Hawaii Weather Today » 2009

March 31 – April 1, 2009

Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Tuesday afternoon:

Lihue, Kauai – 75
Honolulu, Oahu – 81
Kaneohe, Oahu – 76
Kahului, Maui – 78
Hilo, Hawaii – 75
Kailua-kona – 81

Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountains…at 4 p.m. Tuesday afternoon:

Port Allen, Kauai – 79F
Hilo, Hawaii – 68

Haleakala Crater – 41 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 32 (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:

1.57 Mount Waialaele, Kauai
0.60 Mililani, Oahu
0.05 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
1.25 Kaupo Gap, Maui
1.13 Mountain View, Big Island

Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a expansive 1038 millibar high pressure system far to the northeast of the islands. Our trade winds will be locally strong and gusty Wednesday and Thursday…lighter in those more protected places.

Satellite and Radar Images: To view the cloud conditions we have here in Hawaii, please use the following satellite links, starting off with the Infrared Satellite Image of the islands to see all the clouds around the state during the day and night. This next image is one that gives close images of the islands only during the daytime hours, and is referred to as a Close-up visible image. This next image shows a larger view of the Pacific…giving perspective to the wider ranging cloud patterns in the Pacific Ocean. 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 webcam on the summit of near 14,000 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 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

Sandy beach, ropes, nets and stuff…Polihale, Kauai
Photo Credit: Google.com

The gusty trade winds will remain the headline weather news through the next couple of days…at least. An unusually large 1040 millibar high pressure system remains the source of these locally strong and gusty winds Tuesday night…which will be moving slightly closer to Hawaii Wednesday. These winds are strong enough to keep small craft wind advisories active over all of Hawaii’s channel and coastal waters. A high surf advisory for the east facing shores is active, due to the rough surf pounding those beaches. The computer models suggest that these trade winds will blow through the rest of this week into next week.

As the trade winds become even more blustery, we should see even more showers being carried our way…generally along the windward sides. These showers will be moving along rapidly, under the influence of the strong and gusty winds. This will keep the showers from being too overbearing in most areas, falling in an off and on…although more on than off at times! Meanwhile, the high cirrus clouds located to the west and southwest of our islands, have made another surge in our direction Tuesday. Looking at this satellite image, we can see them moving over the 50th state once again…which will filter and dim our Hawaiian sunshine temporarily. As we know, they are famous for sometimes bringing us colorful sunrise and sunset colors.

Let’s keep track of the trade wind gusts again Tuesday, as they will continue to dominate our Hawaiian Island weather picture. These trade winds were still quite gusty at around 4pm Tuesday afternoon, with these numbers (mph) the strongest on each of the individual islands:

Kauai:      32
Oahu:            42
Molokai:         35
Lanai:        35
Kahoolawe: 47
Maui:         42
Big Island:     37

The winds late Tuesday afternoon remain gusty, especially around Maui County and Oahu…where 40+ mph gusts were blowing. These strong trade winds will last for another couple of hours, before settling down some overnight, at least they usually do…only to flare up again on Wednesday.

It’s early Tuesday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I begin typing out this last section. Not much has changed since early this morning, in terms of the strong and gusty trade winds that is. They’re still kicking up their heels, and should gain a little more velocity on Wednesday. Besides the winds, which I covered quite a bit above, we have generally cloudy skies out there late in the day. This cloudiness isn’t situated in the lower levels of the atmosphere, but rather up high, where those cirrus clouds are being carried along in the sub-tropical jet stream. These will definitely give us a good reason to keep an eye on our skies around sunset time…and then again early Wednesday when the sun comes up again. I notice that there are some middle level clouds mixed into this overcast, which can sometimes get in the way of our most colorful sunset and sunrise events.

~~~ What else? Well, lets see, oh yeah, there was an increase in our trade wind born showers, along our windward sides Tuesday, which will remain wet. The trade winds are coming at us from more or less directly east. This will account for a couple of things, the first is relatively warm air, or what we could call seasonable during the last day of March, going into the first day of April. The second point I want to make is that whatever clouds get carried into our area, will deposit their moisture generally along our north and east facing windward coasts and slopes. That doesn’t mean that the south and west facing leeward beaches won’t see a couple of drops falling, or even a light shower, carried over that way on the fresh trade wind flow…only on the smaller islands from to Molokai. Since we’re talking about precipitation, here’s a looping radar image for the islands.

~~~ I’m just about ready to hit the road, for the 40 or so minute drive back upcountry to Kula. Looking out the window here in Kihei, there’s no doubt about it, it’s cloudy out there. Not a heavy duty rainfall inducing overcast, but just a pretty good high cloud overcast. I may sound quite chipper writing these words, but I’m actually a little down in the mouth, as I got some news about my Dad’s health, that was not uplifting. I’m hoping for the best, and apparently this particular condition is slow growing, and many men can live a long time with such a problem. My Dad, Ed James, is a real trooper, and has got a good strong constitution otherwise. At any rate, setting that aside for the time being, I’ll look forward to catching up with you early Wednesday morning, when I’ll be back online with your next new weather narrative from paradise. I hope you have a great Tuesday night, and if you’re here in the islands, don’t forget to check out the possible nice sunset this evening, and at least lift your head off the pillow Wednesday morning for a peek at that beautiful pink and orange sunrise! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting: Organizers of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games said on Monday they are confident they can find sponsors to help with the estimated $3.6 million cost of keeping the event from adding to global warming. The Winter Games in Vancouver are expected to create about 300,000 tons of carbon emissions, including those from airplanes bringing thousands of athletes and spectators to the western Canadian city.

The Vancouver Organizing Committee said it is in talks with carbon offset management companies it hopes will help sponsor the cost of buying credits, which it said is running between C$10 and C$20 a ton. But the search for sponsors also comes as VANOC and other international sporting event groups are struggling to line up sponsors amid the global economic crisis. We’re very confident we will be able to get partners on this," VANOC chief executive John Furlong told reporters outside an international conference in Vancouver on the environmental costs of major sports events.

Interesting2: The Nature Conservancy has sold 92,000 acres of forest in the Adirondacks to a Danish pension fund as part of a long-term strategy to protect the land from development. The pension fund, ATP, paid $32.8 million for the acreage. The fund will benefit from tax credits related to a planned New York State conservation easement on the land that prohibits development but allows recreation and logging under strict sustainable forestry standards.

RMK Timberland Group will manage the land for the pension fund. Officials at the conservancy, an international nonprofit environmental group, said the transaction struck a balance between protection of wild lands and the region’s economic interests.

Not only will it maintain environmentally responsible logging operations, they said, but it will create the opportunity for moneymaking recreational uses in areas that have been closed to the public. "This is an extraordinary investment in the Adirondack economy by a world leader pension fund, and an affirmation of the viability of green investment in timber," said Michael T. Carr, executive director of the Adirondack chapter of the Nature Conservancy.

The land is part of 161,000 acres in the Adirondacks, including mountain peaks, lakes, ponds, rivers, streams and a commercial forest, that the Nature Conservancy bought in 2007 from the Finch Paper company for $110 million to prevent it from being subdivided and developed by builders of houses and resorts.

Interesting3: Still reeling from the national salmonella outbreak in peanuts, the Food and Drug Administration said central California-based Setton Farms, the nation’s second-largest pistachio processor, was voluntarily recalling all of its 2008 crop — more than 1 million pounds of nuts. "Our advice to consumers is that they avoid eating pistachio products, and that they hold onto those products," said Dr. David Acheson, assistant commissioner for food safety. "The number of products that are going to be recalled over the coming days will grow, simply because these pistachio nuts have then been repackaged into consumer-level containers."

Two people called the FDA complaining of gastrointestinal illness that could be associated with the nuts, but the link hasn’t been confirmed, Acheson said. Still, the plant decided to shut down late last week, officials said. The recalled nuts represent a small fraction of the 60 million pounds of pistachios that the company’s plant can process each year and an even smaller portion of the 278 million pounds produced in the state in the 2008 season, according to the Fresno-based Administrative Committee for Pistachios.

Interesting4: Airlines will reduce their carbon emissions by nearly 8 percent this year as they slash the number of flights they operate in line with a drop in both cargo and passenger demand, executives said on Tuesday. The airline sector was once seen as a driving force behind global warming, which is linked to the burning of fossil fuels such as oil, but the world financial crisis has taken the heat off the industry, which is keen to save fuel to reduce costs.

About 6 percent of the forecast carbon cut will come as a result of carriers flying fewer planes in 2009, and a further 1.8 percent reflects steps to improve energy efficiency, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said. IATA Director-General Giovanni Bisignani also reported that leading carriers have run successful tests with bio-fuels made from plants, raising the possibility that algae and other crops could be certified to power flights as early as next year. Continental Airlines, Japan Airlines, Air New Zealand and Virgin have all had positive results with bio-jet fuels made from algae, the non-food crop jatropha, and camelina, a type of flax.

Interesting5: The United States has applied to the International Maritime Organization to create a 230-mile emissions control zone around the nation’s coastline, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said Monday. Jackson wants to limit emissions along the nation’s coastline and within its seaports, just as the agency does along highways, with tougher pollution standards on large commercial ships. The move is intended to ensure the shipping industry does its part to improve the air quality of major seaport communities.

Ships moving through the zone would be subject to the tougher emissions standards. "This is an important and long overdue step to protect the air and water along our shores," Jackson said, speaking in front of a row of cranes at a press conference in Port Newark. Jackson estimated that 40 of the 100 largest U.S. ports are located in metropolitan areas that fail to meet federal air quality standards. One of them is the Port Newark facility, which is part of the Port of New York and New Jersey — the East Coast’s largest port complex.

Interesting6: President Barack Obama signed legislation Monday setting aside more than 2 million acres as protected wilderness. Obama called the new law among the most important in decades "to protect, preserve and pass down our nation’s most treasured landscapes to future generations." At a White House ceremony, Obama said the law guarantees that Americans "will not take our forests, rivers, oceans, national parts, monuments, and wilderness areas for granted, but rather we will set them aside and guard their sanctity for everyone to share.

That’s something all Americans can support." The law — a collection of nearly 170 separate measures — represents one of the largest expansions of wilderness protection in a quarter-century. It confers the government’s highest level of protection on land in nine states. Land protected under the 1,200-page law ranges from California’s Sierra Nevada and Oregon’s Mount Hood to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado and parts of the Jefferson National Forest in Virginia.

Interesting7: The largest mass extinction in the history of the earth could have been triggered off by giant salt lakes, whose emissions of halogenated gases changed the atmospheric composition so dramatically that vegetation was irretrievably damaged. At least that is what an international team of scientists has reported in the most recent edition of the Proceedings of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Dokladi Earth Sciences). At the Permian/Triassic boundary, 250 million years ago, about 90 percent of the animal and plant species ashore became extinct. Previously it was thought that volcanic eruptions, the impacts of asteroids, or methane hydrate were instigating causes.

The new theory is based on a comparison with today’s biochemical and atmospheric chemical processes. "Our calculations show that airborne pollutants from giant salt lakes like the Zechstein Sea must have had catastrophic effects at that time", states co-author Dr. Ludwig Weißflog from the Helmholtz-Center for Environmental Research (UFZ). Forecasts predict an increase in the surface areas of deserts and salt lakes due to climate change. That is why the researchers expect that the effects of these halogenated gases will equally increase.

The team of researchers from Russia, Austria, South Africa and Germany investigated whether a process that has been taking place since primordial times on earth could have led to global mass extinctions, particularly at the end of the Permian. The starting point for this theory was their discovery in the south of Russia and South Africa that microbial processes in present-day salt lakes naturally produce and emit highly volatile halocarbons such as chloroform, trichloroethene, and tetrachloroethene.

They transcribed these findings to the Zechstein Sea, which about 250 million years ago in the Permian Age, was situated about where present day Central Europe is. The Zechstein Sea with a total surface area of around 600.000 km2 was almost as large as France is today.

The hyper saline flat sea at that time was exposed to a predominantly dry continental desert climate and intensive solar radiation – like today’s salt seas. "Consequently, we assume that the climatic, geo-chemical and microbial conditions in the area of the Zechstein Sea were comparable with those of the present day salt seas that we investigated," Weißflog said.

March 30-31, 2009

Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Monday afternoon:

Lihue, Kauai – 75
Honolulu, Oahu – 82
Kaneohe, Oahu – 77
Kahului, Maui – 79
Hilo, Hawaii – 77
Kailua-kona – 80

Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountains…at 4 p.m. Monday afternoon:

Honolulu, Oahu – 80F
Lihue, Kauai – 73

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 Monday afternoon:

0.83 Mount Waialaele, Kauai
0.84 South Fork Kaukonahua, Oahu
0.02 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.01 Kahoolawe
3.55 Puu Kukui, Maui
0.77 Mountain View, Big Island

Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a strong 1037 millibar high pressure system far to the northeast of the islands. Our trade winds will be moderate to locally strong and gusty Tuesday and Wednesday…lighter in those more protected places.

Satellite and Radar Images: To view the cloud conditions we have here in Hawaii, please use the following satellite links, starting off with the Infrared Satellite Image of the islands to see all the clouds around the state during the day and night. This next image is one that gives close images of the islands only during the daytime hours, and is referred to as a Close-up visible image. This next image shows a larger view of the Pacific…giving perspective to the wider ranging cloud patterns in the Pacific Ocean. 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 webcam on the summit of near 14,000 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 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 kind of place that we’d all like to spend some time!
Photo Credit: Google.com

Strong and gusty trade winds will be the name of the game this week! A large 1037 millibar high pressure system remains the source of these locally strong and gusty winds Monday night. These winds are strong enough to keep small craft wind advisories active over all of Hawaii’s channel and coastal waters, from Kauai down through the Big Island. The NWS office in Honolulu is hinting that we may see gale warnings going up in those windiest channel waters by mid-week. A wind advisory went up over the Haleakala Crater summit on Maui Monday…where 25-40 mph winds are occurring.

It’s pretty dry out there right now, although as the trade winds become even more blustery, we should start to see more showers being carried our way…generally along the windward sides. The high clouds, which have dimmed and filtered our sunshine too much lately, are now located to the southwest and southeast of the islands. Looking at this satellite image, we can see them sort of looming down to the left hand side of all our islands. As the winds are locally quite strong, it would be best to hit the beaches during the mornings, as the winds are apt to be strongest during the afteroon hours.

Let’s keep track of the trade wind gusts again Monday, as they will continue to dominate our Hawaiian Island weather picture. These trade winds were still quite gusty at around 4pm Monday afternoon, with these numbers (mph) the strongest on each of the individual islands:

Kauai:    33
Oahu:        39
Molokai:     38
Lanai:        40
Kahoolawe: 48
Maui:         42
Big Island:   42

We find all the islands having gusts well up into the 30 mph range late Monday afternoon…with the one gust up up to 48 mph on the small island of Kahoolawe! If the winds become even more gusty later this week, which is expected, they will be topping 50 mph in those windiest areas. It may become necessary to secure loose objects in those most gusty areas on some of the islands by mid-week.

It’s early Monday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I begin typing out this last section. Looking at the very latest top gust around the state, at around 5pm, we find a 46 mph reading at Kahoolawe, that small island offshore from south Maui. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit to have winds gusting up to near 55 mph at some point by Wednesday or Thursday. Otherwise, looking out the windows here in Kihei, before I take the drive back upcountry to Kula, it’s sunny, really sunny! It’s not that windy along the south coast of Maui, as the trade winds are so easterly in direction. At the moment, they are blowing what I would estimate to be near 5-15 mph here in Kihei. Places that are more exposed to the easterlies however, are finding much stronger winds. Kahului airport at the same time was experiencing 35 mph gusts, while Maalaea Bay was checking in with 40 mph. Kapalua and Napili are feeling the winds too, where they are blowing close to 35 mph in gusts. I just called my neighbors in Kula, and they said the wind was essentially calm. It’s all about the direction of the winds here in Hawaii! ~~~ I’m just about ready to jump in the car, and as soon as I get home, I’ll jump into my tennis shoes, and walking clothes. I can’t wait to get out on the road for my evening walk, it always feels so good! I hope you have a great Monday night, and that wish comes hand in hand with an invitation to join me here again on Tuesday, same time and same station, so to speak! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting: Juan Lopez reads meters with one eye and looks for snakes with the other. Lopez is a member of the "Python Patrol," a team of utility workers, wildlife officials, park rangers and police trying to keep Burmese pythons from gaining a foothold in the Florida Keys. Officials say the pythons — which can grow to 20 feet long and eat large animals whole — are being ditched by pet owners in the Florida Everglades, threatening the region’s endangered species and its ecosystem.

"Right now, we have our fingers crossed that they haven’t come this far yet, but if they do, we are prepared," Lopez said.Burmese Pythons are rarely seen in the middle Florida Keys, where Lopez works. The Nature Conservancy wants to keep it that way The Python Patrol program was started by Alison Higgins, the Nature Conservancy’s Florida Keys conservation manager.

She describes it as an "early detection, rapid response" program made up of professionals who work outside. Eight Burmese pythons have been found in the Keys. "If we can keep them from spreading and breeding, then we’re that much more ahead of the problem," Higgins said. Utility workers, wildlife officials and police officers recently attended a three-hour class about capturing the enormously large snakes.

Lt. Jeffrey L. Fobb of the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Venom Response Unit taught the participants how to capture pythons. "There’s no immutable laws of snake catching. It’s what works," Fobb said as he demonstrated catching a snake with hooks, bags, blankets and his hands. "We’re doing it in the Florida Keys because we have a lot to protect," Higgins said.

"The Burmese pythons that are coming out of the Everglades are eating a lot of our endangered species and other creatures, and we want to make sure they don’t breed here." Where the snakes are breeding is just north of the Keys in Everglades National Park. An estimated 30,000 Burmese pythons live in the park. The Everglades, known as the "River of Grass," is a vast area with a climate perfect for these pythons to hide and breed.

And breed they do: The largest clutches of eggs found in the Everglades have numbered up to 83. The snakes grow like they’re on steroids. With a life span of 30 years, these pythons can weigh as much as 200 pounds. And the larger the snake, the bigger the prey. Biologists have found endangered wood rats, birds, bobcats and other animals in their stomachs.

Two 5-foot-long alligators were found in the stomachs of Burmese pythons that were caught and necropsied, officials say. Officials also say Burmese pythons can travel 1.6 miles a day by land, and they can swim to reach areas outside the Everglades. This non-venomous species was brought into the United States from Southeast Asia. Everglades National Park spokeswoman Linda Friar says biologists believe that well-intended pet owners are to blame for their introduction into the Everglades.

Interesting2: The Anchorage, Alaska, airport reopened Sunday, a day after it was closed when a volcano in Alaska erupted and shot ash some 45,000 feet in the air. Ash from the Mount Redoubt volcano fell around the city, Alaska’s largest, resulting in the closure of Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, the Federal Aviation Administration said. Only a trace amount of the ash reached the airport grounds, airport spokesman Jeremy Lindseth said, but it was enough to affect operations.

The airport reopened about 2 p.m. (6 p.m. ET) Sunday, according to the airport’s operations office. Saturday’s eruption occurred at about 1:30 p.m. (5:30 p.m. ET), the U.S. Geological Survey told CNN. Mount Redoubt erupted three times on Friday, at times shooting ash 51,000 feet into the air. There were no eruptions Sunday, the Alaska Volcano Observatory said, but seismic activity continued and the observatory kept its alert level at red, its highest possible designation.

That level indicates that an eruption is under way or imminent and that the eruption will produce a "significant emission of volcanic ash into the atmosphere." Saturday’s eruptions were the latest in a series that began March 22. Friday’s volcano activity prompted Alaska Airlines to limit flights to and from Anchorage, according to the airline’s Web site.

It canceled all its Thursday flights to and from Anchorage after an eruption earlier in the day sent an ash cloud 65,000 feet high. iReport.com: Send photos, videos of the volcanic ash. The airline said on its Web site Sunday that flights "may experience delays or cancellations due to the eruption of Mount Redoubt."

Interesting3: Residents across the Southeast weren’t singing when they called emergency and weather officials to report "great balls of fire" in the night sky. Residents in Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia reported brilliant, streaking lights followed by a thunderous sound about 9:45 p.m. Sunday. National Weather Service officials say they have no explanation for the sky lighting up in shades of yellow, white, orange and blue. The unusual sky prompted hundreds of calls, with some saying they saw "great balls of fire." The weather service says no damage has been reported.

Interesting4: From the Great Pyramids to the Acropolis, and the London Eye to the Las Vegas strip, nearly 4,000 cities and towns in 88 countries joined in the World Wildlife Fund-sponsored event, a time zone-by-time zone plan to dim non-essential lights between 8.30pm and 9.30pm. Dr Richard Dixon of WWF Scotland said: "Earth Hour was the biggest ever show of support for action on climate change. "Millions of people showed world leaders they want strong action." Interest has spiked ahead of planned negotiations on a new global warming treaty in Copenhagen this December.

Organisers are calling Earth Hour a "global election", with switching off the lights seen as a vote for the Earth and failure to do so a vote for global warming. Earth Hour executive director Andy Ridley said: "Earth Hour has always been a positive campaign. It’s always around street parties, not street protests. It’s the idea of hope, not despair. And I think that’s something that’s been incredibly important this year because there is so much despair around.

"The primary reason we do it is because we want people to think, even if it is for an hour, what they can do to lower their carbon footprint, and ideally take that beyond the hour." Landmarks including the London Eye, the Gherkin and the BT Tower also took part last night, although activists warned companies in the financial sector they would have shut down electricity supplies themselves unless the lights went out.

Earlier yesterday, the Chatham Islands, a group of small islands 500 miles east of New Zealand, officially kicked off Earth Hour by switching off its diesel generators. Then Auckland’s Sky Tower, the tallest manmade structure in New Zealand, blinked off. Forty-four New Zealand towns and cities participated in the event, and more than 60,000 people showed up for an Earth Hour-themed hot air ballooning festival in Hamilton.

At Scott Base in Antarctica, New Zealand’s 26-member winter team resorted to minimum safety lighting and switched off appliances. In Asia, lights at landmarks in China, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines also dimmed as people celebrated with candlelit picnics and concerts. Buildings in Singapore’s business district went dark along with major landmarks, such as the Singapore Flyer.

China, which has overtaken the US as the world’s top greenhouse gas emitter, was participating for the first time, with Beijing turning off the lights at its Bird’s Nest Stadium and Water Cube, the two most prominent venues for the Olympics, according to the WWF.

Interesting5: The warning has been made by Birmingham and Warwick university scientists, who say disinfectants and other products washed into sewers and rivers are triggering the growth of drug-resistant microbes. Soil samples from many areas have been found to contain high levels of bacteria with antibiotic-resistant genes, the scientists have discovered – raising fears that these may have already been picked up by humans.

"Every year, the nation produces 1.5m tons of sewage sludge and most of that is spread on farmland," said Dr William Gaze of Warwick University. That sludge contains antibiotic-resistant bacteria whose growth is triggered by chemicals in detergents, he explained. "In addition, we pump 11bn liters of water from houses and factories into our rivers and estuaries every day, and these are also spreading resistance."

The study is important because it suggests that the problem of drug resistance is not merely the result of the over-prescription of antibiotics or poor hygiene standards in hospitals. However, the team stressed the emergence of the most deadly superbugs – such as MRSA that has caused thousands of deaths in hospitals – is not linked to the use of disinfectants.

"Our research shows drug resistance is not confined to hospitals, but is out in the community. It is spreading and all the time it is eroding our ability to control infections. It is extremely worrying," said Professor Liz Wellington, also of Warwick University.

Interesting6: The global economic crisis is jeopardizing efforts to help the world’s growing number of slum dwellers, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Monday. The U.N. housing agency UN-Habitat, which is hosting a major meeting this week in the Kenyan capital, says the number of slum dwellers in the world could triple to 3 billion by 2050 if left unchecked. Delegates from dozens of nations, NGOs and grassroots groups are gathered in Nairobi to discuss how to allocate resources to the problem over the next two years in the face of the worst financial downturn since the Great Depression.

"The persistence of urban poverty is largely the result of weak urban economies and finance," Ban said in a speech read to the meeting on his behalf. "The current global financial crisis and credit crunch only exacerbate this situation. There is a risk that our efforts … to address the shelter crisis will be rolled back."

Slums are most prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa, where 62 percent of the urban population have inadequate shelter, followed by south Asia with 43 percent and east Asia at 37 percent, Moon said. UN-Habitat boss Anna Tibaijuka said the U.S. sub-prime housing crisis was a "watershed" that put affordable housing on the agenda as an economic, rather than social, issue.

She said public-private partnerships were essential to providing housing solutions for the world’s poorest people, and could also help stimulate the economy. "Economists are emphasizing the economic importance of housing and urban infrastructure as part of the productive sector which will generate employment," she told reporters.

Interesting7: Ants don’t march in predictable patterns to search for crumbs, as you might have thought by watching them. Instead, new research suggests they roam randomly. This is not a matter of ant versus human intelligence, because a seemingly blind search can still make sense in both practical and mathematical terms. "The beauty of a mathematical random walk is that it eventually visits all points in space if you walk long enough — and it always returns to its starting point," said William Baxter, an experimental physicist at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College.

Of course, Baxter notes, you might have to walk a long time to get back to the start. But a person who tries a search pattern, such as sweeping back and forth, can run into more trouble with unexpected obstacles. Baxter’s research stands out from others’ by using a controlled environment and a single ant, as opposed to studying foraging ants in the wild.

Tracking single ants allowed him to see how a single ant decides to search an area that is free of food, chemical clues or obstacles. Each small ant walked down a string from its colony to the study area, where the ants normally expect to find an area with food. However, Baxter and his colleagues removed the food while conducting the experiment.

The ant search patterns often crisscrossed previous paths, but none of the ants ever intentionally retraced their steps. A few backed up for a few millimeters on occasion, but only rarely. A next step could involve repeating the experiment with pairs of ants to see if a foraging partner changes the search pattern.

"Will the mathematical model change? I have no idea," Baxter told LiveScience. "But biologists have known for years that groups of ants can accomplish tasks that single ants cannot." Ants are known to communicate chemically and leave trails for others, which points to their cooperative intelligence and socially sophisticated ant societies. So for finding crumbs, two pair of antennae may turn out better than one – or the ant pairs might wander just as randomly as before.

March 29-30, 2009

Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Sunday afternoon:

Lihue, Kauai – 75
Honolulu, Oahu – 81
Kaneohe, Oahu – 75
Kahului, Maui – 79
Hilo, Hawaii – 76
Kailua-kona – 84

Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountains…at 2 p.m. Sunday afternoon:

Kailua-kona – 81F
Princeville, Kauai – 73

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 Sunday afternoon:

0.71 Mount Waialaele, Kauai
0.25 Wheeler Field, Oahu
0.00 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
1.20 Puu Kukui, Maui
0.70 Piihonua, Big Island

Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a strong 1034 millibar high pressure system far to the northeast of the islands. Our trade winds will be moderate to locally strong and gusty Monday and Tuesday…lighter in those more protected places.

Satellite and Radar Images: To view the cloud conditions we have here in Hawaii, please use the following satellite links, starting off with the Infrared Satellite Image of the islands to see all the clouds around the state during the day and night. This next image is one that gives close images of the islands only during the daytime hours, and is referred to as a Close-up visible image. This next image shows a larger view of the Pacific…giving perspective to the wider ranging cloud patterns in the Pacific Ocean. 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 webcam on the summit of near 14,000 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 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

Maui, No Ka Oi…as the saying goes ("the best")
Photo Credit: Google.com

Moderately strong trade winds will continue, which will increase in strength as we move into the new week ahead. A large 1035 millibar high pressure system remains the source of these strong and gusty winds Sunday. These winds are strong enough to keep small craft wind advisories active across the Hawaiian channel waters, from Kauai down through the Big Island…as well as a few of the windier coastal waters. There is the expectation that these trade winds will increase in strength Monday through mid-week…necessitating localized wind advisories in those typically most windy areas.

There are some showers along the windward sides Sunday afternoon, with an increase on tap during the first half of the new work week. Meanwhile, the cirrus clouds, being carried our way on the upper winds aloft, will remain a part of our Hawaiian Island weather picture, as we move through the next couple of days. Looking at this satellite image, we see this latest area of cirrus cloudiness covering much of the state. This looping satellite image shows the high clouds (brighter clouds) arriving from the southwest, while the lower level clouds (dull gray), being carried by the trade winds…coming in from the east.

Let’s keep track of the trade wind gusts again today, as they will continue to dominate our Hawaiian Island weather picture Sunday afternoon. These trade winds were still quite gusty at around 3pm, with these numbers (mph) the strongest on each of the individual islands:

Kauai: 35
Oahu:        39
Molokai:      33
Lanai:         37
Kahoolawe: 40
Maui:          45
Big Island: 37

Looking ahead into the next 3-4 days, it appears that the trade winds will do nothing but remain strong, or get stronger. I will keep providing you these top gusts periodically…as I find it very interesting as well.

It’s mid-afternoon Sunday here in Kula, Maui, as I begin typing out this last paragraph. I’m going to take off the rest of the day, or at least I think I am. My Mom sometimes remarks that "you work too much Glenn." So, I’m going to follow her lead, and just take the rest of the day off from updating this website. The truth is that I don’t even feel like updating this popular website as work! By the way, the reason that I refer to my own website as popular, is by referring to what the Google team tells me. They say that so far this month, there have been 411,328 unique page impressions on this site, which quite honestly impresses me! This number is working towards half a million looks at all my pages…by you! The number of times that you have clicked on my google ads has been, as of 3pm Sunday afternoon, 6,872 times…wow! I would like to take this moment to thank you for your readership, it so makes it worth while to continue my daily updates! ~~~ If I really don’t come back online later this evening, than I will absolutely return early Monday morning with your next new weather narrative from paradise. I hope you have a wonderful Sunday evening/night until we meet again here! By the way, rest assured, that if you live here in the islands, we will be viewing the colorful sunset together this evening. Aloha for now…Glenn

Interesting: Honda Motor Company on Tuesday set the base price for its Insight hybrid at 10 percent below the market-leading Prius hybrid made by larger rival Toyota Motor Corp. Honda said the 2010 Insight would start at $19,800, making it the first hybrid to sell in the U.S. market below $20,000. The 2009 model Prius starts at $22,000. Honda has positioned the five-door Insight as an economical alternative to the Prius, which has come to dominate the hybrid market with its distinctive styling and fuel economy. "I think what they are looking to do is to bring a new buyer to the marketplace for hybrids, people who are interested but maybe couldn’t afford the Prius," said Jack Nerad, analyst at Kelley Blue Book, a leading vehicle pricing guide.

Interesting2: Farmers of the future will have to use cattle and sheep that belch less methane, crops that emit far less planet-warming nitrous oxide and become experts in reporting their greenhouse gas emissions to the government. Agriculture is a major source of greenhouse gases, and globally that share will rise as demand for food from growing human populations also increases, scientist Richard John Eckard of the University of Melbourne said on Thursday.

But farmers are facing a near-impossible challenge: feeding the world while trying to trim emissions and adapt to greater extremes of droughts and floods because of global warming, he said. In coming years, farmers will have to monitor and report emissions as more nations move toward emissions trading.

Interesting3: Our brain extracts important information for face recognition principally from the eyes, and secondly from the mouth and nose, according to a new study from a researcher at the University of Barcelona. This result was obtained by analyzing several hundred face images in a way similar to that of the brain. Imagine a photograph showing your friend’s face. Although you might think that every single detail in his face matters to recognize him, numerous experiments have shown that the brain prefers a rather coarse resolution instead, irrespective of the distance at which a face is seen.

Until now, the reason for this was unclear. By analyzing 868 male and 868 female face images, the new study may explain why. The results indicate that the most useful information is obtained from the images if their size is around 30 x 30 pixels. Moreover, images of eyes give the least "noisy" result (meaning that they convey more reliable information to the brain compared to images of the mouth and nose), suggesting that face recognition mechanisms in the brain are specialized to the eyes.

Interesting4: A new study published in the journal Soil Use and Management attempts for the first time to measure the extent and severity of land degradation across the globe and concludes that 24% of the land area is degrading – often in very productive areas. Land degradation – the decline in the quality of soil, water and vegetation – is of profound importance but until now there have been no consistent global data by which to assess its extent and severity.

For nearly thirty years the world has depended on the Global Assessment of Soil Degradation (GLASOD) based on the subjective judgement of soil scientists who knew the conditions in their countries.

GLASOD indicated that 15 per cent of the land area was degraded, but this was a map of perceptions, rather than measurement of land degradation.The new study by Bai et al. measures global land degradation based on a clearly defined and consistent method using remotely sensed imagery. The results are startling.

The new assessment indicates that 24 per cent of the land has been degraded over the period 1981-2003 – but there is hardly any overlap with the GLASOD area that recorded the cumulative effects of land degradation up to about 1990. One of the authors, Dr David Dent of ISRIC – World Soil Information explains: “Degradation is primarily driven by land management and catastrophic natural phenomena.

Interesting5: A new study by researchers at the University of British Columbia suggests taking public transit may help you keep fit. The study, published in the Journal of Public Health Policy, finds that people who take public transit are three times more likely than those who don’t to meet the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada’s suggested daily minimum of physical activity.

Doctoral student Ugo Lachapelle and Assoc. Prof. Lawrence Frank of the UBC School of Community and Regional Planning used 4,156 travel surveys from metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia, to examine whether transit and car trips were associated with meeting the recommended levels of physical activity by walking. Because transit trips by bus and train often involve walking to and from stops, the study found that users are more likely to meet the recommended 30 minutes of moderate physical activity a day, five days a week.

According to the study, people who drove the most were the least likely to meet the recommended level of physical activity. "The idea of needing to go to the gym to get your daily dose of exercise is a misperception," says Frank, the J. Armand Bombardier Chair holder in Sustainable Transportation and a researcher at the UBC Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability. "These short walks throughout our day are historically how we have gotten our activity. Unfortunately, we’ve engineered this activity out of our daily lives."

Interesting6: Large size and a fast bite spelled doom for bony fishes during the last mass extinction 65 million years ago, according to a new study. Today, those same features characterize large predatory bony fishes, such as tuna and billfishes, that are currently in decline and at risk of extinction themselves, said Matt Friedman, author of the study and a graduate student in evolutionary biology at the University of Chicago. "The same thing is happening today to ecologically similar fishes," he said.

"The hardest hit species are consistently big predators." Studies of modern fishes demonstrate that large body size is linked to large prey size and low rates of population growth, while fast-closing jaws appear to be adaptations for capturing agile, evasive prey—in other words, other fishes. The fossil record provides some remarkable evidence supporting these estimates of function: fossil fishes with preserved stomach contents that record their last meals.

When an asteroid struck the earth at the end of the Cretaceous about 65 million years ago, the resultant impact clouded the earth in soot and smoke. This blocked photosynthesis on land and in the sea, undermined food chains at a rudimentary level, and led to the extinction of thousands of species of flora and fauna, including dinosaurs.

Scientists had speculated that during that interval large predatory fishes might have been more likely than other fishes to go extinct because they tended to have slowly increasing populations, live more spread out, take longer to mature, and occupy precarious positions at the tops of food chains. Today, ecologically similar fishes appear to be the least able to rebound from declining numbers due to overfishing.

Interesting7: University of Michigan ecologists and their colleagues have answered a question that has puzzled biologists for more than a century: What is the main factor that determines a lizard’s ability to shed its tail when predators attack? The answer, in a word: Venom. Tail-shedding, known to scientists as caudal autotomy, is a common anti-predator defense among lizards. When attacked, many lizards jettison the wriggling appendage and flee.

The predator often feasts on the tail while the lucky lizard scurries to safety. Later, the lizard simply grows a new tail. The ease with which lizards shed their tails varies from species to species and from place to place. For more than a century, biologists have suspected that this variation is controlled mainly by predator pressure: As the number of local lizard-eaters rises, so does the need for this effective defense mechanism.

When lizards live alongside lots of creatures eager to devour them, they’re more likely to evolve the ability to shed their tails easily, because this trait enables them to survive long enough to reproduce and pass their genes to the next generation. However, tail loss carries long-term costs, including impaired mobility, lower social status and slower growth rates.

So from an evolutionary perspective, it only makes sense to maintain tail-shedding ability if there are predators around. The U-M-led team decided to test the long-held predator-pressure idea using a clever combination of laboratory experiments and field measurements made in mainland Greece and multiple offshore Aegean Sea islands inhabited by different combinations of predators.

Their conclusion? The predator-pressure hypothesis, while generally true, comes with an unexpected twist: Not all predators are created equal. "The only predators that truly matter are vipers," said U-M vertebrate ecologist Johannes Foufopoulos, co-author of a study published online this week in the journal Evolution.

Interesting8: Italy and Switzerland are planning to redraw their shared alpine border, as global warming is melting the glaciers that originally guided the line. Although peaceful, the move raises fears of future conflicts over shifting borders and resources. Glaciers and ice fields around the world are melting as temperatures rise, with Europe’s high mountains particularly hard hit.

The original proposal to move the Swiss-Italian border comes from Franco Narducci, a member of Italy’s centre-left opposition party. The Italian parliament must approve a new law before the change can happen, whereas Switzerland does not need to go through this process.

The final border will be agreed by a commission of experts from Switzerland’s Federal Office of Topography and Italy’s Military Geographic Institute. "I think it’s fantastic that these two countries are talking about adjusting their borders," says Mark Zeitoun of the University of East Anglia, UK, an expert on international resource management and conflict.

"Elsewhere in the world you see a much more nationalistic attitude." The proposal would move the border by up to 100 meters in several regions, including the area surrounding the famous Matterhorn Mountain, which will remain straddling the border.

Border communities would be unaffected by the border changes, as the area in question is more than 4000 meters above sea level, and uninhabited. However, other areas of glacial melting and geographic change could prove more contentious. "Climate change has the potential to lead to large conflicts, particularly where water resources are concerned," says Nick Robson of the South Asian Strategic Stability Institute.

Interesting9: The warming of Atlantic Ocean waters in recent decades is largely due to declines in airborne dust from African deserts and lower volcanic emissions, a new study suggests. Since 1980, the tropical North Atlantic has been warming by an average of a half-degree Fahrenheit per decade. While that number may sound small, it can translate to big impacts on hurricanes, which are fueled by warm surface waters, said study team member Amato Evan of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

For example, the ocean temperature difference between 1994, a quiet hurricane year, and 2005’s record-breaking year of storms (including Hurricane Katrina), was just 1 degree Fahrenheit. Evan and his colleagues had previously shown that African dust and other airborne particles can suppress hurricane activity by reducing how much sunlight reaches the ocean and keeping the sea surface cool.

Dusty years predict mild hurricane seasons, while years with low dust activity — including 2004 and 2005 — have been linked to stronger and more frequent storms. In the new study, the researchers investigated the exact effect of dust and volcanic emissions on ocean temperatures.

They combined satellite data of dust and other particles with existing climate models and calculated how much of the Atlantic warming observed during the last 26 years could be accounted for by simultaneous changes in African dust storms and tropical volcanic activity, primarily the eruptions of El Chichón in Mexico in 1982 and Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991.

The results: More than two-thirds of this upward trend in recent decades can be attributed to changes in African dust storm and tropical volcano activity during that time. This was a surprisingly large amount, Evan said. The results, detailed in the March 27 issue of the journal Science, suggest that only about 30 percent of the observed Atlantic temperature increases are due to other factors, such as a warming climate.

"This makes sense, because we don’t really expect global warming to make the ocean [temperature] increase that fast," Evan said. This adjustment brings the estimate of global warming’s impact on the Atlantic more in line with the smaller degree of ocean warming seen elsewhere, such as the Pacific.

Of course, this doesn’t discount the importance of global warming, Evan said, but indicates that newer climate models will need to include dust storms as a factor to accurately predict how ocean temperatures will change.

March 28-29, 2009

Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Saturday afternoon:

Lihue, Kauai – 75
Honolulu, Oahu – 80
Kaneohe, Oahu – 75
Kahului, Maui – 79
Hilo, Hawaii – 77
Kailua-kona – 80

Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountains…at 4 p.m. Saturday afternoon:

Barking Sands, Kauai – 80F
Princeville, Kauai – 73

Haleakala Crater – missing (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:

0.20 Mount Waialaele, Kauai
0.16 Manoa Valley, Oahu
0.05 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.24 Puu Kukui, Maui
1.13 Waiakea Uka, Big Island

Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a strong 1035 millibar high pressure system far to the northeast of the islands. Our trade winds will be moderate to locally strong and gusty Saturday night and Sunday…lighter in those more protected places.

Satellite and Radar Images: To view the cloud conditions we have here in Hawaii, please use the following satellite links, starting off with the Infrared Satellite Image of the islands to see all the clouds around the state during the day and night. This next image is one that gives close images of the islands only during the daytime hours, and is referred to as a Close-up visible image. This next image shows a larger view of the Pacific…giving perspective to the wider ranging cloud patterns in the Pacific Ocean. 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 webcam on the summit of near 14,000 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 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 Makena area in south Maui
Photo Credit: Google.com

There’s no end in sight for the trade winds, extending well into the upcoming new week...strong and gusty at times. A large high pressure system remains the source of these strong and gusty winds Saturday night. These winds are strong enough to keep small craft wind advisories active across some of the Hawaiian coastal and channel waters, from Kauai down through the Big Island. These trade winds are bringing a fair amount of marine haze, being carried over the islands on the gusty trade winds.

Showers around the state have been rather spare, although will be on the increase…as we move into the new week ahead. Meanwhile, the cirrus clouds, being carried our way on the upper winds aloft, will remain a part of our Hawaiian Island weather picture as we move through this weekend. Looking at this satellite image, we see a fairly thick streak of cirrus cloudiness covering much of the state Saturday evening. This looping satellite image shows the high clouds (brighter clouds) arriving from the west, while the lower level clouds (dull gray), being carried by the trade winds…coming in from the east.

A summary statement of the two paragraphs above would be: more gusty trade winds…and increasing windward biased showers as we move into the new week ahead. This isn’t exactly unusual for the spring season here in the tropics, and is actually fairly common. The high pressure system to our northeast is perfectly placed to spin out these blustery trade winds. These winds are a perfect delivery mechanism to carry shower bearing clouds to us. I don’t see any end to this situation for the time being. Fortunately, the leeward sides will see generally less of the wind, with just a few passing showers for the time being.

Let’s keep track of these trade winds, as they will dominate our Hawaiian Island weather picture as we move through the weekend. Saturday evening the trade winds were still quite gusty, with these numbers (mph) the strongest on each of the individual islands:

Kauai: 29
Oahu:        37
Molokai:      37
Lanai:         35
Kahoolawe: 39
Maui:          37
Big Island: 40

It’s now around 8pm Saturday evening, and our winds have calmed down from what they were ealier…a little. We gave one gust in the 20’s, with all of those speediest areas blowing in the 30 to 40 mph range else where. I’ll be back in the morning Sunday, with the top gusts on each of the islands again then.

Since it was Friday evening, I went to see a new film last evening, called Duplicity (2009), starring among others, Clive Owen and Julia Roberts. The critics are being quite favorable to this film, here’s a couple of quotes: "Duplicity is well-crafted, smart, and often funny, but it’s mostly more cerebral than visceral and features far too many plot twists." – rottentomatoes….. "Duplicity is an enormously enjoyable hybrid, a romantic comedy set at the center of a caper movie." – New Yorker. The film deals with former government intelligence agents teaming up to stage an elaborate corporate con. By the way duplicity is defined as: deceitfulness in speech or conduct; speaking or acting in two different ways concerning the same matter with intent to deceive; double-dealing. There was certainly no lack of this kind of behavior, at every turn, and there were so many turns! I must honestly admit that I had a difficult time understanding all those twists and turns, but nonetheless, I enjoyed sitting through this long and complex film…at times quite funny too. Here’s a trailer, see what you think.

It’s early Saturday evening here in Kula, Maui, as I begin typing out this last paragraph. Those high cirrus clouds, which have been a big part of our overhead skies lately, remained in place today. Looking at that satellite image above, we see a solid streak of those icy clouds moving over the islands. This will likely provide some good sunset colors this evening, and if they are still around Sunday morning, give us some nice pinks and oranges again then. My wind chimes are making a nice song as I write these words, not too loud, just enough to definitely catch my attention. It’s actually quite mellow out early this evening, and I’m already starting to look forward to sitting outside and taking in the sunset views. The sunset was great, which I watched while taking two separate walks. The air temperture at 815pm was 57.9F degrees…while down at Kahului at the same time, it was 68 degrees. The warmest place at 8pm was 76 in Kailua-kona. ~~~ I’ll be back again Sunday morning, I trust that you are feeling well! I’m about to turn out all my lights at 830pm (even though I only have one little desk lamp on, plus this computer which I’ll turn off too), to join in with those folks who are making a statement around the world, which is being billed as Earth Hour…which for me is just wanting my love for the earth to be known. Aloha for now…Glenn