Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Monday:
Lihue, Kauai – 81
Honolulu airport, Oahu – 85
Kaneohe, Oahu – 80
Molokai airport – m
Kahului airport, Maui – 86 (record for Monday – 94 in 1953)
Kona airport 82
Hilo airport, Hawaii – 83
Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountain tops…as of 5pm Monday evening:
Honolulu, Oahu – 83
Lihue, Kauai – 78
Haleakala Crater – 54 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 36 (over 13,500 feet on the Big Island)
Here are the 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands as of Monday evening:
0.08 Kapahi, Kauai
0.21 Nuuanu Upper, Oahu
0.01 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.08 West Wailuaiki, Maui
0.32 Kohala Ranch, Big Island
Marine Winds – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a 1033 millibar high pressure system…far to the north-northeast of our islands. Our local winds will be gradually picking up later Tuesday into Wednesday.
Satellite and Radar Images: To view the cloud conditions we have here in Hawaii, please use the following satellite links, starting off with this Infrared Satellite Image of the islands to see all the clouds around 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. Finally, here's a Looping IR satellite image, making viewable the clouds around the islands 24 hours a day. To help you keep track of where any showers may be around the islands, here’s the latest animated radar image.
Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live web cam on the summit of near 13,500 foot Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. The tallest peak on the island of Maui is the Haleakala Crater, which is near 10,000 feet in elevation. These two web cams are available during the daylight hours here in the islands…and when there’s a big moon shining down during the night at times. Plus, during the nights you will be able to see stars, and the sunrise and sunset too…depending upon weather conditions.
Tropical Cyclone activity in the eastern and central Pacific – Here’s the latest weather information coming out of the National Hurricane Center, covering the eastern north Pacific. You can find the latest tropical cyclone information for the central north Pacific (where Hawaii is located) by clicking on this link to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center. A satellite image, which shows the entire ocean area between Hawaii and the Mexican coast…can be found here.
Aloha Paragraphs
High surf advisory south shores
Our local trade winds will be light to moderately strong Tuesday, then increasing mid-week onwards…through the rest of the week. Glancing at this weather map, we find a 1033 millibar high pressure system located far to our north-northeast. The trade winds will be our primary wind feature this week, becoming stronger as we get into the second half of the week.
Our trade winds will be generally light to moderately strong…the following numbers represent the strongest gusts, along with directions Monday evening:
23 Port Allen, Kauai – SE
17 Kahuku, Oahu – ENE
05 Molokai – NW
29 Kahoolawe – SE
23 Kapalua, Maui – NE
09 Lanai – SSW
32 South Point, Big Island – NE
We can use the following links to see what’s going on in our area of the north central Pacific Ocean Monday night. Looking at this NOAA satellite picture we see what's left of the departing upper low pressure system to our east…those high and middle level clouds. We also see the bottom edge of a late season cold front moving by to our north. We can use this looping satellite image to see areas of high and middle level clouds east of the Big Island. We can also see the clouds associated with a late season cold front to our northwest. At the same time, we see a few thunderstorms brewing far to the southwest of our islands now too. Checking out this looping radar image we see that showers have backed way off now, with just a few around locally…especially to the south of Kauai. We should see a modest increase in windward biased showers arriving tonight into Wednesday morning.
Sunset Commentary: The unusual rainy weather that we saw over the last 2-3 days, is now behind us now. The upper level cold air, associated with an upper altitude low pressure system, is now repositioned near 400 miles northeast of the island chain. This departure has allowed warmer air coming in from the west and northwest, to stabilize our overlying atmosphere. This in turn has allowed it to become much less shower prone…as evidenced by the much smaller rainfall accumulations note above.
Meanwhile, our satellite pictures show what looks like an old cold front to the northeast of the islands…or at least an incoming band of showers. It will take a while longer for it to arrive along our windward coasts and slopes, although is likely to bring an increase in moisture this evening or tonight. The lack of cold air aloft, which enhances falling showers, probably means that this precipitation won’t be too out of the ordinary. This time of year, with June being the driest month here in most of the islands…this next showery episode will be welcome. Perhaps the folks on Oahu and Kauai, where the big rains just ended, may be thinking otherwise!
Before we move into the wind department, we should become aware of the fact that another area of cold air is forecast to arrive by mid-week…sticking around for much of the rest of this week. This could increase showers along our windward sides again, depending upon just how much moisture is around then. At the same time, it might spark some interior upcountry leeward showers over the larger islands, especially on the Big Island. The Big Island is tall enough to block the trade winds, which will be blowing then, from interrupting cloud growth upwards. Does this mean that we could see a few more thunderstorms flaring-up there with time? This next batch of cold air up high won’t be as cold as the recent one, so our weather won’t become as unsettled.
Finally, the trade winds are blowing, although will be the lightest through Tuesday…in relation to the rest of this week. It appears that we’re heading towards a fairly prolonged period of normal trade winds. Typically that means moderately strong, with the usual stronger gusts that can send the wind speeds up a bit more than that locally. There are currently no small craft wind advisories, with just a high surf advisory along our south facing shores. The trade winds will increase as soon as the old cold front to our north moves out of the way, allowing our high pressure ridge to migrate back northward. We’ll likely see some form of small craft advisories going up around Maui County and the Big Island by mid-week or so.
Here in Kihei, Maui at 530pm Monday evening, its cloudy, as it has been much of the day. The darkest clouds which look the most showery…are up towards the slopes of the Haleakala Crater. Looking up that way though, there isn't very much water falling out of them, at least I can't see much from down here in the lowlands. As I was mentioning above, that little cloud band to the northeast will arrive along our windward coasts and slopes later this evening or tonight, bringing an uptick in moisture. I'm just about ready to head back upcountry to Kula, and so will sign off for now. I'll look forward to catching up with you again early Tuesday morning, when I'll have your next new weather narrative from paradise waiting. I hope you have a great Monday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.
Extra: There's still snow atop Mauna Kea on the Big Island Monday evening!
Interesting: The tropics and much of the Northern Hemisphere are likely to experience an irreversible rise in summer temperatures within the next 20 to 60 years if atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations continue to increase, according to a new climate study by Stanford University scientists. The results will be published later this month in the journal Climatic Change. In the study, the Stanford team concluded that many tropical regions in Africa, Asia and South America could see "the permanent emergence of unprecedented summer heat" in the next two decades. Middle latitudes of Europe, China and North America — including the United States — are likely to undergo extreme summer temperature shifts within 60 years, the researchers found.
"According to our projections, large areas of the globe are likely to warm up so quickly that, by the middle of this century, even the coolest summers will be hotter than the hottest summers of the past 50 years," said the study's lead author, Noah Diffenbaugh, an assistant professor of environmental Earth system science and fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford. The study is co-authored by Stanford research assistant Martin Scherer.
"When scientists talk about global warming causing more heat waves, people often ask if that means that the hottest temperatures will become 'the new normal,'" Diffenbaugh said. "That got us thinking — at what point can we expect the coolest seasonal temperatures to always be hotter than the historically highest temperatures for that season?"
Climate models, past and future
To determine the seasonal impact of global warming in coming decades, Diffenbaugh and Scherer analyzed more than 50 climate model experiments -including computer simulations of the 21st century when global greenhouse gas concentrations are expected to increase, and simulations of the 20th century that accurately "predicted" Earth's climate during the last 50 years. The analysis revealed that many parts of the planet could experience a permanent spike in seasonal temperatures within 60 years.
"We also analyzed historical data from weather stations around the world to see if the projected emergence of unprecedented heat had already begun," Diffenbaugh said. "It turns out that when we look back in time using temperature records, we find that this extreme heat emergence is occurring now, and that climate models represent the historical patterns remarkably well."
According to both the climate model analysis and the historical weather data, the tropics are heating up the fastest. "We find that the most immediate increase in extreme seasonal heat occurs in the tropics, with up to 70 percent of seasons in the early 21st century (2010-2039) exceeding the late-20th century maximum," the authors wrote.
Tropical regions may see the most dramatic changes first, but wide swaths of North America, China and Mediterranean Europe are also likely to enter into a new heat regime by 2070, according to the study.
Environmental impact
This dramatic shift in seasonal temperatures could have severe consequences for human health, agricultural production and ecosystem productivity, Diffenbaugh said. As an example, he pointed to record heat waves in Europe in 2003 that killed 40,000 people. He also cited studies showing that projected increases in summer temperatures in the Midwestern United States could reduce the harvest of staples, such as corn and soybeans, by more than 30 percent.
Diffenbaugh was surprised to see how quickly the new, potentially destructive heat regimes are likely to emerge, given that the study was based on a relatively moderate forecast of greenhouse gas emissions in the 21st century.
"The fact that we're already seeing these changes in historical weather observations, and that they match climate model simulations so closely, increases our confidence that our projections of permanent escalations in seasonal temperatures within the next few decades are well founded," Diffenbaugh said.
Interesting2: The Bar-headed Goose is a goose which breeds in Central Asia in colonies of thousands near mountain lakes. Drs. Charles Bishop and Lucy Hawkes, from Bangor University, and a large international team of researchers, report that bar-headed geese can fly climb up to 6,000 meters in only 8 hours while passing over the massive Himalayan mountain range — a similar intense climb could kill a human without lengthy acclimatization.
The geese make the journey on their annual spring migration from India to Central Asia. The team followed the migrations of these geese every hour using GPS satellite tags, following capture of the birds in India and Mongolia, where they winter and breed, respectively.
In the study published May 31, they show that the geese can make the long climb in a single flight and that, surprisingly, rather than waiting for potentially favorable and predictable wind conditions to help carry them up and over the Himalaya (as had been thought previously), they wait for the winds to die down, and then make the climb over the mountains in the relative calm and peace of the night and early morning.
The geese's summer habitat is high altitude lakes where the bird grazes on short grass. The species has been reported as migrating south from Siberia via the Qinghai lake region in China before its crossing of the Himalaya. The Bar-headed Goose is one of the world's highest flying birds, having been seen at up to 33,382 feet. It has a slightly larger wing area for its weight than other geese, which is believed to help the goose fly at high altitudes.
Studies have found that they breathe more efficiently under low oxygen conditions and are able to reduce heat loss. The hemoglobin of their blood has a higher oxygen affinity than that of other geese. The Bar-headed Goose migrates over the Himalayas to spend the winter in parts of India (from Assam to as far south as Tamil Nadu), Northern Burma and the wetlands of Pakistan. The bird can fly the 1000-mile migration route in just one day as it is able to fly in the jet stream.
"We think the geese may be essentially risk averse", said Dr. Charles Bishop (Principal Investigator of the project), "with the calmer winds at night offering an extra degree of safety and helping to avoid storms. The birds may also find it easier to keep together and to fly in formation."
The earlier flight times in the cooler, denser, morning air could help the geese to avoid the heat load of flying during the hottest time of the day in India whilst performing their intense workout. "We were amazed to see that the geese were maintaining these climbs for hours on end." said Dr Lucy Hawkes.
"It seemed quite enough that they could cope with such intense exercise at altitude, let alone that they didn’t stop to take regular breaks during the climbs, which last for at least seven hours over the Himalaya". Denser air will also improve the lift generated by the wings and reduce the overall cost of flying, while improving the amount of oxygen available to the birds.
Studies of a similar bird, the Brent goose, while migrating between Ireland and Canada, have suggested that their ability to climb while flying is so poor that they may land and walk across the imposing Greenland ice cap rather than maintaining flight!
This makes the migration of the bar-headed goose seem even more remarkable. At 18,000 feet atmospheric pressure and, therefore, oxygen density and availability, is only half of that at sea level. Near the top of Mount Everest, conditions can be even more inhospitable, with temperatures well below zero and the partial pressure of oxygen reduced to only a third of that at sea level. Humans struggle even to walk above 23,000 feet, so it seems incredible that these large geese may be able to sustain flapping flight at these heights.
Interesting3: The Arctic Ocean is a vast frozen sea bordered by Russia, Canada, Denmark, and Norway. It has been explored but is potential for mineral deposits and oil and gas deposits is not known clearly. Some of it is near these nations and the gradually melting northern areas are revealing more and more and allowing readier access. Then there are other regions that may be fought over.
Those reserves have been known about for centuries, yet a combination of new extraction technology and rising demand means that the human race is ready to fight for them while raising the threat of devastating pollution to a uniquely clean environment. The melting arctic is a sign of global warming but the net result may be more exploitation and environmental change.
No country owns the geographic North Pole or the region of the Arctic Ocean surrounding it. The surrounding Arctic states that border the Arctic Ocean — Russia, Norway, the United States, Canada and Denmark (via Greenland)—are limited to a 200 nautical miles economic zone around their coasts. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) completed in 2008 an assessment of undiscovered conventional oil and gas resources in all areas north of the Arctic Circle.
Using a geology-based probabilistic methodology, the USGS estimated the occurrence of undiscovered oil and gas in 33 geologic provinces thought to be prospective for petroleum. The sum of the mean estimates for each province indicates that 90 billion barrels of oil, 1,669 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and 44 billion barrels of natural gas liquids may remain to be found in the Arctic, of which approximately 84 percent is expected to occur in offshore areas.
The Government of Canada is investing $100 million over five years (2008-2013) in its new Geo-mapping for Energy and Minerals (GEM) program to provide the geoscience knowledge necessary for private sector exploration companies to guide investment decision, as well as for government to inform land-use decisions such as the creation of parks and other protected areas.
People will and can fight. Recent examples include Norway’s foreign minister being quoted as saying regular military flights by the Russians up and down Norway's coast had helped to justify the purchase of four new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter combat aircraft to the Norwegian public. Meanwhile, the head of the Russian navy is quoted as saying "one cannot exclude that in the future there will be a redistribution of power, up to armed intervention."
A release of oil is expensive to clean up as well as difficult as shown in the Deep water release and the Exxon Valdez incident. Those responses are still being debated as to their effectiveness. Going deep into the Arctic and the response will be even more difficult and debatable.
Interesting4: More than 42 million people were forced to flee their homes because of natural disasters across the world in 2010, more than double the number during the previous year, experts said today. One reason for the increase could be climate change, and the international community should be doing more to contain it, the experts said. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre said the increase from 17 million displaced people in 2009 was mainly due to the impact of "mega-disasters" such as the massive floods in China and Pakistan and the earthquakes in Chile and Haiti.
It said more than 90 per cent of the disaster displacements were caused by weather-related hazards such as floods and storms that were probably affected by global warming, but it couldn't say to what extent. "The intensity and frequency of extreme weather events is increasing, and this trend is only set to continue.
With all probability, the number of those affected and displaced will rise as human-induced climate change comes into full force," said Elisabeth Rasmusson, the secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council.
The monitoring centre and refugee council presented the report at an international conference about climate change and displacement in Oslo.
UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres called the issue of climate-related displacement "the defining challenge of our times" and criticised the international community for lacking the political will to reduce the pace of climate change.
"There is increasing evidence to suggest that natural disasters are growing in frequency and intensity and that this is linked to the longer-term process of climate change," Guterres said.
Asia was the hardest hit region last year, with the largest number of displaced people seen in countries such as India, The Philippines, Bangladesh, Indonesia, China and Pakistan.
In China alone, more than 15 million people were forced to leave their homes following floods, while 11 million people were displaced in Pakistan, the report said. The large floods in India in 2009 also continued to force people to leave their homes in 2010.
"This report provides us with evidence of the extent and urgency of the problem that we cannot ignore. We must increase collaborative efforts to prevent displacement by natural disasters, and do a better job of protecting those displaced," Rasmusson said.
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