellyfish in the Sea of Japan, suspicion is growing that population explosions of jellyfish are being generated by human activities. Human activities that have been suggested by media reports and scientists as possible causes of some jellyfish swarms include pollution, climate change, introductions of non-native species, overfishing and the presence of artificial structures, such as oil and gas rigs. But which of these human activities, if any of them, are really to blame?
Interesting4: Polar bears could survive extinction despite many starving to death in coming years, according to scientists and other observers who have discovered that some of the bears have found a new food source — goose and duck eggs. The eggs could be coming in part from a rebounding goose population in the Hudson Bay area, feeding polar bears whose icy habitat in the Arctic is melting, one new study finds. In recent years, much of the sea ice that polar bears use as a hunting platform for seal meals has melted, forcing some bears — particularly young males — farther north or onto land, where they are not as adept at hunting. When stuck on land for months, a polar bear typically is forced to survive on its own fat reserves. The bears were listed earlier this year as a threatened species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act as populations have declined. Meanwhile, snow geese are thriving near the western Hudson Bay, and researchers say there are in fact too many of them. Their eggs can be a good food source, researchers report in the online version of the journal Polar Biology. The geese nest on tundra that some bears have retreated to.
"Over 40 years, six subadult male bears were seen among snow goose nests, and four of them were sighted after the year 2000," says Robert Rockwell, an ornithologist at the American Museum of Natural History and a biology professor at City University of New York’s City College. "I’ve seen a subadult male eat eider duck eggs whole or press its nose against the shell, break it, and eat the contents." Ice is melting, on average, 0.72 days earlier each year in the region studied. Snow geese are hatching eggs about 0.16 days sooner each year, according to Rockwell and his graduate student Linda Gormezano. Current trends indicate that the arrival of polar bears will overlap the mean hatching period in 3.6 years, and egg consumption could become a routine, reliable option, the researcher concluded in a statement released today. A polar bear, the largest land carnivore, would need to consume the eggs of 43 nests to replace the energy gained from the average day of hunting seals, but Rockwell and his colleagues figure that while many polar bears may starve in coming years, the resourceful animals just might survive extinction.
Interesting5:A clam dredged from Icelandic waters had lived for 400 years – is this the longest-lived animal known to science? Can you imagine living for four centuries?A team of scientists from Bangor University’s School of Ocean Sciences believe they have found an animal which did just that, a quahog clam, Arctica islandica, which was living and growing on the seabed in the cold waters off the north coast of Iceland for around 400 years. When this animal was a juvenile, King James I replaced Queen Elizabeth I as English monarch, Shakespeare was writing his greatest plays Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth and Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake for espousing the view that the Sun rather than the Earth was the centre of the universe. According to the Guinness Book of Records, the existing record for the longest-lived animal belongs to a 220 year old Arctica clam collected in 1982 from American waters. Unofficially, the record belongs to a 374 year old Icelandic clam which was found in a museum. Both these records appear to have been eclipsed by the latest specimen, whose age, between 405 and 410 years, has been assessed by counting the annual growth lines in the shell.
Interesting6: The tiny tangled threads of the world’s oldest spider web have been found encased in a prehistoric piece of amber, a British scientist said Monday. Oxford University paleobiologist Martin Brasier said the 140-million-year-old webbing provides evidence that arachnids had been ensnaring their prey in silky nets since the dinosaur age. He also said the strands were linked to each other in the roughly circular pattern familiar to gardeners the world over. "You can match the details of the spider’s web with the spider’s web in my garden," Brasier said. The web was found in a small piece of amber picked up by an amateur fossil-hunter scouring the beaches on England’s south coast about two years ago, Brasier said. A microscope revealed the existence of tiny threads about 1 millimeter (1/20th of an inch) long amid bits of burnt sap and fossilized vegetable matter.
While not as dramatic as a fully preserved net of spider silk, the minuscule strands, show that spiders had been spinning circle-shaped webs well into prehistory, according to Simon Braddy, a University of Bristol paleobiologist uninvolved with the find. "It’s not a striking, perfect web," Braddy said. "(But) this seems to confirm that spiders were building orb webs back in the early Cretaceous" — the geological term for the period of time between 145.5 and 65.5 million years ago when dinosaurs and small mammals shared the earth. Spider experts believe that webs were developed even earlier, but the delicate gossamer threads rarely leave any trace. Amber, or fossilized tree resin, can occasionally conserve bits of web — an earlier find in Lebanon was dated to 130 million years ago, according to Brasier.
Interesting7:Scientists have found even more evidence that volcanism, not a space rock, may be the culprit behind the dinosaurs’ demise. The first well-supported theory for what wiped out all large dinosaurs involved a space rock that created the Chicxulub crater in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. But climate change and volcanism have been suggested in recent decades, too. A set of new studies further shifts the blame away from the impact and toward volcanism, a position that geologist Gerta Keller of Princeton University has taken in recent years. Keller and others now say more about the life-extinguishing work of a massive series of sulfur dioxide-spewing volcanic eruptions that occurred in what is now India at the time of the dinosaur-destroying K-T mass extinction (the shorthand given to the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction). The asteroid-impact "theory is now facing perhaps it’s most serious challenge from the Deccan volcanism and perhaps the Chicxulub impact itself," Keller said today during a news conference at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Society in San Francisco. The K-T extinction ended the dinosaurs’ reign on Earth and caused the extinction of 70 percent of life on the planet at the time.
Interesting8: If they are too unhealthy for US consumers to stomach, should fast food chains be allowed to continue serving up products laden with harmful fats in Asia? That is the question raised by the closure of the Krispy Kreme Doughnuts franchise in Hong Kong and the discovery that it was keeping the controversial ingredient, trans-fats, in Asian doughnuts while banning them in the US. Trans-fats are found in some deep-fried foods and processed foods made with margarine or shortening. In January Krispy Kreme, the US’s second-largest doughnut chain after market leader Dunkin’ Donuts, announced a "zero trans-fats" policy for its US restaurants. Four months later, a consumer watchdog investigation found that doughnuts sold in the nine Krispy Kreme Doughnuts outlets in Hong Kong still contained high levels of trans-fats.
The report in May by the Hong Kong Consumer Council found that while doughnuts sold in the US may be trans-fats free, a single Krispy Kreme doughnut in Hong Kong contained 2.2 grams of trans-fats, in excess of the World Health Organisation’s recommended daily intake. Trans-fats, also known as hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated fats, have been used in food processing for the last 40 years because they make the process cheaper and preserve food longer. Studies have now identified those fats as a cause of coronary heart disease and other conditions, and they have been banned in Denmark, Canada and New York City. Many foods served in Asia still contain trans-fats and the Hong Kong Consumer Council report identified a number of local cake shops and other food outlets still using them.
Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Saturday afternoon: Lihue, Kauai – 74
Honolulu, Oahu – 79 Kaneohe, Oahu – 80 Kahului, Maui – 85 Hilo, Hawaii – 81
Kailua-kona – 82 Air Temperaturesranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level, and on the highest mountains…at 4 p.m. Saturday afternoon: Kailua-kona – 81F Port Allen, Kauai – 66F
Haleakala Crater – 46 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 34 (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 Saturday afternoon: 13.75 Mount Waialaele, Kauai
2.63 Makaha Stream, Oahu
0.00 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe 0.04 Mahinahina, Maui
0.46 Pali 2, Big Island Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather mapshowing a weak cold front west of Kauai, which will transition to a weak trough and remain near Kauai through Monday…providing southeast to east winds. A low pressure system will develop just west of Kauai Tuesday with high pressure far to the northeast, resulting in slightly stronger southeast winds statewide toward mid-week.
Satellite and Radar Images: To view the cloud conditions we have here in Hawaii, please use the following satellite links, starting off with theInfrared 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 Pacific Ocean. To help you keep track of where any showers may be around the islands, here’s the latest animatedradar image.
Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live webcam on the summit of near 14,000 footMauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. The tallest peak on the island of Maui is theHaleakala Crater, which is near 10,000 feet in elevation. These two webcams are available during the daylight hours here in the islands…and when there’s a big moon rising just after sunset for an hour or two! Plus, during the nights and early mornings you will be able to see stars, and the sunrise too…depending upon weather conditions.
Aloha Paragraphs
Rainy weather on Kauai and Oahu Photo Credit: Flikr.com
The area of low pressure, responsible for the wet weather, has moved north…although a trough extending southward is keeping rain in the forecast for the islands. This low pressure system is located about 1700+ miles north-northwest of Kauai, Saturday evening. The trough dangling southward is keeping Kauai and Oahu in the rain, which will gradually spread to Maui later in the day, with possible strong embedded thunderstorms. This rain producing trough will shift eastward, bringing its wet weather to Maui and the Big Island with time.
Kauai and Oahu will find the greatest threat of rain, with a flash flood warning over Kauai and Oahu at the time of this writing. The atmosphere remains wet and unstable, or in other words…very shower prone. The computer models want to keep a trough of low pressure near or over the island through the weekend, keeping the threat of rain in the forecast. Those same models are suggesting that the trough will remain in fairly close proximity through the middle of the new week! We may find off and on showery weather holding tight through that time frame…mixed together with partly sunny periods at times too.The latest model runs indicate the next wet weather producing trough will arrive around Wednesday coming up.
Like a conveyor belt, the rainy clouds continue to parade across the islands of Kauai and Oahu, coming up from the deeper tropics to the southwest of the state.Here’s alooping satellite imageof this area of heavy showers, taking aim on Kauai and Oahu. The satellite image shows those rain producing clouds, while here is thelooping radar image, which shows the heavy rains on tap for the western islands, trying to stretch over towards Maui too. This is a serious matter, as the soils on both Kauai and Oahu are both very saturated, making flooding a definite threat. The paragraphs above lay out the inclement weather story for you, which keeps the western islands of Kauai and Oahu wet to very wet during this first half of the weekend.There hasn’t been much mention of the wet weather over Maui and the Big Island, which are outside this flooding potential for the time being. They will be more likely to see their wettest weather late Saturday night or on Sunday. The islands of Maui and the Big Island have seen a few showers arriving in places late in the day Saturday. The southeast breezes, although quite light, are carrying some volcanic haze up from the Big Island to Maui.
It’s early Saturday evening here in Kula, Maui, as I start writing this last paragraph.Saturday was another big day in terms of wet weather, with the heavy stuff hitting Kauai during the morning, next skipping over to Oahu during the afternoon hours. At one point, a severe thunderstorm flared-up, with a tornado warning for parts of Kauai! Oahu begin getting soaked again, with both of those islands now saturated, leaving the soils unable to absorb the precipitation. This promotes localized flooding, with a flash flood warning active over those two western islands in the chain. ~~~ This has been a prolonged period of off and on showers, many of which have been accompanied by heavy flooding type rainfall. As I was pointing out in one of the paragraphs above, we will remain showery into Sunday, with perhaps a bit of a break, although not totally, Monday and Tuesday. This is before the next low pressure system moves into place around mid-week, bringing the next slug of potentially heavy rains into the state. ~~~ Looking out the window of my Kula, Maui weather tower, before it gets dark, there are thick clouds, with periods of dense fog moving upcountry, on the breezy winds. I was able sneak out and put something on the bbq, but I had to wear my rain gear to do it. My wind chimes sound so sweet, as they ride along in the air currents outside. I am enjoying the moment, after being in Paia and Pukalani earlier in the day, for food shopping. I love these periods of showers, although I’m worried about the flooding aspects of this inclement weather circumstances on the island of Oahu. I’ll be back later with more news, or early Sunday morning at the latest, depending upon the severity of the island rainfall. I hope you have a great Saturday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.
Interesting: The world is on the brink of a massive extinction event, according to the United Nations. Rapid releases of greenhouse gas emissions are changing habitats at a rate faster than many of the world’s species can tolerate. "Indeed the world is currently facing a sixth wave of extinctions, mainly as a result of human impacts," said Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program in a statement. A study earlier this year in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science said the current extinction period, known as the Holocene extinction event, may be the greatest event in the Earth’s history and the first due to human actions. Unlike previous events, however, extinctions are happening over the course of decades rather than centuries. Recent studies suggest that a quarter of the world’s species may go extinct by 2050. The UN warning accompanies an increasingly frequent round of sobering news about ecosystem failures. The latest global coral reef assessment estimates that 19 percent of the world’s coral reefs are dead.
Their major threats include warming sea-surface temperatures and expanding seawater acidification. Zooxanthellae, the tiny organisms that give coral reefs their vibrant colors, are emigrating from their hosts in massive numbers as oceans heat up, killing themselves and the coral they leave behind – a process known as coral bleaching. The report, released by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network Wednesday at the international climate change negotiations in Pozna?, Poland, predicts that many of the remaining reefs may disappear within the next 40 years if current emission trends continue. "If nothing is done to substantially cut emissions, we could effectively lose coral reefs as we know them, with major coral extinctions," said Clive Wilkinson, the network’s coordinator, in a press release. Overfishing, pollution, and invasive species continue to be risks as well, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Interesting2: Researchers have discovered that the ocean’s chemical makeup is less stable and more greatly affected by climate change than previously believed. Researchers report that during a time of climate change 13 million years ago the chemical makeup of the oceans changed dramatically. The researchers warn that the chemical composition of the ocean today could be similarly affected by climate changes now underway – with potentially far-reaching consequences for marine ecosystems. "As CO2 increases and weather patterns shift, the chemical composition of our rivers will change, and this will affect the oceans," says co-author Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology. "This will change the amount of calcium and other elements in ocean salts."
The research team, which included Caldeira, Elizabeth M. Griffith and Adina Paytan of the University of California, Santa Cruz, plus two other colleagues, studied core samples of deep oceanic sediment recovered from the Pacific Ocean Basin. By analyzing the calcium isotopes in grains of the mineral barite in different layers, they determined that between 13 and 8 million years ago the ocean’s calcium levels shifted dramatically. The shift corresponds to the growth of the Antarctic ice sheets during the same time interval. Because of the huge volume of water that became locked up in the ice cap, sea level also dropped. "The climate got colder, ice sheets expanded, sea level dropped, and the intensity, type, and extent of weathering on land changed," explains Griffith. "This caused changes in ocean circulation and in the amount and composition of what rivers delivered to the ocean," adds Paytan. "This in turn impacted the biology and chemistry of the ocean.
Interesting3:They come without warning, sneaking up on their victims during some of the happiest moments of their lives, and they are killing Oregonians at the highest rate since 2000. "Sneaker" waves rising unpredictably from the surf have claimed five lives on the Oregon Coast in the past two months. "We call them sneaker waves for a reason — they’re unpredictable and they sneak up on people," says Robert Smith, outdoor recreation safety coordinator for the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, which tracks beach-related deaths. "Generally, it’s people being in the wrong place at the wrong time," Smith says. "There are several dangers existing on the Oregon Coast that people need to be aware of." Sneaker waves are sometimes called little tsunamis and they rise from the surf with zero predictability. They generally occur when two or more smaller waves fall into sync, piling atop each other to form one large wave often twice the size of others within the series of waves — called "sets."
They are a universal coastal phenomenon, occurring even during periods of little surf. But the Pacific beaches from Northern California to the Canadian border tend to generate some of the most notable of clashes with people, according to the Oregon Coast Aquarium. Since Oct. 5, five people have been caught and swept to their deaths by sneaker waves on Oregon beaches, Smith says. The most recent came Nov. 29 when 22-year-old Leafil Alforque was swept away while her fiance proposed to her at Proposal Rock in Neskowin. The couple had been standing in ankle-deep water, and a 3-foot sneaker wave knocked the diminutive Alforque down before dragging her away. It’s the most sneaker-wave fatalities since 2000, when five people also were swept to their deaths. Three of this year’s deaths occurred in two separate instances at the relatively calm-looking Sunset Bay near Coos Bay. Most years, just one or two deaths are attributed to sneaker waves, Smith says. "It’s a little bit higher this year," he says. "Some years, we have a lot of people falling victim to rip currents. Some years, it’s sneaker waves. There just really isn’t a pattern to it.
Interesting4: Another major earthquake along the same fault line that sparked the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami is likely in the next several decades — and it could unleash as much or more destruction, new research suggests. The tsunami, which killed an estimated 250,000 people, was sparked by a magnitude-9.2 earthquake along the Sunda fault off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. A major 8.4 temblor and aftershocks along a southern section of that fault called the Mentawi patch shook up the region last year. Now, analysis of coral growth patterns along the Mentawi patch suggests that the 2007 quake may have been just the first episode in an "earthquake supercycle," or set of large quakes that have occurred in the region roughly every 200 years for the past seven centuries. Sections of the Earth’s crust called tectonic plates are likely to rupture again under the Mentawi patch within several decades, possibly generating a magnitude-8.8 temblor, according to research published in this week’s Science.
"If previous cycles are a reliable guide, we can expect one or more very large west Sumatran earthquakes … within the next two decades," co-author Kerry Sieh, a professor at the California Institute of Technology’s Tectonics Observatory, said at a press conference, according to Reuters. Were such a quake to cause another tsunami, it could equal or exceed the damage of the 2004 disaster in the country’s Aceh province, which bore the brunt of the death then, write the authors, who are also from the University of Minnesota, the Indonesian Institute of Science and National Taiwan University. The scientists studied coral because — like growth rings on trees — the reefs record the history of the sea level where they grow. When tectonic plates push the ocean bed up, the sea level goes down, and coral can no longer grow vertically. It can, however, grow outward, so those cross sections reveal the pattern of tectonic movement.
Interesting5: Nearly 40 years after the U.S. flag was planted on the moon, a global rush to the final frontier has some pondering property rights out there. India, Japan and China are now circling the moon with their respective spacecraft – to be joined next year by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Then there’s the Google Lunar X Prize, a $30 million competition for the first privately funded team to send a robot to the moon, travel some 1,640 feet (500 meters) and transmit video, images and data back to Earth. The legal profession sees a brief in the making. Laws tend to build on precedent. Since there’s little precedent for lunar laws, some look to the sea for suggestions. That is, the use of ocean floor minerals beyond the limits of national jurisdiction. Such valuable resources are designated by some as a Common Heritage of mankind, not subject to national appropriation.
Could the Common Heritage concept work as the basis for a Moon Treaty? Virgiliu Pop is a research specialist at the Romanian Space Agency. He has for years been keeping a legal eye on the area of space property rights, and his new book, "Who Owns the Moon? – Extraterrestrial Aspects of Land and Mineral Resources Ownership" (Springer, 2008) was published this month. Pop has been delving into what has shaped the law of extraterrestrial real estate, and the norms which express this law. And in his view, the norms and rules regarding property rights in the celestial realm are rather limited, even failing to define basic concepts such as what is a celestial body.
Interesting6: Panamanian termites have the fastest draw not only in the West, but in the whole world: They can clamp their jaws down on an invader at nearly 157 mph (70 meters per second), killing their enemy with a single blow. Researchers studying the termites needed a high speed video camera running at 40,000 frames per second to capture a mandible strike in action. (Mandible is the biological word for jaw or biting mouthpart.) "Many insects move much faster than a human eye can see, so we knew that we needed high speed cameras to capture their behavior, but we weren’t expecting anything this fast," said study team member Marc Seid, a postdoctoral researcher at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. The Panamanian termite’s chomp-down is the fastest "mandible strike" recorded. The termites have to employ such a speedy strike to defend themselves, because their small size makes it harder to generate enough force to inflict damage on a foe.
"To create a large impact force with a light object you need to reach very high velocities before impact," said study team member Jeremy Niven, also a postdoctoral researcher at STRI. Because a termite soldier faces down enemies inside a narrow tunnel and has little room to parry and little time to waste, this death blow proves to be incredibly efficient, though it works only over short distances. The force for the blow is stored by deforming the jaws, which are held pressed against one another until the strike is triggered. This strategy of storing up energy from the muscles to produce fast movements also is employed by locusts, trap-jaw ants and froghoppers. "The termites need to store energy to generate enough destructive force. They appear to store the energy in their mandibles but we still don’t know how they do this — that’s the next question," Niven said.
Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Friday afternoon: Lihue, Kauai – 75
Honolulu, Oahu – 79 Kaneohe, Oahu – 83 Kahului, Maui – 87 Hilo, Hawaii – 80
Kailua-kona – 81 Air Temperaturesranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level, and on the highest mountains…at 4 p.m. Friday afternoon: Kahului, Maui – 83F Lihue, Kauai – 68F
Haleakala Crater – missing (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 34 (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 Friday afternoon: 4.47 Mount Waialaele, Kauai
1.44 Schofield Barracks, Oahu
1.67 Molokai
2.30 Lanai
1.62 Kahoolawe 2.66 Puu Kukui, Maui
2.33 Kahuku Ranch, Big Island Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather mapshowing a weak front west of Kauai, which will transition to a weak trough Saturday and remain near Kauai through Monday. A low may develop just west of the offshore waters Tuesday with high pressure far to the northeast.
Satellite and Radar Images: To view the cloud conditions we have here in Hawaii, please use the following satellite links, starting off with theInfrared 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 Pacific Ocean. To help you keep track of where any showers may be around the islands, here’s the latest animatedradar image.
Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live webcam on the summit of near 14,000 footMauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. The tallest peak on the island of Maui is theHaleakala Crater, which is near 10,000 feet in elevation. These two webcams are available during the daylight hours here in the islands…and when there’s a big moon rising just after sunset for an hour or two! Plus, during the nights and early mornings you will be able to see stars, and the sunrise too…depending upon weather conditions.
Aloha Paragraphs
The weekend is here, time to find a good spot! Photo Credit: Flikr.com
The heavy rain producing Kona low has moved northward away from the islands, leaving a trough of low pressure on the Kauai end of the island chain. This Kona low, which brought lots of rain, some of it heavy, is fortunately leaving our area quickly. This will limit the heavy showers, although there remains a chance of some heavier precipitation, with even an isolated thunderstorm near Kauai, and perhaps Oahu. The good thing, is that the blustery south to southwest wind flow, generated by this low pressure system, has eased up…replaced by lighter south to southeast and east breezes into the weekend.
The greatest threat for substantial rainfall will occur over Kauai, and perhaps Oahu, with the other islands finding generally lighter rainfall rates.The atmosphere remains wet and somewhat unstable, or in other words…quite shower prone. The computer models want to keep a trough of low pressure just to the west of the island through the weekend, keeping the threat of showers in the forecast. Going even further, those same models are suggesting that the trough will dig in its heels through the middle of the new week! It’s a little hard to imagine, but we may find off and on showery weather holding tight through that time frame…mixed together with sunny periods at time too.
Satellite imagery shows still those heavy showers around Kauai, and to some extent Oahu as well.The latest field of showery clouds remains fixated near those two islands. Here’s alooping satellite imageof this cloud field, just to the south and southwest of Kauai and Oahu…at least at the time of this writing. The satellite image shows those clouds, while here is thelooping radar image, to round out the picture. The radar shows a different story from what we saw Thursday, although there remains a good chance of continued showers…some of which may prove to be locally heavy on Kauai, which may edge over towards Oahu too. It’s early Friday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I start writing this last paragraph. Please take a look at the paragraph below, to have some context for the full moon Friday night. ~~~ Well, Friday turned out to be quite a nice day, especially during the morning hours, at least here on Maui, and down on the Big Island. Actually, Oahu too saw a pretty decent day, just on the edge of the rain that overlapped Kauai. The island of Kauai saw clouds and showers passing overhead, which kept that island less than perfect. Oahu, which got too much rain Thursday, got to dry out some, and they certainly needed to do that. If you have/had a chance to check out the radar image in the paragraph above, you saw the close proximity of the heavy rains that were generally passing over Kauai, and through the Kauai Channel between those two islands. ~~~ The computer models want to keep a shower prone air mass over us through the weekend, into the first several days of the new week ahead. It appears that Sunday may be somewhat wetter than Saturday, with showers heading into Kauai and Oahu, and maybe slipping over to Maui in the process. Things are happening quickly now, and the truth is that its difficult to keep ahead of the curve, in terms of what will happen next…although I’ll do my best! ~~~ I’m getting ready to head over to kahului to take in a few film, called Cadillac Records (2008). It stars Adrien Brody, Jeffrey Wright, and Beyonce Knowles, among others. The film shows the rise and fall of Chess Records, which launched the careers of Muddy Waters, Etta James and Chuck Berry. Leonard Chess scoured the South, checking out the various blues scenes and selling records from the back of his Cadillac. The trailer looks good to me, with good grades by the crities, ranging between B and B+. I’m so in the mood for a good film! ~~~ I’ll give you my thumbs up or down on this film Saturday morning, when I’ll be back with your next new weather narrative from paradise. I hope you have a great Friday night, a bright one with that full moon, wherever you happen to be spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn. Interesting: A full moon is set to occur closer to the Earth on Friday evening than it has done for the past 15 years. The Moon’s elliptical orbit means its distance from the Earth is not constant. It will be a little over 350,000 kilometers away as it passes over the northern hemisphere, which is about 30,000 kilometers closer than usual. If the sky is clear it will appear brighter and larger than usual, say astronomers. Friday’s full moon could appear up to 14% bigger and 30% brighter than other full moons this year, NASA said. The Moon’s orbit is elliptical, meaning it does not follow a circular but rather an oval path. It is currently approaching the point where this oval orbit is nearest to the Earth. "It’s only every few years that a full moon happens to coincide with the part of the Moon’s orbit when its closest to the Earth," said Marek Kukula, an astronomer at the UK’s Royal Observatory. "What people will see is a full moon that’s really bright and a bit bigger than what they’re used to." It will appear largest as it rises and sets, but this is a psychological illusion, Dr Kukula said. "When it’s close to the horizon, our brain interprets it as being bigger than it actually is, this is called the moon illusion," he said. "The size may be striking when it’s near the horizon," said Robert Massey of the UK Royal Astronomical Society.
Interesting2: The world is on the brink of a massive extinction event, according to the United Nations. Rapid releases of greenhouse gas emissions are changing habitats at a rate faster than many of the world’s species can tolerate. "Indeed the world is currently facing a sixth wave of extinctions, mainly as a result of human impacts," said Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program in a statement. A study earlier this year in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science said the current extinction period, known as the Holocene extinction event, may be the greatest event in the Earth’s history and the first due to human actions. Unlike previous events, however, extinctions are happening over the course of decades rather than centuries. Recent studies suggest that a quarter of the world’s species may go extinct by 2050. The UN warning accompanies an increasingly frequent round of sobering news about ecosystem failures. The latest global coral reef assessment estimates that 19 percent of the world’s coral reefs are dead.
Their major threats include warming sea-surface temperatures and expanding seawater acidification. Zooxanthellae, the tiny organisms that give coral reefs their vibrant colors, are emigrating from their hosts in massive numbers as oceans heat up, killing themselves and the coral they leave behind – a process known as coral bleaching. The report, released by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network Wednesday at the international climate change negotiations in Pozna?, Poland, predicts that many of the remaining reefs may disappear within the next 40 years if current emission trends continue. "If nothing is done to substantially cut emissions, we could effectively lose coral reefs as we know them, with major coral extinctions," said Clive Wilkinson, the network’s coordinator, in a press release. Overfishing, pollution, and invasive species continue to be risks as well, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Interesting3: Researchers have discovered that the ocean’s chemical makeup is less stable and more greatly affected by climate change than previously believed. Researchers report that during a time of climate change 13 million years ago the chemical makeup of the oceans changed dramatically. The researchers warn that the chemical composition of the ocean today could be similarly affected by climate changes now underway – with potentially far-reaching consequences for marine ecosystems. "As CO2 increases and weather patterns shift, the chemical composition of our rivers will change, and this will affect the oceans," says co-author Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology. "This will change the amount of calcium and other elements in ocean salts."
The research team, which included Caldeira, Elizabeth M. Griffith and Adina Paytan of the University of California, Santa Cruz, plus two other colleagues, studied core samples of deep oceanic sediment recovered from the Pacific Ocean Basin. By analyzing the calcium isotopes in grains of the mineral barite in different layers, they determined that between 13 and 8 million years ago the ocean’s calcium levels shifted dramatically. The shift corresponds to the growth of the Antarctic ice sheets during the same time interval. Because of the huge volume of water that became locked up in the ice cap, sea level also dropped. "The climate got colder, ice sheets expanded, sea level dropped, and the intensity, type, and extent of weathering on land changed," explains Griffith. "This caused changes in ocean circulation and in the amount and composition of what rivers delivered to the ocean," adds Paytan. "This in turn impacted the biology and chemistry of the ocean.
Interesting4:They come without warning, sneaking up on their victims during some of the happiest moments of their lives, and they are killing Oregonians at the highest rate since 2000. "Sneaker" waves rising unpredictably from the surf have claimed five lives on the Oregon Coast in the past two months. "We call them sneaker waves for a reason — they’re unpredictable and they sneak up on people," says Robert Smith, outdoor recreation safety coordinator for the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, which tracks beach-related deaths. "Generally, it’s people being in the wrong place at the wrong time," Smith says. "There are several dangers existing on the Oregon Coast that people need to be aware of." Sneaker waves are sometimes called little tsunamis and they rise from the surf with zero predictability. They generally occur when two or more smaller waves fall into sync, piling atop each other to form one large wave often twice the size of others within the series of waves — called "sets."
They are a universal coastal phenomenon, occurring even during periods of little surf. But the Pacific beaches from Northern California to the Canadian border tend to generate some of the most notable of clashes with people, according to the Oregon Coast Aquarium. Since Oct. 5, five people have been caught and swept to their deaths by sneaker waves on Oregon beaches, Smith says. The most recent came Nov. 29 when 22-year-old Leafil Alforque was swept away while her fiance proposed to her at Proposal Rock in Neskowin. The couple had been standing in ankle-deep water, and a 3-foot sneaker wave knocked the diminutive Alforque down before dragging her away. It’s the most sneaker-wave fatalities since 2000, when five people also were swept to their deaths. Three of this year’s deaths occurred in two separate instances at the relatively calm-looking Sunset Bay near Coos Bay. Most years, just one or two deaths are attributed to sneaker waves, Smith says. "It’s a little bit higher this year," he says. "Some years, we have a lot of people falling victim to rip currents. Some years, it’s sneaker waves. There just really isn’t a pattern to it.
Interesting5: Another major earthquake along the same fault line that sparked the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami is likely in the next several decades — and it could unleash as much or more destruction, new research suggests. The tsunami, which killed an estimated 250,000 people, was sparked by a magnitude-9.2 earthquake along the Sunda fault off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. A major 8.4 temblor and aftershocks along a southern section of that fault called the Mentawi patch shook up the region last year. Now, analysis of coral growth patterns along the Mentawi patch suggests that the 2007 quake may have been just the first episode in an "earthquake supercycle," or set of large quakes that have occurred in the region roughly every 200 years for the past seven centuries. Sections of the Earth’s crust called tectonic plates are likely to rupture again under the Mentawi patch within several decades, possibly generating a magnitude-8.8 temblor, according to research published in this week’s Science.
"If previous cycles are a reliable guide, we can expect one or more very large west Sumatran earthquakes … within the next two decades," co-author Kerry Sieh, a professor at the California Institute of Technology’s Tectonics Observatory, said at a press conference, according to Reuters. Were such a quake to cause another tsunami, it could equal or exceed the damage of the 2004 disaster in the country’s Aceh province, which bore the brunt of the death then, write the authors, who are also from the University of Minnesota, the Indonesian Institute of Science and National Taiwan University. The scientists studied coral because — like growth rings on trees — the reefs record the history of the sea level where they grow. When tectonic plates push the ocean bed up, the sea level goes down, and coral can no longer grow vertically. It can, however, grow outward, so those cross sections reveal the pattern of tectonic movement.
Interesting6: Nearly 40 years after the U.S. flag was planted on the moon, a global rush to the final frontier has some pondering property rights out there. India, Japan and China are now circling the moon with their respective spacecraft – to be joined next year by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Then there’s the Google Lunar X Prize, a $30 million competition for the first privately funded team to send a robot to the moon, travel some 1,640 feet (500 meters) and transmit video, images and data back to Earth. The legal profession sees a brief in the making. Laws tend to build on precedent. Since there’s little precedent for lunar laws, some look to the sea for suggestions. That is, the use of ocean floor minerals beyond the limits of national jurisdiction. Such valuable resources are designated by some as a Common Heritage of mankind, not subject to national appropriation.
Could the Common Heritage concept work as the basis for a Moon Treaty? Virgiliu Pop is a research specialist at the Romanian Space Agency. He has for years been keeping a legal eye on the area of space property rights, and his new book, "Who Owns the Moon? – Extraterrestrial Aspects of Land and Mineral Resources Ownership" (Springer, 2008) was published this month. Pop has been delving into what has shaped the law of extraterrestrial real estate, and the norms which express this law. And in his view, the norms and rules regarding property rights in the celestial realm are rather limited, even failing to define basic concepts such as what is a celestial body.
Interesting7: Panamanian termites have the fastest draw not only in the West, but in the whole world: They can clamp their jaws down on an invader at nearly 157 mph (70 meters per second), killing their enemy with a single blow. Researchers studying the termites needed a high speed video camera running at 40,000 frames per second to capture a mandible strike in action. (Mandible is the biological word for jaw or biting mouthpart.) "Many insects move much faster than a human eye can see, so we knew that we needed high speed cameras to capture their behavior, but we weren’t expecting anything this fast," said study team member Marc Seid, a postdoctoral researcher at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. The Panamanian termite’s chomp-down is the fastest "mandible strike" recorded. The termites have to employ such a speedy strike to defend themselves, because their small size makes it harder to generate enough force to inflict damage on a foe.
"To create a large impact force with a light object you need to reach very high velocities before impact," said study team member Jeremy Niven, also a postdoctoral researcher at STRI. Because a termite soldier faces down enemies inside a narrow tunnel and has little room to parry and little time to waste, this death blow proves to be incredibly efficient, though it works only over short distances. The force for the blow is stored by deforming the jaws, which are held pressed against one another until the strike is triggered. This strategy of storing up energy from the muscles to produce fast movements also is employed by locusts, trap-jaw ants and froghoppers. "The termites need to store energy to generate enough destructive force. They appear to store the energy in their mandibles but we still don’t know how they do this — that’s the next question," Niven said.
Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Thursday afternoon: Lihue, Kauai – 76
Honolulu, Oahu – 76 Kaneohe, Oahu – 76 Kahului, Maui – 79 Hilo, Hawaii – 79 Kailua-kona – 82 Air Temperaturesranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level, and on the highest mountains…at 4 p.m. Thursday afternoon: Port Allen, Kauai – 79F Kapalua, Maui – 70F
Haleakala Crater – 41 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 30 (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 Thursday afternoon:
5.58 Omao, Kauai 14.00 South Fork Kaukonahua, Oahu
2.63 Molokai
1.59 Lanai
2.64 Kahoolawe 2.77 Puu Kukui, Maui
0.64 Pali 2, Big Island Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather mapshowing a cold front near Kauai, which will weaken Friday leaving a weak trough in its wake west of Kauai into Saturday. The trough will linger over the offshore waters west of Kauai through Sunday. Weak trade winds to return Monday. A low will form just west of the offshore waters Tuesday as high pressure sits far to the northeast.
Satellite and Radar Images: To view the cloud conditions we have here in Hawaii, please use the following satellite links, starting off with theInfrared 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 Pacific Ocean. To help you keep track of where any showers may be around the islands, here’s the latest animatedradar image.
Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live webcam on the summit of near 14,000 footMauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. The tallest peak on the island of Maui is theHaleakala Crater, which is near 10,000 feet in elevation. These two webcams are available during the daylight hours here in the islands…and when there’s a big moon rising just after sunset for an hour or two! Plus, during the nights and early mornings you will be able to see stars, and the sunrise too…depending upon weather conditions.
Aloha Paragraphs
Cloudy and showery…most areas of Hawaii Photo Credit: Flikr.com
A well advertised Kona low pressure system, which the computer models began pointing out the middle of last week, brought windy and wet weather to much of the state Thursday.This low pressure system took form later in the day Wednesday, with the pressure gradient across the Kauai end of the state, tightening in the process. Strong and gusty winds, coming up from the south and southwest, have attained 30-40+ mph in gusts locally. There was a wind advisory for Oahu, which was extended to Maui County Thursday morning…although has since been cancelled. The lowlands weren’t the only place that these blustery winds have been blowing, with both the summit of the Haleakala Crater on Maui, and Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea on the BigIsland…included in this wind advisory status. Speaking of the highlands, snow has been falling atop the near 14,000 foot Mauna Kea summit on the Big Island. Here’s a link to that camera, although the last time I looked, the lens was covered with snow…and it will be getting dark soon here in the islands.
This weather map shows the location of this Kona low up around 33 degrees north latitude, and 167 degrees west longitude…to the northwest of Kauai.This low formed quite far south, although as the red arrow notes, it will be pulling northward, back into the middle latitudes soon. There’s a strong high pressure system on that map, shown far to the northeast of the islands too. High pressure cells such as these, are what normally brings trade winds into our area. This isn’t happening now, as the Kona low has shoved them far to the east of the Big Island for the time being. Our winds have been southwest and south during the last 24 hours, and as mentioned above, blustery at times. These strong and gusty winds will begin to moderate this evening, and become considerably lighter as we move into Friday…from the southeast.
The ocean out and around the islands is locally chopped-up and rough, with small craft advisories active in many areas.The winds rotating around this Kona low, given that they are locally from the southwest, has churned up a locally derived wind swell, with wave breaking along our leeward beaches. The swell coming from this low will be coming up along the north and west shores soon too, again generated by this same storm to our northwest. The relatively close proximity of this storms position, will likely make for closely spaced waves, making the surf rougher than usual…compared to when these swells are generated thousands of miles away. This swell will probably flirt with high surf advisory levels, which could mean a high surf advisory with time. This surf will drop in size over the weekend, although a new NW swell is forecast to arrive in the islands by Monday.
Looking a bit further ahead, in terms of the weather, we won’t be out of the woods yet.As a matter of fact, even as the storm moves away towards the north, it will leave behind a trough of low pressure. The band of clouds now over the islands, may stick around for quite a while longer. Speaking of which, here’s alooping satellite imageof this cloud band. If this band did remain anchored over the state, as the models are suggesting, we could see a prolonged period of off and on showers. The satellite image shows the clouds, but we need to refer to thislooping radar imageto get the full picture! The eastern edge of this inclement weather situation has shifted over to the east, now overlapping the western parts of the Big Island…with even looking like they may come up into the Kau District as well.
The computer models show as the gusty south to SW winds ease up, with the departure of the parent low to our northwest, our winds will become considerably lighter.As a matter of fact, they are forecast to scale back in strength, and turn back towards the southeast, where they began as the storm moved in our direction. As the winds come down, the trough of low pressure to our west, left behind by the Kona low, will keep unsettled weather in our area through the weekend into the middle of next week perhaps. SE winds bring volcanic haze with them, so that whatever showers that are around, may fall out of hazy skies. There are no real signs of the trade winds returning at the moment, which means that we could be settling into a rather murky situation through much of the week ahead. The latest rainfall total for Oahu is very impressive, with many totals above 10.00” during the last 24 hours, with the South Fork Kaukonahua gauge reading 14.00 wet inches! It’s early Thursday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I start writing this last paragraph.The paragraphs above have captured the essence of this rainy period, with lots of detail. I’m not sure exactly what else to say, although as I look out the window here in Kihei…before driving upcountry to Kula, it’s still majorly cloudy, with light rain falling. This is the first all cloudy day that I’ve seen in some time, with rain varying between heavy with thunderstorms this morning, grading into light stuff this evening. I must admit I’ve enjoyed the change, although I’m not sure everyone has, especially the visitors who are here on vacation…who I’m sure would have enjoyed a nice sunny day instead. ~~~ The computer forecast models aren’t helping out much, as they continue to point out the chance of continued off and on unsettled weather conditions through the rest of this week, into the middle of next week! Our winds will remain from the southeast, and at least be lighter soon…although as many of you know, southeast winds bring volcanic haze up from the three vents on the Big Island. ~~~ What can I say? Is there a positive spin to all this? I don’t see one now, and looking at thissatellite image, that same rain producing wedge of showery, or rainy clouds, remains anchored over the islands! ~~~Nonetheless, I will be back very early Friday morning with your next new weather narrative, although I’m not sure what, if any, relief that I’ll be bearing then! I hope you have a good Thursday night anyway, either here in the islands, or elsewhere. By the way, when I got home to Kula, it was pea soup fog pretty much all the way up the mountain from Pukalani. There was generally light rain falling all the way home from Kihei, right to my weather tower! Aloha for now…Glenn.
Interesting: It’s one of the biggest, fastest, and most beautiful fish in the sea.It has captured the imaginations of people from Homer to Salvador Dali. But end-times loom for the giant bluefin tuna, whose chances of survival were greatly diminished in late November by the international commission charged with its care. Once again, that body — the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas — refused to take strong action to prevent the runaway overfishing of the giant bluefin tuna in its sole remaining, yet rapidly disappearing, stronghold: the Mediterranean. One of the sea’s few elite warm-blooded fish, bluefin tuna can reach three-quarters of a ton, swim at highway speeds, migrate across oceans, and visit coasts of distant continents. They’re also the world’s most valued fish (once they’re dead), and therein they hang by the tail. Too valuable everywhere to be allowed to live anywhere, the giant bluefin tuna may be worth more money to a person who kills one than any other animal on the planet, elephants and rhinos included. A few years ago, a single 444-pound bluefin tuna sold wholesale in Japan for $173,600.
Interesting2: It’s 40 degrees F below zero (with the wind chill) at the South Pole today. Yet a research team from the University of Delaware is taking it all in stride. The physicists, engineers and technicians from the University of Delaware’s Bartol Research Institute are part of an international team working to build the world’s largest neutrino telescope in the Antarctic ice, far beneath the continent’s snow-covered surface. Dubbed “IceCube,” the telescope will occupy a cubic kilometer of Antarctica when it is completed in 2011, opening super-sensitive new eyes into the heavens. “IceCube will provide new information about some of the most violent and far-away astrophysical events in the cosmos,” says Thomas Gaisser, the Martin A. Pomerantz Chaired Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Delaware, and one of the project’s lead scientists. The University of Delaware is among 33 institutions worldwide that are contributing to the National Science Foundation project, which is coordinated by the University of Wisconsin. Besides taking a turn as “on-ice lead” for this year’s IceCube construction effort at the South Pole (or simply “Pole,” as the locals call it), Gaisser is managing the University of Delaware’s continued deployment of the telescope’s surface array of detectors, known as “IceTop.”
Interesting3: Elephants in European zoos live dramatically shorter lives than pachyderms in the wild, finds a new study. The research is based on health information for 4,500 Asian and African elephants living in some 270 European zoos between 1960 and 2005 and their counterparts living in the wild either in Kenya or as working animals in Myanmar. The wild creatures live decades longer, on average. The new information will shed light on a longstanding debate about the physical and mental well-being of zoo elephants. One of the main tensions has been between animal welfare scientists and activists, who think keeping such an intelligent and social animal as an elephant captive is unethical, and zoo scientists, who look at elephants as sort of ambassadors for endangered populations in the wild, said George Amato, a wildlife conservation geneticist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Amato was not involved in the current study. Regardless of the life spans of elephants in captivity, Amato said, the real problem threatening both species with extinction is human-caused and takes place in the wild where the animals suffer from, among other threats, habitat destruction and being killed for their tusks to fuel the ivory trade. The results, published in the Dec. 12 issue of the journal Science, likely apply to zoo elephants in the United States as well, said researcher Georgia Mason of the University of Guelph in Canada.
Interesting4: In the last few years there has been a growing number of documented cases in which large earthquakes set off unfelt tremors in earthquake faults hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of miles away. New research shows that the great Indian Ocean earthquake that struck off the Indonesian island of Sumatra on the day after Christmas in 2004 set off such tremors nearly 9,000 miles away in the San Andreas fault at Parkfield, Calif. "We found that an earthquake that happened halfway around the world could trigger a seismic signal in the San Andreas fault. It is a low-stress event and a new kind of seismic phenomenon," said Abhijit Ghosh, a University of Washington doctoral student in Earth and space sciences. "Previous research has shown that this phenomenon, called non-volcanic tremor, was produced in the San Andreas fault in 2002 by the Denali earthquake in Alaska, but seeing this new evidence of tremor triggered by an event as distant as the Sumatra earthquake is really exciting," he said. Ghosh is to present the findings next week (Dec. 17) in a poster at the American Geophysical Union annual meeting in San Francisco.
Interesting5: A relief operation is slowly taking shape in Papua New Guinea’s New Ireland province to help thousands of people displaced by huge king tides that struck the island two days ago. Pockets of devastation can be found down the entire 280-kilometre stretch of New Ireland’s only coastal road. Village homes built close to the water’s edge were either destroyed or swept some 50 meters inland by the high tides. The pristine white sand is littered with coral and debris, while the normally bustling villages have been abandoned. Locals say it is the worst destruction they have seen in 30 years. Government-coordinated relief efforts are slowly unfolding.
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