Aloha Paragraphs



   Inside the Haleakala Crater on Maui
   Photo Credit: flickr.com

A strengthening high pressure system to the northeast of Hawaii, will drive blustery trade winds across our tropical latitudes through the work week. Now that the trade wind reducing upper level trough of low pressure is out of our region, there’s nothing stopping the trade winds from getting stronger and gusty.  The NWS forecast office in Honolulu has a small craft wind advisory for those windiest areas around the state, stretching from the channel separating Oahu and Molokai…down across Maui to the Big Island. Our local trade winds will reach their peak in strength Thursday and Friday, easing off a touch by the weekend. The computer forecast models show no end to the breezy trade winds, continuing right on into next week.

Drier air has moved into the state now, which will limit showers…although they will pick up again some a tad Thursday. Whatever generally windward showers that fall, will occur most often during the night and early morning hours. As the trade winds strength Thursday and Friday, all that wind will force moisture up the sides of the volcanic slopes, on the windward sides, which will cause at least some increase in showers. The weather is expected to turn somewhat drier again as we move into the upcoming weekend…as the trade winds slip back some in strength. The leeward sides should be quite dry to very dry through most of this week in contrast to the wetter windward sections.

That area of disturbed weather, to the southeast of the Big Island, has taken on a mild counterclockwise spin. Here’s a looping satellite picture of that tropical disturbance, down to the lower right of the Big Island. We’ll need to keep an eye on this area, just in case it decides to strengthen into a tropical depression. There are no signs of it moving northward towards the Hawaiian Islands at this time. The main effect it will have, will be to enhance the strength of our local trade winds later this week. By the way, while we’re looking at that looping satellite image, we can see lots of high cirrus clouds coming up from the deeper tropics to our southwest…which dim and filter our Hawaiian sunshine at times locally, and provide some good color at sunset and sunrise!

Weather conditions are very dry now in Hawaii, with strong trade winds, and low relative humidities. The combination of these weather elements has led the NWS forecast office in Honolulu to issue a fire weather watch. A fire weather watch means that critical fire weather conditions are forecast to occur. This watch begins Wednesday morning, and will run through at least Wednesday evening for select areas of the state of Hawaii…and could lead into a fire weather warning later this week. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has issued a drought declaration for the entire state of Hawaii recently. We all need to do our part in keeping wild fires and brush fires from breaking out, and in conserving water when possible! 

~~~ It’s early Tuesday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I begin writing this last paragraph of today’s narrative. Windy weather will remain in place through the remainder of the week, into next week…although slacking-off some by this weekend. There were hardly any clouds in the sky over most of the island chain Tuesday, although satellite imagery shows a patch of clouds and showers moving onto the Big Islands windward sides, with a break after that for several hours…before another pocket of moisture arrives later in the night. The rest of the state should be quite clear overnight, except where the thick high cirrus clouds are located. The thickest part at the time of this writing was over Kauai, although it appears to be shifting eastward over the rest of the state with time. Here in Kihei, while I was at the beach at lunch, the ocean surface was completely covered with white caps, millions of them, chalking-up the ocean in a frothy way. The coconut palm trees were bending over pretty well, under the influence of the gusty afternoon trade winds. Get to the beach earlier in the days, that is if you’d prefer to not have sand in your potato salad! I’ll be back very early Wednesday morning with your next new weather narrative from paradise, I hope you have a great Tuesday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting:  A lost world has been found in Antarctica, preserved just the way it was when it was frozen in time some 14 million years ago.  The fossils of plants and animals high in the mountains is an extremely rare find in the continent, one that also gives a glimpse of a what could be there in a century or two as the planet warms. A team working in an ice-free region has discovered the trove of ancient life in what must have been the last traces of tundra on the interior of the southernmost continent before temperatures began to drop relentlessly. A team working in an ice-free region has discovered the trove of ancient life in what must have been the last traces of tundra on the interior of the southernmost continent before temperatures began to drop relentlessly.

An abrupt and dramatic climate cooling of 8°C in 200,000 years forced the extinction of tundra plants and insects and brought interior Antarctica into a perpetual deep-freeze from which it has never emerged, though may do again as a result of climate change. An international team led by Prof David Marchant, at Boston University and Profs Allan Ashworth and Adam Lewis, at North Dakota State University, combined evidence from glaciers, from the preserved ecology, volcanic ashes and modelling to reveal the full extent of the big freeze in a part of Antarctica called the Dry Valleys. The new insight in the understanding of Antarctica’s climatic history, which saw it change from a climate like that of South Georgia to one similar to that seen today in Mars, is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

"We’ve documented the timing and the magnitude of a tremendous change in Antarctic climate," said Prof Marchant. "The fossil finds allow us to examine Antarctica as it existed just prior to climate cooling at 13.9 million years ago. It is a unique window into the past. To study these deposits is akin to strolling across the Dry Valleys 14.1 million years ago."  The discovery of lake deposits with perfectly preserved fossils of mosses, diatoms and minute crustacea called ostracods is particularly exciting, noted Prof Lewis. "They are the first to be found even though scientific expeditions have been visiting the Dry Valleys.

Interesting2: Software predicts where El Nino will strike again. El Nino events periodically wreak havoc on the world’s weather, increasing the risk of hurricanes and flooding in some regions, and droughts and forest fires in others.  But despite telltale signs of their presence in the Pacific Ocean, including a reversal of ocean currents and large temperature rises, it can be hard to tell where else El Ninos are having an effect. However, forecasting the weather during an El Niño event could soon be as simple as joining the dots, thanks to software that maps the world’s climate as an interconnected network. The software, developed by a team led by Avi Gozolchiani from Bar-IlanUniversity in Ramat-Gan, Israel, plots daily temperature measurements for each of several locations to nodes of the network. It then calculates links between nodes if their measurements change in the same way.

By applying the technique to climate records from 1979 to 2005, the team found that the majority of these links are stable over time, forming a "skeleton" to the world’s climate. Yet it’s the weaker links, which break and then reform, that are of more interest. Under normal climate conditions this happens only occasionally, but disturbances from an El Niño event cause the links to "blink" on and off every few weeks. "Their behaviour becomes much more erratic," says Gozolchiani, whose team includes researchers from the Tokyo University of Information Sciences in Japan. The location of the blinking links reveal where the El Niño is having an influence, he says.

Interesting3:

The haze blanketing Beijing lifted slightly on Tuesday although the sun was obscured by grey skies three days before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. Organizers want clean and crisp skies for the Games and have closed factories and pulled half the capital’s 3.3 million cars off the roads to achieve their ambition. They are holding in reserve further plans to reduce the number of cars on the roads and shut more factories, if projections show unacceptable conditions in coming days. The pollution index for Tuesday was between 90 and 110, moderating from 95 to 115 overnight. China regards an index level of less than 100 to be a "blue sky day". Many athletes pouring into Beijing ahead of the Games appeared to be more struck by the heat than the pollution. "The humidity’s quite fun, it’s like rowing through a steam room," said British rower Olivia Whitlam. Renata Ribeiro, a Brazilian beach volleyball player from Rio de Janeiro, thought fears about pollution were overstated.

"We’d been told it was absolutely terrible so we were prepared for much worse. It’s actually not that heavy today. We’re breathing fine," she said. However, for athletes of endurance events the smog could pose a major problem and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has said it might reschedule events if the pollution was too bad. The local Games organizers, BOCOG, have pledged to finish the Games on August 24 so most observers believe the IOC would switch the men’s marathon, due to take place on the final day, to another Chinese city if the air quality was deemed too poor. The IOC has not said what it regards as an acceptable pollution level for the marathon. Beijing would be cloudy and hot through Thursday, the China Meteorological Administration said.

Interesting4:

An update announced today to the 2008 hurricane forecast calls for two more storms than previously predicted — a total of 17 named storms for the entire season, which officially started June 1 and ends Nov. 30.  Philip Klotzbach and William Gray of ColoradoStateUniversity now expect nine of the named storms to become hurricanes and five to grow into major hurricanes, meaning a category 3 through 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale. Overall, the researchers predict a much more active season than the typical season between 1950 and 2000.  The announcement comes as Tropical Storm Edouard, the fifth tropical cyclone of the 2008 season, carried heavy rains and strong winds onto the upper Texas coast today. The tropical storm was just shy of hurricane strength when it came ashore. 

When a tropical cyclone (the generic name for a low-pressure system over tropical or sub-tropical waters) has surface winds that reach at least 39 mph (about 63 kph), the system is considered a tropical storm and gets christened with a name. Once the winds reach 74 mph (119 kph), the storm is considered a hurricane in the North Atlantic Ocean; a tropical cyclone in the Southwest Indian Ocean; and a typhoon in parts of the Northwest Pacific Ocean. The latest forecast raises the team’s early June prediction, which was 15 named storms, including eight hurricanes and four intense hurricanes.  The team points to warm sea-surface temperatures and low sea-level pressures over the tropical Atlantic in June and July, combined with an active early season in the deep tropics as driving the boost in their seasonal forecast numbers.

Aloha Paragraphs



   Windward Oahu
   Photo Credit: flickr.com

The trade winds picked up Monday, and will do nothing but increase through the week. A departing trough of low pressure interrupted the normally stronger trade winds this past weekend. As this trough moved further away Monday however, our trade winds began to pick up, which will continue Tuesday onward through the rest of the week. The NWS forecast office in Honolulu issued a small craft wind advisory for those windiest areas in the southern part of the state, around Maui and the Big Island…which will likely need to be extended further up the island chain later this week. The computer forecast models show no end to the breezy trade winds at this point.

As the upper trough moves away, the emphasis for showers will leave the leeward sides…coming back over to the windward coasts and slopes now.  It appears that we’ll have drier air moving over the islands now, with whatever showers that fall going forward…falling most generally during the night and early morning hours. A trough of low pressure, that is expected to edge in our direction later in the week, around Thursday and Friday, may cause a temporary increase in showers along the windward sides then. The weather is expected to turn drier as we move into the upcoming weekend again. The leeward sides should be quite dry to very dry through most of this week.

~~~ It’s early Monday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I begin writing this last paragraph of today’s narrative.  The trade winds kicked up their heels earlier than expected, and got stronger than anticipated as well. Several of the reporting stations around the state showed winds gusting to 30 mph or more early this evening, with the strongest gust noted at 40 mph on the small island of Kahoolawe. The winds will remain blustery this week, and regularly be gusting above 40 mph. Looking out the window I see mostly clear skies here on Maui, although there are some beautiful streaks of high cirrus clouds flying across the sky on the strong upper winds. These strands of high clouds will light up colorfully at sunset, and if they are still around early Tuesday morning, they will light up a bright orange and pink again then. Speaking of early Tuesday morning, that’s when I’ll be back here with your next new weather narrative from paradise. I hope you have a great Monday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting:

Untouched natural forests store three times more carbon dioxide than previously estimated and 60 percent more than plantation forests, said a new Australian study of "green carbon" and its role in climate change. Green carbon occurs in natural forests, brown carbon is found in industrialized forests or plantations, grey carbon in fossil fuels and blue carbon in oceans. Australian National University (ANU) scientists said that the role of untouched forests, and their biomass of green carbon, had been underestimated in the fight against global warming. The scientists said the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Kyoto Protocol did not distinguish between the carbon capacity of plantation forests and untouched forests. Yet untouched forests can carry three times the carbon presently estimated, if their biomass of carbon stock was included, said the ANU report released on Tuesday. Currently, forest carbon storage capacity is based on plantation forest estimates.

The report "Green Carbon, the role of natural forests in carbon storage" said a difference in the definition of a forest was also underestimating the carbon stock in old-growth forests. The IPCC defines a forest as trees taller than 2 meters (six feet) and a canopy cover greater than 10 percent, but in Australia a forest was defined as having trees taller than 10 meters (33 feet) and a canopy cover greater than 30 percent. The report said southeast Australia‘s unlogged forests could store about 640 tonnes per hectare (1,600 tonnes per acre), yet the IPCC estimate put it at only around 217 tonnes of carbon per hectare. The scientists estimated that around 9.3 billion tonnes of carbon can be stored in the 14.5 million hectares of eucalypt forests in southeast Australia if they are left undisturbed. The IPCC estimates only one third of this capacity and only 27 percent of the forests’ biomass carbon stock.

Interesting2:

Prospectors sift through America‘s garbage in a gold rush founded on metals, plastic and paper. Bob Cappadona, area manager of Casella Waste Systems’ 65,000sq ft recycling facility in Massachussets, can’t believe the record prices his garbage is commanding. "Aluminium cans, $900 [£450] a bale. Tin cans, $150. No 2 clear plastic, $300. Cardboard, $70. Mixed paper, $40." He barely conceals his glee as he explains the effects of a spike in metal prices: "We get an extra $100 a ton."  Mr Cappadona’s numbers are compelling, but the global implications of the trash boom only really hit you when you see the enormous pallets being carted away from the plant. You realise that recyclers can make vast profits from combing through ordinary rubbish, processing it and then reselling it to other companies.

And that leads to another, bigger thought: trash is no longer just an environmental liability. It is becoming a financial asset. And it is everywhere…or so it would seem. The possibilities have venture capitalists and buyout firms scrambling to invest in a melange of quirky start-ups that might have provoked belly laughs from these same financiers five years ago. The broad category of "waste and recycling", which includes everything from materials recovery to sewage biotechnology, drew a record $622m of investment in 2007, compared with $245m a year earlier and just $20m in 2001, according to Cleantech Group, a green investing consultancy. Sober investors are throwing money not only at established recyclers like Cas-ella Waste, but also at bolder ventures like trash-to-ethanol start-ups and e-waste recyclers, so confident are they that there’s real cash in trash.

Interesting3:

Alaska‘s warm weather this summer has all "gone north." Way north. Scientists at the National Snow and IceDataCenter say strong, southerly winds from the North Slope have devoured a huge swath of Arctic ice larger than the state of Texas in the heart of the Beaufort Sea. Combining that loss with the overall decline in sea ice in recent years should leave this year’s end-of-summer Arctic ice pack close to its lowest measurement on record. It may also open up the ice-encrusted Northwest Passage for the second year in a row — and only the second time in recorded history.

The Beaufort’s broad expanse of open water, which now extends more than a third of the way from Alaska to the North Pole, far surpasses the ice-free zone that prevailed there last summer when Arctic ice overall plummeted to a record low. Daily satellite images relayed to the NSIDC headquarters in Boulder, Colo., also indicate the Northwest Passage is ice-free as far east of Alaska as Amundsen Gulf, about 600 miles east of the Alaska-Canada border. All that remains to clear is a plug of ice that blocks the preferred northern sea route between Banks and Cornwallis islands, according to NSIDC senior research scientist Mark Serreze. "But we’re seeing signs that the ice concentration is dropping there now," Serreze said Thursday. "That plug could very well melt out in the next few weeks.

Interesting4:

Researchers in Germany, Switzerland, and the United States have shown, for the first time, that an extremely fast climate change occurred in Western Europe. This took place long before human-made changes in the atmosphere, and is causatively associated with a sudden change in the wind systems.  The research, which appears in the journal Nature Geoscience, was conducted by geoscientists Achim Brauer, Peter Dulski and Jörg Negendank (emeritus Professor) from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Gerald Haug from the DFG-LeibnizCenter for Surface Processes and Climate Studies at the University of Potsdam and the ETH in Zurich, and Daniel Sigman from PrincetonUniversity.

The proof of an extreme cooling within a short number of years 12,700 years ago was attained in sediments of the volcanic lake Meerfelder Maar in the Eifel region of Germany. The seasonally layered deposits allow to precisely determine the rate of climate change. With a novel combination of microscopic research studies and modern geochemical scanner procedures, the scientists were able to successfully reconstruct the climatic conditions even for individual seasons. In particular, the changes in the wind force and direction during the winter half-year caused the climate to topple over into a completely different mode within one year after a short instable phase of a few decades.

Interesting5:

The most powerful bite of all time has been found — that of the prehistoric giant shark Megalodon, which makes that of T. rex look puny. The giant shark Megalodon, which means "Big Tooth" in Greek, may have grown to more than 50 feet long and weighed up to 110 tons (100 metric tons), at least 30 times as heavy as the largest of its living relatives, the great white shark.  Fossil evidence suggests Megalodon "made a living hunting and killing large whales by biting off their tails and flippers," said researcher Stephen Wroe, a biomechanist and paleontologist at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.

The researchers used sophisticated computational techniques to analyze the bites of the great white shark and Megalodon, using the kind of software that engineers use to simulate "everything from wingnuts to bridges to space shuttles," Wroe explained.  The 3-D digital models that he and his colleagues developed, based on X-rays of an 8-foot-long male great white, recreate the skull, jaws, muscles of the shark as nearly 2 million tiny connected parts. "It takes a lot of computing power to analyze something as relatively simple as a set of jaws, since you’re dealing with all sorts of complex shapes in biology," Wroe said.

Aloha Paragraphs



   The Napali coast on Kauai
   Photo Credit: flickr.com

Our local trade winds will remain somewhat light Sunday…then strengthen again later Monday onwards.  A trough of low pressure, located to the northwest of the Hawaiian Islands, has interrupted the normally stronger early August trade wind flow. Rather than the moderate to fresh winds, we find a lighter brand of winds blowing at the moment. As this trough moves away later Monday, our trade winds will begin to pick up going intoTuesday onward through the rest of the week. We have no advisories in our coastal or channel waters now, although small craft advisory flags will be needed during the new week…especially during the second half of the week, when they will get stronger and gusty.







 

This trough of low pressure, with its associated cold air aloft, will keep our overlying atmosphere unstable…with some heavy showers locally. The daytime heating of the islands, combined with the instability, will trigger afternoon clouds over and around the mountains. There’s a good chance that some of these convective afternoon cumulus clouds may be quite generous, perhaps locally heavy for a time. The leftover moisture from former eastern Pacific tropical cyclone Genevieve, which arrived Sunday, brought increased clouds and showers from that source as well…which may keep Oahu and Kauai more than normally showery into Monday. 

A few of the various computer models have recently shown that a tropical system may develop to the east-southeast of the Hawaiian Islands by Monday or Tuesday.  At this point, we could say that an area of disturbed weather may form, which several of the computer models are showing strengthening into a tropical depression. If this were to happen, it would pass well south of the Hawaiian Islands next weekend. The most likely influence it would have, would be to enhance our local trade winds, making them stronger and gusty for a few days. If the northern fringe of moisture from this system were extensive enough, we could see some increase in showers for the Big Island, and perhaps Maui. This tropical low pressure system hasn’t formed yet, so we will be watching to see whether the models have a good reading on this over the next few days. Here’s a link to this suspect area, look for that cluster of thunderstorms near 10N, and 135W.

~~~ It’s early Sunday evening as I begin writing this last paragraph of today’s narrative. The clouds and showers that are what’s left of a former hurricane named Genevieve, that was active in the eastern Pacific a long time ago…kept many parts of the island chain cloudy and showery Sunday, especially from Molokai down through Maui to the Big Island. This satellite image shows the extent of these clouds, which are currently heading westward towards the island of Oahu. Meanwhile, this looping radar image shows the showers, with their tropical origin, taking aim on Oahu, which will eventually reach Kauai early Monday. Here in Kula, Maui, the showers started to fall around noon, with off and on light showers lasting through most of the afternoon. I’ll be back very early Monday morning with your next new weather narrative. I hope you have a great Sunday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Aloha Paragraphs



   Kona sunset
   Photo Credit: flickr.com

Our local trade winds will remain active Sunday, but not be as strong as earlier in the week…then strengthen again into the new week ahead.  A trough of low pressure, located just to the northwest of the Hawaiian Islands, is interrupting the normally stronger early August trade wind flow. Rather than the moderate to fresh winds, we find light to locally moderate winds blowing at the moment. As this trough moves away Monday, our trade winds will begin to pick up, becoming rather blustery again Tuesday onward through the rest of the week. We have no advisories in our coastal or channel waters now, although small craft advisory flags will be needed during the new week…especially during the second half of the week, when they get especially strong and gusty.







 

This trough of low pressure, with its associated cold air aloft, will keep our overlying atmosphere unstable…with some locally heavy showers locally. There will a few windward showers, which will fall during the night and early morning hours for the most part. The daytime heating of the islands, combined with the instability, will trigger afternoon clouds over and around the mountains…particularly in the leeward areas from Molokai up the chain to Kauai. There’s a good chance that some of these convective afternoon cumulus clouds may be quite generous, or even down right heavy here and there. As the leftover moisture from former eastern Pacific tropical cyclone Genevieve arrives later Sunday, there may be increased showers from that source as well…although most likely just on the Big Island, and perhaps east Maui.

A few of the various computer models have recently shown that a tropical system may develop to the east-southeast of the Hawaiian Islands by Monday or Tuesday.  At this point, we could say that an area of disturbed weather may form, which several of the computer models are showing strengthening into a tropical depression. If this were to happen, it would pass south of the Hawaiian Islands later next Friday through Saturday. The most likely influence it would have, would be to enhance our local trade winds, making them stronger and gusty for a few days. If the northern fringe of moisture from this system were extensive enough, we could see some increase in showers for the Big Island, and perhaps Maui. This tropical disturbance hasn’t formed yet, so we will be watching to see whether the models have a good reading on this over the next few days. Here’s a link to this suspect area, look for that cluster of thunderstorms near 10N, and 135W.

Friday evening after work, I went to see the new film The Dark Knight (2008). This highly rated film stars Christian Bale, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Heath Ledger (who is now deceased), Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, and Morgan Freeman, among others. This film is being described as an action adventure, with crime and gangster elements. In a nutshell, the Caped Crusader (Batman) returns, protecting Gotham City from the mad criminal mastermind, The Joker. This film was a long drawn out thriller, huge in fact, which I enjoyed very much. It is rather dark, but nothing nearly as disturbing as last weeks X-Files film. Many of my friends gave it A and A+ ratings, and I would have to agree, it definitely qualifies as an A film in my book as well. Here’s a trailer for this much talked about film.

~~~ It’s early Saturday evening as I begin writing this last paragraph of today’s narrative. It was a great day upcountry here in Kula, Maui, with a sunny morning giving way to a partly cloudy afternoon. At the moment, between 5 and 6, there are a few light sprinkles falling, or perhaps in the strictest terms could be called a brief light shower. My wind chimes are singing sweetly, not to loudly, like they can on a windy day, but then again, not silent either. I’m still digesting the Batman film of last evening, and relishing the big, big story that it was. One of the interesting aspects, albeit with a sad edge, was watching the Joker, definitely one of the main characters in the film, played brilliantly by Health Ledger…knowing that he had recently passed away. At any rate, I hope you have a great Saturday night wherever you happen to be hanging out! I’ll be back Sunday morning with your next new weather narrative from paradise. Aloha for now…Glenn.

A couple of Saturday night/Sunday music video’s:

Across the Universe…The Beatles

Across the Universe…NASA/JPL – The Beatles

Imagine…John Lennon

Stand by Me…John Lennon

Woman…John Lennon

Aloha Paragraphs



  Snorkeling on the south shore of Maui
Photo Credit: flickr.com

An upper level trough of low pressure to the north of Hawaii, will cause our local trade winds to slack off in strength through the next several days.  At the same time, the long lasting trade wind producing high pressure system to our north, moves away from our islands. The combination of both influences will have our wind speeds becoming noticeably lighter over the next few days. The trade winds will likely become soft enough, in some leeward coastal areas, that we will feel rather sultry at times.







As we move into the early part of next week, our local winds will increase in strength again, bringing us back into another long lasting, fair weather, trade wind weather pattern through the rest of the week. 

The instability induced by the upper level trough of low pressure, will prompt some locally heavy leeward biased showers during the afternoon hours. Satellite imagery shows hardly any shower bearing clouds upstream of the islands, so that we can look for generally dry weather through Saturday along the windward sides in contrast. The leftover showery clouds from former eastern Pacific tropical cyclone Genevieve, will bring some increase in showers later this weekend into Monday. As the trade winds return early next week, we’ll find the return of a normal amount of passing showers along the windward sides, with generally sunny and dry conditions prevailing over the leeward beaches.

It’s early Friday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I start updating this last section of today’s narrative. Many areas around the state will remain dry into the weekend. Looking at this satellite image, we see very few clouds moving in our direction on the lighter trade winds…which have down shifted into a lower gear now. We did see locally heavy showers break out over the leeward sides Friday afternoon however, which could return Saturday afternoon as well. 

~~~  Despite the lack of moisture around Friday morning, things changed rather drastically during the afternoon hours. We saw the mostly sunny skies of the morning, become locally very cloudy…aided by the daytime heating of the islands, especially on the leeward sides. I was quite honestly surprised how many showers there were, and how locally heavy they became as well. The windward sides in contrast remained quite clear and dry. I would expect a repeat performance Saturday, although by Saturday night or Sunday, we should see the leading edge of whatever showers that old Genevieve has for us…arriving along the windward sides.

~~~ I’m about ready to leave Kihei, for the drive over to Kahului, where I’ll finally be seeing the new film The Dark Knight (2008). This highly rated film stars Christian Bale, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Heath Ledger (who is now deceased), Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, and Morgan Freeman, among others. This film is being described as an action adventure, with crime and gangster elements. In a nutshell, the Caped Crusader (Batman) returns, protecting Gotham City from the mad criminal mastermind, The Joker. I have been so much looking forward to seeing this film, but have held back, giving the crowds time to thin out. I’m hoping there will be a seat in the theater for this Maui weatherman. Here’s a trailer for this much talked about film. Many of my friends have been giving an A+ rating, so I’ll look forward to giving you my honest impression of this film early Saturday morning, when I’ll be here again with your next new weather narrative from paradise. I hope you have a great Friday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting:

African elephants are being slaughtered for their ivory at a pace unseen since an international ban on the ivory trade took effect in 1989. But the public outcry that resulted in that ban is absent today, and a University of Washington conservation biologist contends it is because the public seems to be unaware of the giant mammals’ plight. The elephant death rate from poaching throughout Africa is about 8 percent a year based on recent studies, which is actually higher than the 7.4 percent annual death rate that led to the international ivory trade ban nearly 20 years ago, said Samuel Wasser, a UW biology professor. But the poaching death rate in the late 1980s was based on a population that numbered more than 1 million. Today the total African elephant population is less than 470,000.

"If the trend continues, there won’t be any elephants except in fenced areas with a lot of enforcement to protect them," said Wasser. He is lead author of a paper in the August issue of Conservation Biology that contends elephants are on a course that could mean most remaining large groups will be extinct by 2020 unless renewed public pressure brings about heightened enforcement. Co-authors are William Clark of the Interpol Working Group on Wildlife Crime and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, Ofir Drori of the Last Great Ape Organization in Cameroon, Emily Kisamo of the Lusaka Agreement Task Force in Kenya, Celia Mailand of the UW, Benezeth Mutayoba of SokoineUniversity in Tanzania and Matthew Stephens of the University of Chicago. Wasser’s laboratory has developed DNA tools that can determine which elephant population ivory came from. That is important because often poachers attack elephants in one country but ship the contraband ivory from an adjacent nation to throw off law enforcement.

Interesting2:

Geoscientists have long presumed that, like today, the tropics remained warm throughout Earth’s last major glaciation 300 million years ago. New evidence, however, indicates that cold temperatures in fact episodically gripped these equatorial latitudes at that time. Geologist Gerilyn Soreghan of Oklahoma University found evidence for this conclusion in the preservation of an ancient glacial landscape in the Rocky Mountains of western Colorado. Three hundred million years ago, the region was part of the tropics. The continents then were assembled into the supercontinent Pangaea. Soreghan and colleagues published their results in the August 2008, issue of the journal Geology.

Climate model simulations are unable to replicate such cold tropical conditions for this time period, said Soreghan. "We are left with the prospect that what has been termed our ‘best-known’ analogue to Earth’s modern glaciation is in fact poorly known." "This study is an example of the wealth of untapped climate information stored in Earth’s ‘deep time’ geologic record millions of years ago," said H. Richard Lane, program director in NSF’s Division of Earth Sciences, which funded the research. "These kinds of discoveries may greatly improve our understanding and prediction of modern climate change."

Interesting3:

Airbus’s A380 superjumbo touched down at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport on Friday, marking the first commercial arrival of the giant, double-decker passenger plane on U.S. soil. The Emirates aircraft, carrying 489 passengers, landed smoothly and on time after a 12-1/2 hour flight from Dubai. The Gulf-based carrier, owned by the government of Dubai, is the second airline to put the A380 into service, following Singapore Airlines , which started A380 flights to Sydney in October. The plane, costing $327 million at list prices, did visit New York and Los Angeles in March last year for route-testing purposes, but Friday’s flight was the first regularly scheduled arrival of an A380 in the United States. With its huge capacity and relatively fuel-efficient engines, airlines hope the world’s biggest passenger jet will be the most cost-effective way of serving high-volume routes linking big cities, especially in light of soaring oil prices.

 

Aloha Paragraphs



  The big city of Honolulu on the island of Oahu
Photo Credit: flickr.com

The trade winds will continue here in the islands, although become lighter Friday into the weekend…increasing again early next week. As an upper level trough of low pressure moves closer to Hawaii soon, and as our long lasting high pressure system to the north, moves westward…our wind speeds will become noticeably lighter over the next couple of days. The trade winds may become soft enough, in those less exposed coastal areas, that some places will begin to feel rather sultry over the weekend.







As we move into the early part of next week, the models suggest that our local winds will increase in strength again, taking the edge off the temporary muggy conditions. 

Whatever few showers that are around now, will continue to end up along the windward sides, leaving the leeward sides with nice weather. These showers won’t amount to much, as there isn’t very much cloudiness upstream from the islands. As the trade winds weaken this weekend, we may begin to see some form of afternoon convective activity increasing, with localized upcountry showers. The leftover showery clouds from former eastern Pacific tropical cyclone Genevieve, will bring some additional increase in showers later this weekend as well. As the trade winds return early next week, we’ll find a normal distribution of passing showers along the windward sides exclusively.

It’s early Thursday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I start updating this last section of today’s narrative. Our fairly normal trade wind weather pattern, that we’ve seen all this week, will start to break down some soon. The trade winds won’t stop blowing altogether, but they will falter enough that we’ll see some changes in our local Hawaiian Island weather picture. The lighter winds will prompt somewhat uncomfortably warm and muggy conditions to develop, especially along the coasts, that have the least exposure to the cooling and refreshing trade winds. The daytime heating, along with afternoon sea breezes, will cause cumulus clouds to stack-up over and around the mountains. 

~~~ As Sunday rolls around, we should see at least some tropical moisture arrive, thanks to what was hurricane Genevieve in the eastern Pacific. This retired tropical system now has no wind involved, but has held together just enough, in terms of its clouds and showers…to hopefully bring some showers to Maui and the Big Island. As we move into the early part of next week, the upper trough will depart, high pressure will become established again to our north, and the moisture from old Genevieve will have pushed off to the west. This will bring us around full circle, with just a typical early August trade wind weather pattern carrying us through most of the rest of next week. I’ll be back very early Friday morning with your next new weather narrative. I hope you have a great Thursday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting:

Scientists have long searched for traces of ancient life on Earth in order to understand the history of life on our planet. Fossilized bones have helped us understand the age of the dinosaurs. Insects trapped in drops of amber have inspired Hollywood films and researchers alike. These remnants of ancient life on Earth provide important clues about our planet’s past. Now, a team of researchers working in New Mexico has found traces of life inside salty halite crystals. The discovery is "an invaluable resource for understanding the evolutionary record [of Earth] over a geological time frame," according to Jack Griffith of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and his colleagues, who recently published their work in the journal Astrobiology.

The finding may even help scientists search for signs of life on other planets.  Halite is more commonly known as "rock salt" and can be found all over the planet in the form of salty crystals. These crystals may not seem all that interesting at first glance. However, inside of them are tiny pockets of water that can be very valuable for scientists. Halite crystals form in liquid as evaporation occurs. The crystals naturally trap small amounts of liquid during this process. These water pockets and all that they contain can be protected inside halite crystals for extremely long periods of time. The crystals in the recent study had drops of water that were 250 million years old.

Interesting2:

The ocean is a noisy place. Although we don’t hear much when we stick our heads underwater, the right instruments can reveal a symphony of sound. The noisemakers range from the low-frequency bass tones of a fish mating ritual to the roar of a motorboat. The study of how underwater animals hear is a growing topic in marine science, especially with regards to naval sonar and whales. This summer at the MBL, zoologist T. Aran Mooney will be the first scientist to look at cephalopod hearing, using the squid, Loligo pealeii, as a model. To learn how sensitive the translucent animals are to noise, he is monitoring squid brain waves as they respond to various sounds, specifically the echolocation clicks of its main predators: the sperm whale, beaked whale, and dolphin. In addition to the brain wave experiments, he also plans to condition squid to avoid certain sounds.

“Sound is one of the most important cues for marine animals. Light doesn’t travel well through the ocean. Sound does much better," says Mooney, who is a Grass Fellow at the MBL and beginning postdoctoral research at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution this fall. He predicts that squid probably hear very low-frequency sounds, which means they pick up on fish tones and boat traffic. A better understanding of what these animals hear could reveal how human-induced noise affects cephalopods and how their auditory system evolved separately from that of fish.

Aloha Paragraphs



  The newest beaches being made on the Big Island!
Photo Credit: Konaboy

We’re now dropping back into a fairly normal trade wind weather pattern, with off and on showers falling along the windward sides. This classic late July situation should last into the first couple of days of August…with sunshine prevailing over the generally dry leeward coasts. As this satellite image shows, we have an area of showery clouds reaching the windward sides of Maui and the Big Island Wednesday evening. There appears to be a break then, before the next batch of clouds arrives during the night…with embedded showers. The computer models show a trough of low pressure approaching the state over the next few days, whose influence may ratchet-up the shower activity some over the windward sides into the weekend. The one main question is whether there will be enough available moisture around, to feed those showers that the models are indicating. One ample source of moisture, is the leftover showery clouds associated with now retired tropical cyclone Genevieve, which was active in the eastern Pacific well over a week ago…and has been moving westward in our direction on the trade wind flow.

The trade winds, which have been rather strong and gusty during the last week, but will mellow-out quite a bit as we get into the weekend. A long lasting, and extremely large, trade wind producing high pressure system remains anchored far to the north of Hawaii at mid-week.







This weather map shows the extent of this exceptionally broad area. This high pressure cell is weighing-in at 1033 millibars, amply strong to spin-out moderately strong trade winds across our tropical latitudes here in the islands. This high is expected to drift out of its position to our north soon, although keep our local trade winds blowing. As we move into the early part of next week, the models suggest that our local winds will edge upward in strength, with no real end in sight from this vantage point.

It’s early Wednesday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I start updating this last section of today’s narrative. Wednesday’s trade winds remained a bit stronger and gusty than what the models had projected. Late in the day, the strongest wind gusts around included 28 mph at Port Allen, Kauai; 32 mph at Kahuku on Oahu; 35 mph on the island of Lanai; 40 at Maalaea Bay, Maui; and 29 mph at South Point on the Big Island. There will be a slow down in our local trade wind speeds, but it may take until Friday into the weekend before it really starts to be noticeable for most folks. Otherwise, nothing too out of the ordinary is expected in our Hawaiian Island weather picture. The beaches along the leeward sides will be most suitable for framing, I mean beaching, during the morning hours…before the afternoon trade winds add white caps to the ocean surface…like they have the last several days in Kihei and Wailea, Maui. I’ll be back very early Thursday morning with your next new weather narrative from paradise, I hope you have a great Wednesday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting:

Beijing’s pollution levels dropped Wednesday to less than half of the previous day’s, the lowest reading since authorities began pulling cars off the road and shutting down factories to address athletes’ concerns about air quality ahead of the Olympic Games. A cooling wind and some rain helped sweep away pollutants and gave Beijingers a respite from the sultry heat and humidity that had cloaked the city for days. The polluted skies over the Olympic host city have been one of the biggest worries for Olympics organizers. The concerns prompted Beijing officials to institute drastic measures earlier this month, included pulling half the city’s 3.3 million vehicles off the roads, halting most construction and closing some factories in the capital and surrounding provinces. The measures are having the desired effect, Du Shaozhong, deputy director of Beijing‘s Environmental Protection Bureau, told The Associated Press in an interview. "The daily data since July 20 shows an improvement in air quality. It reflects the results since we restricted traffic and stopped heavy-polluting factories and construction," he said. "That’s why we say the measures have been effective."

Interesting2:

Arctic sea ice is unlikely to shrink below a 2007 record low this year in a reprieve from the worst predictions of climate change even though new evidence confirms a long-term thaw is under way, experts said. The 2007 record raised worries of a melt that could leave the North Pole ice-free this year, threaten indigenous hunters and thaw ice vital for creatures such as polar bears. It would also help open the Arctic to shipping and oil and gas firms.  "Most likely there will not be a new record minimum ice year in the Arctic this September," said Ola M. Johannessen of the Nansen Environmental and RemoteSensingCenter in west Norway. Arctic sea ice area reaches an annual summer low in September but is about 1 million square kms (386,100 sq mile) bigger than at the same time in late July 2007 at about 6 million sq kms, an area almost as big as Australia. It is still far smaller than the average of recent decades.

"It’s looking rather unlikely that we will beat the record sea ice minimum of 2007," said Mark Serreze, a senior research fellow at the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), adding there could still be surprises. "The North Pole is likely safe for at least this year," he said. The NSIDC had suggested in May that it was "quite possible" that the pole could be ice-free this year. "The basic reason that while last summer saw an ideal atmospheric pattern for melting sea ice — essentially a "perfect storm" — the pattern so far this summer has been characterized by somewhat cooler conditions," he said. The 2007 low area of 4.13 million sq kms shattered a 2005 record and was among factors adding pressure on governments to slow a build-up of greenhouse gases from factories, power plants and cars. Governments have agreed to negotiate a new climate treaty by the end of 2009 to succeed the U.N.’s Kyoto Protocol.

Interesting3: 

Birds have been moving north in Europe over the past 25 years because of climate change in the vanguard of likely huge shifts in the ranges of plants and animals, scientists said on Wednesday. A study of 42 rare bird species in Britain showed that southern European bird species such as the Dartford warbler, Cirl bunting, little egret or Cetti's warbler had become more common in Britain from 1980-2004. And species usually found in northern Europe, such as the fieldfare, redwing or Slavonian grebe, had become less frequent in Britain. "The species are almost certainly responding to the changing climate," said Brian Huntley of DurhamUniversity in England of a report he wrote with researchers at CambridgeUniversity and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. The study tried to filter out other factors that would affect counts of rare birds, including growing public interest that could mean more sightings. Shifts in farming, pollution, expansion of cities and conservation efforts have all affected wildlife. Birds and butterflies are among the first to adapt to climate change because they can fly long distances to seek a cooler habitat. Other creatures and plants can take far longer if their traditional range gets too warm. "It depends on the mobility of the species. Birds and butterflies are two of the groups where there is the best evidence that species are already showing responses to the changing climate," Huntley told Reuters of the study in Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

 

Aloha Paragraphs



Diamond Head Crater…Honolulu just to the left
Photo Credit: flickr.com

We’ve just moved through quite a flurry of rain showers, which in places got rather generous along the windward sides the last several days. Maui and the BigIsland hit the jackpot, at least locally, picking up enough precipitation to push the drought conditions back nicely. Those windward biased showers last night on the BigIsland, got heavy enough in places, that the NWS forecast office in Honolulu had to issue a flood advisory, which was cancelled earlier Tuesday morning. The largest rainfall total occurred at one of the rainiest places here in the islands, and no it wasn’t at MountWaialaele on Kauai for a change…but rather atop the West Maui Mountains, at the Puu Kukui rain gauge, where 4.54” of the wet stuff rained down! Honokaa and Glenwood, both on the BigIsland, ended up with 3.17” and 3.24”…which isn’t too shabby either.

At least some of those incoming showers were part of the leftover moisture from retired hurricane Fausto, when it was active in the eastern Pacific. Several moisture pockets are just upwind of Maui and the Big Island, which should arrive on the windward side of Oahu later in the evening. Looking even further east, in what we can consider upstream (in reference to the trade winds), there are more showers in that direction. The brighter white clouds to our south and west, are the tops of towering cumulus, and thunderstorms. The ones to our south and southeast are part of the inter-tropical convergence zone (ITCZ)…a broad zone of low pressure running parallel to the equator. The white clouds, with cold cloud tops, are thunderstorms associated with a trough of low pressure over near the International Dateline.

As this satellite image shows, the leading edge of former hurricane Genevieve, once active in the eastern Pacific, has appeared in the right hand side of the picture. You’ll see this by running an imaginary line just about straight to the right of the Big Island. If it can retain its organization, and not get too pulled apart by the trade winds, we would see it arriving with more showers at some point this weekend.

It’s early Tuesday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I start writing this last section of today’s narrative.  It was a a nice day there in the islands, as the rather abundant showers of the last few days, especially along the windward sides of the islands…diminished shortly after sunrise. The winds remain up however, with blustery conditions in many areas. Looking at the strongest gust late in the afternoon, we found that be 43 mph at that windy bay in Maalaea. The next strongest gusts were 37 mph at both Kahului, Maui, and on the island of Lanai. We should find rather typical weather conditions through the next four days or so, although the trade winds will be somewhat stronger than normal locally. As we move into Sunday, we still have that chance of increased showers, only time will tell if we actually receive them or not. I’ll be back very early Wednesday morning with your next new weather narrative from paradise, I hope you have a great Tuesday night until then! Aloha for now, Glenn.

Interesting: Environmental officials say their efforts are starting to clear the haze above Beijing, while strong wind and some rain have also raised hopes of blue skies when the Olympic Games start in just over a week. The city has put in place a series of drastic pollution controls since July 20 that included pulling half the city’s 3.3 million vehicles off the roads, halting most construction and closing some factories in the capital and surrounding provinces. But Beijing has been dogged in the last week by a persistent haze that cloaked the city, threatening assurances by Chinese authorities that skies will be clear when the games start on Aug. 8. Tuesday’s relatively clearer skies highlighted how much weather conditions play a part in the overall equation for curbing pollution. Winds and rain were a "major factor" in causing pollutants to dissipate, said spokeswoman Zhai Xiaohui with the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau.

The government has worked on cloud seeding to control rain, but has acknowledged the wind remains an unpredictable factor. A cold front pushing through northeastern China brought light rains and temporary relief from sweltering temperatures. A top environmental official said Tuesday that the air in July had greatly improved when compared to the same month last year. After the adoption of these measures, we have seen visible improvements," Du Shaozhong, deputy director of Beijing‘s Environmental Protection Bureau, told a news conference. There have been 25 days of clean air in July, two more than the same period last year, he said. Du did not say what constituted clean air, but said since July 1, major pollutants have been reduced by 15 to 20 percent.

Interesting2: U.S. beaches were in poor health last year, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, which said Tuesday that pollution in 2007 led to the second-highest number of beach closings and advisory days in 18 years. Human and animal fecal matter were to blame for much of the pollution, the council said in its annual report, leaving many beachgoers vulnerable to illnesses including gastroenteritis, dysentery and hepatitis. The council also blamed outdated water quality standards and called for more rigorous monitoring of beaches. Last year there were 22,571 beach closings and advisory days, the group said, citing data from the Environmental Protection Agency. The number was second only to 2006, when there were 25,643 such days. From 2006 to 2007, the number of beach closings and advisory days due to sewage spills and overflows more than tripled to 4,097, the council said.  

The largest known pollution source continues to be storm water contamination, which caused more than 10,000 closing and advisory days in 2007, the council said. Storm water dumps street pollution onto beaches and coastal waters without treatment whenever it rains.  Unknown sources of pollution caused more than 8,000 closing and advisory days, the NRDC said. “Some families can’t enjoy their local beaches because they are polluted and kids are getting sick — largely because of human and animal waste in the water,” Nancy Stoner, director of the council’s clean water project, said in a statement released with the report. "Nationally, 7 percent of beach water samples violated health standards, showing no improvement from 2006," the NRDC said. "In the Great Lakes, 15 percent of beach water samples violated those standards — the highest level of contamination of any coastal region in the continental U.S."

Interesting3: Ice is in retreat worldwide as glaciers melt, Arctic ice floes vanish, and Antarctic ice shelves break apart. Will all of it eventually disappear as the globe warms? Not necessarily, say André Bornemann of the University of Leipzig in Germany and several colleagues. From sediment cores drilled out of the Atlantic seafloor, they retrieved fossils of tiny, shell-encased marine organisms called foraminifers that lived 91 million years ago during the Cretaceous Thermal Maximum, when tropical seas were about 12 Fahrenheit degrees warmer than they are today. The fossils’ shells contained a high proportion of oxygen-18, an isotope that increases in the ocean relative to oxygen-16 when water evaporates from the sea and gets trapped on land as ice. The isotope data suggest that even during the hot spell, an ice sheet half the size of the current Antarctic ice cap existed — but where? It couldn’t have been near the North Pole, which the fossil record shows was then home to heat-loving crocodiles. Instead, Bornemann thinks the ice cap covered high mountain ranges near the South Pole. The warm weather prevailing elsewhere would have injected plenty of moisture into the air to fall as snow on high altitudes way down south. But make no mistake. Compared with today, a lot of ice was missing back then, and sea levels were much higher — a history that seems to be on the verge of repeating itself. The research was detailed earlier this year in the journal Science.

Interesting4: Two small, manned submarines reached the bottom of Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest freshwater lake, on Tuesday, Russian news reports said. The "Mir-1" and "Mir-2" submersibles descended 1.05 miles (1,680 meters) to the bottom of the vast Siberian lake, reports said. Scientists on board will take samples of water and soil from Lake Baikal, which is home to more than 1,700 species of plants and animals, reports said. They also will plant a small pyramid bearing the Russian flag in the lake bed, reports said. Russian news agencies earlier cited organizers as saying the expeditions set a world record for the deepest descent in a freshwater lake. State Duma deputy and expedition leader Artur Chilingarov later said no such record was broken Tuesday, the Interfax news agency said. Mission chief Anatoly Sagalevich said the mission will make a total of 60 dives. Organizers then will compile a list of recommendations at how best to preserve Lake Baikal, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Last August, the "Mir-1" and "Mir-2" descended below the North Pole, with Russians on board planting their country’s flag in a titanium capsule on the Arctic Ocean floor to symbolically claim the seabed.