Aloha Paragraphs



Lovely hula hands
Photo Credit: flickr.com

The moderately strong trade winds will prevail Sunday into Monday. These balmy breezes will provide good weather all around, keeping just enough wind around to temper our hot afternoons at the beach. As this weather map shows, we have a robust high pressure center located far to the north of Hawaii…which will be the source of our trades through the next several days. The computer models suggest that this trade wind reality will remain in place through Tuesday. We may see some softening in the trade wind speeds around the middle of the week.

Dry weather will continue in most areas, with just a few light showers falling along the windward sides Sunday. Those windward biased showers will drop during the nights and early mornings for the most part. The leeward sides will bask in daytime sunshine, with no rainfall expected. There’s a good chance that we might see an increase in showers early Monday, from the remnant moisture brought our way by former eastern Pacific tropical system Fausto. Meanwhile, there remains the chance that around next weekend, another retired tropical system (the current tropical storm Genevieve), now in the eastern Pacific, will bring a second increase in tropical showers…as it gets carried in our direction on the trades.

~~~  Last evening when I got off work in Kihei, I went to see the new film X-Files: I want to Believe (2008). This film stars David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, and Amanda Peet, among others. This adaptation of the popular tv series, brings together the two paranormal agents once again. The truth is that I wasn’t drawn to the tv show, and found the movie last evening to be a little too spooky for my liking. There were too many disturbing features of this film, and I could have easily given it a pass. I’m sure it was a fine piece of work, if you’re drawn to that kind of subject matter, but I know now that I’m not. 

~~~ It’s early Saturday evening here in Kula, Maui, as I start updating this last section of today’s narrative.



















I ended up lazing around all day, never getting anywhere near my car, much less driving anywhere. The weather has been fabulous all day just about everywhere in Hawaii. Looking over towards the windward side, towards Paia and Haiku, I don’t see even one cloud in the sky! Speaking of Haiku, I’ll be heading over that way soon, as I have a friend’s birthday party to attend. I understand that there will be lots of good food to eat, a bonfire, and a disc jockey spinning CD’s for the guests dancing pleasure. Typically, parties aren’t a big draw for this Maui weatherman, but when I’m told that there will be good music and dancing, that will sometimes pull me in. I’ll let you know how it was Sunday morning, when I have your next new weather narrative available here. It may not be at the crack of dawn, or before that, like it usuallly is during the weekdays, and often Saturday mornings too. I need one day, Sunday, to get up when I feel like it, without having an alarm clock in my ear at 4am. So, I hope you have a nice Saturday night yourself, perhaps out dancing yourself, or whatever! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting: China’s efforts to clear the skies over its polluted capital are having an effect, officials said on Friday, insisting that Beijing’s air would be safe for Olympic athletes despite persistent smog over the city. Beijing authorities have taken cars off the road and opened new subway lines in the past week, in addition to halting some construction and suspending factory production, in a last-ditch effort to ensure clear skies when the Games open on August 8. "For the effects of the measures we have taken to be increasingly felt, we will have to make continued efforts," Du Shaozhong, of the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau, told a news conference. "Given the geographical location of Beijing, it is rather difficult to improve air quality and cut emissions," he said. The city’s chronic pollution, a source of respiratory illness, has been one of the biggest worries for Games organizers, who have had to deflect international criticism over air quality and who have struggled to contain the environmental effects of China’s breakneck economic growth.

Athletes have also expressed concern, with Ethiopia’s Haile Gebrselassie saying he will take part in the 10,000m race, but not the marathon, in Beijing due to worries about air quality, and others saying pollution levels could affect performance. Du conceded that Beijing‘s air quality on Friday was below par, meeting only level 3 on China‘s five-point scale air pollution index. But he said that the overall trend was improving, with a 20 percent reduction in carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter — all pollutants related to vehicle emissions — since the same period last year. According to China‘s Air Pollution Index, 22 days this month have been "blue-sky days", Du said. But the index is not internationally recognized, does not calculate the cumulative effect of different pollutants and omits several of them. 

Interesting2: Companies seeking oil in the Arctic will need better technology to clean up spills onto ice and could new face hazards such as rougher seas caused by climate change, experts said on Friday. The U.S. Geological Survey estimated this week that 22 percent of the world’s undiscovered, technically recoverable reserves of oil and gas were in the Arctic, raising environmentalists’ worries about possible impact on wildlife. "The Exxon Valdez showed what a catastrophe can be caused by oil in the Arctic," said Ilan Kelman, a scientist at the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo. "The environment is remote, harsh and vulnerable."  The Exxon Valdez tanker ran aground off Alaska in 1989, spilling 11 million U.S. gallons of oil off Alaska and killing thousands of birds and marine mammals. Commercial Arctic oil exploitation began in Canada in the 1920s at Norman Wells but oil companies still lack full technology to handle spills, for instance, if oil seeps into or below ice floating on the sea.

"Responding to major oil spills remains a major challenge in remote, icy environments. This is especially true for spills in waters where ice is present," according to a 2007 report by the Arctic Council, grouping all governments with Arctic territory. New cleanup technologies "have yet to be fully tested…spill prevention should be the first priority for all petroleum activities," according to the study for the United States, Canada, Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Iceland. Governments and oil companies are developing stringent safety standards to minimize risks of spills. The WWF environmental group urged a moratorium on all oil and gas exploration until there was proper anti-spill technology and an ability to deploy clean-up equipment quickly to remote sites hit by winter darkness.

Interesting3:

A new report released by Oceana today concludes that sharks are invaluable to maintaining healthy ocean ecosystems. Predators as Prey: Why Healthy Oceans Need Sharks shows that as shark populations decline, the oceans suffer unpredictable and devastating consequences. Sharks have unfortunately fallen victim to the man-hungry "Jaws" stereotype society has created for them. But as Shark Week nears, Oceana wants the world to know that what we should really fear are oceans without sharks. Sharks now represent the largest group of threatened marine species on the World Conservation Union’s (IUCN) Red List of threatened species. "Humans represent the greatest threat facing sharks today," said Elizabeth Griffin, marine wildlife scientist at Oceana.

"Without proper management and increased enforcement, some shark species are likely to go extinct." Each year, humans kill more than 100 million sharks worldwide. Shark finning alone kills 26 to 73 million sharks annually. Because shark carcasses are bulky, take up a lot of space and are less valuable, they are often thrown overboard. In fact, the practice of shark finning is extremely wasteful and only uses between one and five percent of the shark.  Sharks also are incidentally captured as "bycatch," a term used for unintended catch, in commercial fisheries. It is estimated that tens of millions of sharks are caught as bycatch each year, which is nearly half of the total shark catch worldwide. When sharks are caught as bycatch they are often thrown overboard, many of them dead or seriously injured.  

Aloha Paragraphs



Catching the trade winds in those colorful sails
Photo Credit: flickr.com

High pressure centers to the north and northeast of Hawaii, will keep our trade winds blowing well into the future. These breezes will remain blowing in the more or less moderately strong realms…although still locally gusty. The small craft wind advisory will stay alive over the windiest coastal and channel waters in the southern part of the island chain. The computer models show no end in sight for these cooling and refreshing winds, keeping them active through the rest of July…right on into the deep summer month of August.

As is common during a trade wind weather pattern, we’ll see a few passing showers falling along the windward sides. These showers will arrive in an off and on fashion through the weekend into next week. The leeward areas will see less cloudiness and showers, and more sunshine and dry weather continuing. There’s a decent chance that we might see an increase in showers at the beginning of the new week, from the remnant moisture brought our way by former eastern Pacific tropical system Fausto. Additionally, there remains the chance that late next week, another old tropical system (the current hurricane Genevieve), now in the eastern Pacific, will bring a second increase in tropical showers…as it gets carried in our direction on the trades.

~~~ The eastern Pacific Ocean has been quite busy thus far into the 2008 hurricane season. We’ve seen four hurricanes already, which is about two weeks ahead of the average date for four of them to have occurred…which is August 10th. At this point, the eastern Pacific has already had more hurricanes than all of the 2007 hurricane season combined. Unless there’s a big slow down, we’ll see more hurricanes spinning up over there. Here in the central Pacific, we’ve seen no tropical cyclone activity yet, although former hurricane Elida (the third eastern Pacific hurricane), crossed over into our area as a tropical disturbance…prompting gusty trade winds and generous showers recently, as it passed just south of our islands. Here’s a tracking map showing hurricane Genevieve in relation to the Hawaiian Islands. This hurricane will be running over a cooler sea surface soon, which will take some of the steam out of its sails…stepping it down through the tropical storm, tropical depression stages, into a much weaker tropical disturbance before it moves into our central Pacific. Here’s a looping satellite image of that wild lady, spinning the waters far to our east.

~~~ It’s early Friday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I start updating this last paragraph of today’s narrative. As



















expected, our weather has taken a turn fully back into the late July normal realms. That means gusty trade winds, lots of sunshine, just a few windward biased showers…along with warm air and ocean! This weekend looks like a great one, with nothing out of the usual anywhere in sight. As we move into the new week, we may see some increase in windward showers at some point Monday into Tuesday, and then again later in the week…as the moisture of retired tropical cyclones from the eastern Pacific, get carried our way on the trade wind flow. This evening, I can’t quite decide if I’ll go see the new The X-Files: I Want To Believe film, or The Dark Knight (Batman) film. It will be one or the other, and I’ll be here early Saturday morning with my review. The next new narrative will be here before I take off to surf the Lahaina side in the morning, where I expect to find small waves, similar to last weekend…perhaps just barely large enough to make the drive worth it. At any rate, I hope you have a great Friday night wherever you happen to be spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn. 

Interesting: China’s efforts to clear the skies over its polluted capital are having an effect, officials said on Friday, insisting that Beijing’s air would be safe for Olympic athletes despite persistent smog over the city. Beijing authorities have taken cars off the road and opened new subway lines in the past week, in addition to halting some construction and suspending factory production, in a last-ditch effort to ensure clear skies when the Games open on August 8. "For the effects of the measures we have taken to be increasingly felt, we will have to make continued efforts," Du Shaozhong, of the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau, told a news conference. "Given the geographical location of Beijing, it is rather difficult to improve air quality and cut emissions," he said. The city’s chronic pollution, a source of respiratory illness, has been one of the biggest worries for Games organizers, who have had to deflect international criticism over air quality and who have struggled to contain the environmental effects of China’s breakneck economic growth.

Athletes have also expressed concern, with Ethiopia’s Haile Gebrselassie saying he will take part in the 10,000m race, but not the marathon, in Beijing due to worries about air quality, and others saying pollution levels could affect performance. Du conceded that Beijing‘s air quality on Friday was below par, meeting only level 3 on China‘s five-point scale air pollution index. But he said that the overall trend was improving, with a 20 percent reduction in carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter — all pollutants related to vehicle emissions — since the same period last year. According to China‘s Air Pollution Index, 22 days this month have been "blue-sky days", Du said. But the index is not internationally recognized, does not calculate the cumulative effect of different pollutants and omits several of them. 

Interesting2: Companies seeking oil in the Arctic will need better technology to clean up spills onto ice and could new face hazards such as rougher seas caused by climate change, experts said on Friday. The U.S. Geological Survey estimated this week that 22 percent of the world’s undiscovered, technically recoverable reserves of oil and gas were in the Arctic, raising environmentalists’ worries about possible impact on wildlife. "The Exxon Valdez showed what a catastrophe can be caused by oil in the Arctic," said Ilan Kelman, a scientist at the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo. "The environment is remote, harsh and vulnerable."  The Exxon Valdez tanker ran aground off Alaska in 1989, spilling 11 million U.S. gallons of oil off Alaska and killing thousands of birds and marine mammals. Commercial Arctic oil exploitation began in Canada in the 1920s at Norman Wells but oil companies still lack full technology to handle spills, for instance, if oil seeps into or below ice floating on the sea.

"Responding to major oil spills remains a major challenge in remote, icy environments. This is especially true for spills in waters where ice is present," according to a 2007 report by the Arctic Council, grouping all governments with Arctic territory. New cleanup technologies "have yet to be fully tested…spill prevention should be the first priority for all petroleum activities," according to the study for the United States, Canada, Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Iceland. Governments and oil companies are developing stringent safety standards to minimize risks of spills. The WWF environmental group urged a moratorium on all oil and gas exploration until there was proper anti-spill technology and an ability to deploy clean-up equipment quickly to remote sites hit by winter darkness.

Interesting3:

A new report released by Oceana today concludes that sharks are invaluable to maintaining healthy ocean ecosystems. Predators as Prey: Why Healthy Oceans Need Sharks shows that as shark populations decline, the oceans suffer unpredictable and devastating consequences. Sharks have unfortunately fallen victim to the man-hungry "Jaws" stereotype society has created for them. But as Shark Week nears, Oceana wants the world to know that what we should really fear are oceans without sharks. Sharks now represent the largest group of threatened marine species on the World Conservation Union’s (IUCN) Red List of threatened species. "Humans represent the greatest threat facing sharks today," said Elizabeth Griffin, marine wildlife scientist at Oceana.

"Without proper management and increased enforcement, some shark species are likely to go extinct." Each year, humans kill more than 100 million sharks worldwide. Shark finning alone kills 26 to 73 million sharks annually. Because shark carcasses are bulky, take up a lot of space and are less valuable, they are often thrown overboard. In fact, the practice of shark finning is extremely wasteful and only uses between one and five percent of the shark.  Sharks also are incidentally captured as "bycatch," a term used for unintended catch, in commercial fisheries. It is estimated that tens of millions of sharks are caught as bycatch each year, which is nearly half of the total shark catch worldwide. When sharks are caught as bycatch they are often thrown overboard, many of them dead or seriously injured.  

Aloha Paragraphs



Great breaking wave shot!
Photo Credit: Flickr.com

Trade wind producing high pressure systems to the north of the islands, will keep our winds rather gusty into Friday…softening a little going into the weekend. Our trade winds will come down a notch or two in strength over the next couple of days, bringing them in line with what could be considered normal for this mid-summer period. We continue to see small craft wind advisory flags waving over the windiest coastal and channel waters in the southern part of the island chain. These winds are famous for bringing their cooling and refreshing relief from the July tropical heat.

These breezy trade winds will continue to carry occasional passing showers to our windward sides. These showers will arrive in an off and on manner through the rest of this week into next week. The night and early morning hours will be the favored times for these trade wind showers. The leeward areas will see less cloudiness and showers, and more sunshine and dry weather continuing. There’s some chance that we might see an increase in showers late next week…as an old tropical system (Genevieve), now in the eastern Pacific, gets carried in our direction on the trades.

~~~  It’s early Thursday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I begin updating this last section of today’s narrative. We now find ourselves in the beginning of what looks to be a prolonged period of trade winds. The winds will vary a bit in strength from day to day, but in general we’re looking for moderately strong trade winds continuing well into the future.  Thursday turned out to be a lovely day, with a ton of sunshine beaming down, and considerably less cloudiness than we’ve seen over the last several days. The atmosphere has dried out right on schedule too, keeping showers limited for the most part to a couple of windward sections. The trade winds remained active, and still on the gusty side of the wind spectrum. Looking at the strongest gusts late Thursday afternoon, the island of Lanai, and Maalaea Bay here on Maui, showed 36 and 39 mph. Friday looks like it will be another nice summer day, which will lead right on into a pleasant weekend. I’ll be back very early Friday morning with your next new weather narrative from paradise. Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting: The world’s wetlands, threatened by development, dehydration and climate change, could release a planet-warming "carbon bomb" if they are destroyed, ecological scientists said recently. Wetlands contain 771 billion tons of greenhouse gases, one-fifth of all the carbon on Earth and about the same amount of carbon as is now in the atmosphere, the scientists said before an international conference linking wetlands and global warming. If all the wetlands on the planet released the carbon they hold, it would contribute powerfully to the climate-warming greenhouse effect, said Paulo Teixeira, coordinator of the Pantanal Regional Environment Program in Brazil.  "We could call it the carbon bomb," Teixeira said by telephone from Cuiaba, Brazil, site of the conference.

"It’s a very tricky situation."  Some 700 scientists from 28 nations are meeting this week at the INTECOL International Wetlands Conference at the edge of Brazil‘s vast Pantanal wetland to look for ways to protect these endangered areas. Wetlands are not just swamps: they also include marshes, peat bogs, river deltas, mangroves, tundra, lagoons and river flood plains. Together they account for 6 percent of Earth’s land surface and store 20 percent of its carbon. They also produce 25 percent of the world’s food, purify water, recharge aquifers and act as buffers against violent coastal storms. Historically, wetlands have been regarded as an impediment to civilization. About 60 percent of wetlands worldwide have been destroyed in the past century, mostly due to draining for agriculture. Pollution, dams, canals, groundwater pumping, urban development and peat extraction add to the destruction.

Interesting2:

A young whale pokes its melon-shaped head into the cool morning air near this remote island, a sign its herd is thriving despite mounting threats in Russia’s melting Arctic. Cameras and microphones capture the whale’s every move as scientists use the species only shore-side breeding ground to see how they are coping as fleets of oil tankers replace melting ice in their traditional feeding grounds. "Belugas are a bellwether species… what happens to them reflects the effects of pollution and global warming on the whole ecosystem," said Vsevolod Belkovich, a professor at the RussianAcademy of Science who is leading the study. Scientists have recorded a small drop in the whale population that they attribute in part to human activity in Arctic regions.

"As global warming continues, the threats are going to grow dramatically," Belkovich said. Since monitoring began scores of whales have traveled hundreds of miles (kilometers) each year to this White Sea sandbank to mate, frolic and train their young. Distinctive markings on the whales’ backs allow the researchers to track the population from year to year, monitoring their health, longevity and interactions with rival herds. "It’s the only place in the world they come so close to the shore," said Vladimir Baranov, a senior researcher with Moscow’s Institute of Oceanology, who films the Belugas close up underwater in their natural setting.

Interesting3: Older people are known to be lousy sleepers, but a new study suggests it might all be in their heads, at least for many of them. Medications, poor health, bad bedtime habits (such as watching a movie or drinking coffee or booze), circadian rhythms, and too much or too little in their personal "sleep bank" have all taken the blame for seniors’ common complaints of insomnia. Elizabeth Klerman of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard Medical School set out to clear it up once and for all with a controlled study of 18 subjects ages 60 to 76 and 35 younger subjects, ages 18 to 32, all healthy and not on medication that might affect sleep.

Even people who had crossed more than one time zone in the past 3 months were disqualified, as well as those who had worked night or rotating shifts in the past three years. After monitoring their sleep at home, the subjects were regularly instructed to lie quietly with their eyes closed and to try to sleep, for as much as 16 hours daily for several days in a row. They had all the time in the world. The bottom line was that the seniors simply needed less sleep — about 1.5 hours less. he results are detailed online in the July 24 issue of the journal Current Biology. Younger subjects slept for an average of 9 hours compared to 7.5 for older people, said Klerman and her colleague Derk-Jan Dijk of the Surrey Sleep Research Centre in England.

Interesting4:

Seagrass meadows, which are vital for the survival of much marine life and a source of household materials in Europe and Africa, face a mounting threat from global warming. The report, from the Swiss-based International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), said the submerged meadows — many around the Mediterranean — could be saved through concerted action by governments and scientists. "Seagrass habitats are already declining due to increasing water temperatures, algae (seaweed) growth and light reduction, which are all effects of global change," said IUCN specialist Mats Bjork, one of the authors of the report.

The report said the grass — flowering plants found in shallow waters around the globe — provides food and shelter for prawn and fish populations and is used traditionally as mattress filling, roof covering and for medicines. If much of it were to disappear, a wide range of species — including dugongs, sea turtles, sea urchins and seabirds who feed on it — would also come under increased threat, according to the report. The report said some of the healthiest seagrass areas known to exist today were off the North African coast of Libya and Tunisia in areas where there had been little industrial or tourism development. Carl Gustaf Lundin, head of IUCN’s Global Marine Programme, said the meadows could be saved by making seagrass more resilient to climbing temperatures through mixing genetically more diverse populations.

Aloha Paragraphs



The sheer walls of Mount Waialeale, Kauai…
one of the wettest places on Earth
Photo Credit: Flickr.com

The trade winds will remain rather strong and gusty for another day…then mellow out some Friday. An old tropical cyclone from the eastern Pacific (Elida) is now to the southwest of the Hawaiian Islands. This retired tropical cyclone, now simply a vortex, or a counterclockwise swirling area of low pressure…will keep our local trade winds enhanced for a little while longer. These locally blustery winds will begin to relax Friday, and remain at the more or less normal moderately strong realms through the weekend, into early next week.

The strong and gusty trade winds have carried lots of showers our way, some of which were the northern fringe of former Elida. The Big Island and Maui received the most generous showers…with over 4.00" on the Big Island, and over 6.00" on Maui in the wettest spots! The island of Oahu picked up a bit of the moisture, being carried along the gusty trade winds, while Kauai was too far north to catch many. There will be more showers arriving along the windward sides, although satellite imagery shows drier conditions heading our way soon.

~~~  The tropical disturbance, which passed by to our south, continues to move away towards the west. If you click on this looping satellite image, you will see what’s left of Elida to the lower left of the Hawaiian Islands. This area of low pressure will continue its journey westward, leaving a drier atmosphere in its wake. As the old tropical system moves away, the pressure gradient over the islands will relax, which simply means that our local trade wind speeds will return to more normal realms soon.

~~~  It’s early Wednesday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I begin updating this last section of today’s narrative. The rich tropical moisture brought into the islands, with its higher than normal atmospheric water content, has made for hot and sultry conditions. The high temperatures haven’t broken any records, but it sure has felt hot and muggy during the days…especially right down near the coasts, and in particular where the trade winds haven’t been able to reach! My car thermometer during my lunch break, here in Kihei, was reading 96F degrees again early this afternoon!

~~~ The bulk of the high clouds streaming up from the departing tropical disturbance, which provided a great sunrise Wednesday morning, have mostly thinned out and are located to the west of Kauai. There may still be a few thin strands left behind, which could provide a few nice colors here and there. All and all, we’re heading back towards a normal summertime trade wind weather pattern. The next thing of interest will be the rising surf along our south and west facing leeward beaches. 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:

A tiny Canadian satellite is gearing up for a mission to hunt wayward space rocks that may pose a threat to Earth. Only the size of a suitcase, the Near Earth Object Surveillance Satellite (NEOSSat) has a 5.9-inch (15-cm) telescope and weighs about 143 pounds (65 kg). But it’s designed to hunt for threatening space rocks from Earth orbit, where the telescope can avoid interference from the planet’s atmosphere. “That’s why a small telescope in space can be a lot more comparable to a large telescope on the ground,” said Alan Hildebrand, planetary scientist at the University of Calgary and head of the asteroid search project for NEOSSat.

The Canadian microsatellite would also keep an eye on Earth’s satellite traffic for both U.S. and Canadian space commands, swiveling around to target space rocks and satellites hundreds of times a day. That requires a revolutionary turning system for the $12 million-satellite to do its job upon launch in early 2010. Astronomers have particular interest in Near Earth Objects, because such objects might threaten Earth in the near or distant future. Nearby asteroids could likewise serve as targets for future spacecraft missions to investigate. NEOSSat will also shed more light on the less famous Inner Earth Objects, or asteroids found close to the sun within Earth’s orbit, mission managers said.





















Interesting2:

Like humans with a nose for the best restaurants, roundworms also use their senses of taste and smell to navigate. And now, researchers may have found how a worm’s brain does this: It performs calculus. Worms calculate how much the strength of different tastes is changing — equivalent to the process of taking a derivative in calculus — to figure out if they are on their way toward food or should change direction and look elsewhere, says University of Oregon biologist Shawn Lockery, who thinks humans and other animals do the same thing. This research could one day benefit some of the more than 200,000 Americans who detect a foul smell or taste that is actually pleasant or have a weakened or depleted ability to appreciate the scent of a lilac or savor the flavor of a juicy burger.

"The more we know about how taste and smell function — not just at the level of primary sensory neurons, but downstream in the brain — the better prepared we will be to understand when the system is broken," Lockery says.  With the aid of salt and chili peppers, Lockery reached the calculating-worms conclusion by studying two anatomically identical neurons from the worm’s brain that collectively regulate behavior. These two neurons function like "on" and "off" gates in a computer in response to changes in salt concentration levels. This dubiously delicious discovery, detailed in the July 3 issue of the journal Nature, hints at the method for smelling and tasting that is thought to be common among a wide variety of species, including humans.












































 

Interesting3: Within a decade, most new cars will be equipped with clean-drive technology and a host of easy to serve technical gadgets that will make driving much more comfortable and safer than today. Engineers are currently working on several technologies that were still fiction in the 1980s American television series Knight Rider in which David Hasselhoff is partnered by an autonomous car called KITT with artificial intelligence. Like KITT, the car of the future recognises its owner with a mini iris-recognition camera. The front-mounted "scan bar" in KITT is similar to the mini cameras currently being tested that perceive the car surroundings, informing the driver of possible danger zones. It even brakes automatically if the driver does not react. Some of the gadgets such as night vision and brake-assist are already available in premium cars such as the new BMW 7-Series but will become the norm in a few years time.

Once the driver sits into the car, the vehicle automatically adjusts the seat and steering wheel settings to the ideal position. The car entertainment system meanwhile plays his/her favourite music while the navigation system begins to choose the best route. Like KITT, the car could theoretically drive itself, drop its driver outside the office and choose the next available parking space. Cars will be in contact with other cars and traffic information centers picking up information on accidents, traffic jams or parking areas. Many of the functions presently in use have complicated menu programs, switches or buttons. In future you will be able to speak to your car like Hasselhoff to KITT, telling it what to do.

Volkswagen has just released a new website on www.Volkswagen2028.com showing its vision of the car in the year 2028, which according to VW’s Dr Wolfgang Steiger, will be entirely emission-free and built with sustainable materials. VW’s head of future research and trend transfer Wolfgang Mueller-Pietralla says that the car of the future will be a "lot more fun, evolving from purely a vehicle to a living space" where we can do most of the things we do at home or in the office like phoning, shopping, watching television or surfing the internet. Car assistance systems will eliminate most of the risks we have on the road today. Camera-assisted fatigue recognition systems tell the driver when to rest. The mini cameras with night vision monitor the vehicle surroundings by 180 degrees, picking up possible dangers from any angle, informing the vehicle information system on what action to take.

Aloha Paragraphs



Breezy trade winds into Wednesday
Photo Credit: Flickr.com

We’ll find increasingly strong trade winds blowing across the Hawaiian Islands into Wednesday. Strengthening, trade wind producing high pressure centers to the north of Hawaii, will be the source of our temporary surge in trade winds. At the same time, a former eastern Pacific tropical cyclone (named Elida), is passing by to the south of our islands. The combination of high pressure to our north, and the low pressure vortex moving by to our south…will enhance our local trade winds noticeably. The NWS has issued a small craft wind advisory for most of our marine waters, with a wind advisory now in effect for the summit of the Haleakala Crater on Maui, and the summits on the Big Island as well. These blustery winds will calm down already starting Thursday, and remain at the more normal moderately strong realms through the rest of the week…into next week.

Note: Winds were gusting to just below 50 mph at Maalaea Bay, Maui at 3pm Tuesday afternoon.

This surge of trade winds will carry increasing showers to the islands, especially to the windward sides. The leading edge of the tropical moisture associated with, what was Elida, arrived over the Big Island Tuesday morning, which will move up the island chain to Maui during the evening…with a chance of bring showers to the other islands Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. The most generous showers will fall along the windward sides of the Big Island. There are some isolated thunderstorms embedded in this rich tropical moisture, which could bring localized flooding to parts of the Big Island.  Here’s a looping radar image, so we can monitor the incoming showers. Drier weather will follow in the wake of this temporary surge in shower activity by Thursday, remaining nice through the rest of the week.

~~~ It’s early Tuesday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I begin writing this last section of today’s narrative. We’re experiencing locally windy and wet trade wind weather in places. Almost everywhere has experienced, or will see stronger than normal trade winds, although its still not clear exactly how far north, up the island chain, the showery weather will extend. The Big Island will see lots of showers, some heavy. The islands of Maui County may see some of this action too, although not as much as the Big Island. Oahu and Kauai are less likely to see this moisture, although will find fairly ordinary trade wind showers arriving at times too. If you click on this satellite image, you will see what’s left of Elida, to the south of the Hawaiian Islands…as it spins westward. Here’s a looping picture showing the tropical disturbance in motion.

~~~ Elida was a hurricane earlier in her life while in the eastern Pacific, but is now simply a low level swirl of clouds, with towering cumulus clouds and thunderstorms popping-up around the center of this tropical disturbance. As this vortex (area of low pressure) moves away to the west later Wednesday into Thursday, our trade winds will slow down, and our shower activity will diminish. All this wind has kicked up high surf along our east facing showers. As we get into Thursday, the winds will calm down, the showers will decrease, and we’ll push back into a normal summery trade wind weather pattern through the rest of the week. I’ll be back very early Wednesday morning with your next new weather narrative from paradise. I hope you have a great Tuesday night wherever you happen to be spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting:

Based on the projected path of Tropical Storm Dolly, the U.S. Census Bureau today calculated that about 1.5 million people could feel the storm’s effects as it makes landfall along the Texas coast. The National Hurricane Center predicts that Dolly could arrive near the southern most part of Texas by late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning. A hurricane warning is in effect for the Texas coast from Brownsville to Corpus Christi. A hurricane warning means that hurricane conditions are expected within the warning area within the next 24 hours.

The storm, currently in the Gulf of Mexico, is about 230 miles southeast of Brownsville, with a population of more than 172,000. According to the Census Bureau’s 2006 American Community Survey, the median housing value in Brownsville (the county seat of CameronCounty) is $68,500. Nearly 60 percent of the homes were built before 1990. The median household income is about $26,000, and nearly 41 percent of the population live in poverty. Additionally, about 12 percent of the 50,000 occupied homes are without access to a vehicle.

Interesting2:

After 30 years of waiting, the most famous tortoise on the Galapagos Islands, Lonesome George, may finally become a father and promote his robust genes for another generation. Six healthy-looking eggs were found in the compound where the 80- year-old tortoise lives with females of his species, national media in Ecuador reported Tuesday, citing national park officials. George, said by scientists at the Charles Darwin Research Station to be one of the last known of his tortoise subspecies, was found in 1972 on the islands, but has not fathered any hatchlings. To ensure some female offspring, scientists have taken some of the eggs and put them in a brooder set at 29.5 degrees Celsius known to favor females. The others are being kept at 28 degrees, to favor male offspring.

But scientists must wait 120 to 130 days, the normal gestation period, to even find out whether fertilization took place, officials at the Charles Darwin Station on Santa Cruz Island said. The search for tortoises like George, which can reach 270 kilograms, has taken scientists to Pinta. They have searched in vain for ones that have the characteristic long neck like George, but the 90-kilogram creature apparently took a shine to the females of the subspecies Geochelone Beckl, officials said. The Galapagos Islands are located in the Pacific Ocean about 1,000 kilometers off the coast of Ecuador, to which they belong. Charles Darwin, the19th Century father of the theory of evolution, took inspiration for his study from the exotic and singular wildlife found on the isolated island group.









Interesting3:

Welcome to the German garbage crisis: the country doesn’t have too much, but too little to feed its furnaces. Since legislation went into force in 2005 banning untreated household garbage from landfills, incineration plants have been built all over the country. Many use the heat to produce steam or hot water and some turn turbines to produce electricity. "In effect, the flow of garbage has been diverted into incineration," explained economist Christoph Partisch of Dresdner Bank in Frankfurt. What is more, solid waste can be a cheap fuel alternative to gas and oil, which are soaring in price. On its own, the refuse is still worthless and a nuisance, but it can be a desirable material for owners of a waste-to-energy plant, since they not only receive money to incinerate it but also a small amount of income from the heat it gives off.

Under German government legislation, such energy plants also gain a valuable exemption from carbon-emissions rules. They are free to release carbon dioxide gas because they do not use up fossil fuel. The result is likely to be a shortage of solid waste to feed the furnaces of Germany. German households eject about 14 million tons of solid waste a year, not counting their paper, glass, old packaging and compost which are collected separately to be recycled. The Environment Ministry in Berlin says there are so far 68 incineration plants with an annual capacity of nearly 18 million tons to burn household garbage as well as factory and office waste

.

Interesting4: Disease spread to wild bees from commercially bred bees used for pollination in agriculture greenhouses may be playing a role in the mysterious decline in North American bee populations, researchers said on Tuesday. Bees pollinate numerous crops, and scientists have been expressing alarm over their falling numbers in recent years in North America. Experts warn the bee disappearance eventually could harm agriculture and the food supply. Scientists have been struggling to understand the recent decline in various bee populations in North America. For example, a virus brought from Australia has been implicated in massive honeybee deaths last year.

Canadian researchers studied another type of bee, the bumblebee, near two large greenhouse operations in southern Ontario where commercially reared pollination bees are used in the growing of crops such as tomatoes, bell peppers and cucumbers. The researchers first observed that the commercial bumblebees regularly flew in and out of vents in the sides of the greenhouses, escaping from the facilities. The researchers then devised a mathematical model to predict how disease might spread from this "spillover" of runaway commercial bees to their wild cousins. The model predicted a relatively slow build-up of infection in nearby wild bumblebee populations over weeks or months culminating in a burst of transmission generating an epidemic wave that could affect nearly all of wild bees exposed.

Aloha Paragraphs



Baldwin Beach, Maui
Photo Credit: Flickr.com

Our local trade winds will surge in strength Tuesday and Wednesday. The fairly normal trade winds we saw Monday, will pick up Tuesday, becoming rather strong and gusty into Thursday. The passage of a tropical vortex, the remains of former tropical cyclone Elida, as it passes to the south of the islands, combined with strengthening high pressure to the north of Hawaii… will be the source of our stronger trade wind flow. The NWS has issued a small craft wind advisory for those windiest marine waters in the southern part of the state. Later in the week, by Friday into the weekend, our local winds will drop down into the more moderately strong realms.

The remnant moisture from a now retired eastern Pacific hurricane, will bring increased showers to our islands. The leading edge of this tropical moisture will arrive over the Big Island Tuesday, moving up the island chain to Maui during the day…and may bring showers to the other islands Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. The most generous showers will fall along the windward sides of the Big Island, and perhaps Maui. There are still some strands of high cirrus here and there, but it will generally be quite thin…perhaps just enough to provide some nice sunset colors Monday evening. We will see off and on showers reaching the windward sides of the islands Monday night into Tuesday morning. Here’s a looping radar image, so we can begin to monitor the incoming showers that will be around for the next several days.

~~~ It’s early Monday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I begin updating this last section of today’s narrative. The most interesting weather feature, or at least will be soon, is what’s left of Elida, approaching our general area from the east-southeast of the Big Island. If you click on this looping satellite image, you will see what’s left of Elida, to the lower right of the Hawaiian Islands…as it spins westward. Elida was a hurricane earlier in her life while in the eastern Pacific, but is now simply a low level swirl of clouds, with an occasional towering cumulus cloud, or a couple of thunderstorms popping-up near the center of this tropical disturbance. As this counterclockwise rotating vortex (area of low pressure) moves away to the west later Wednesday into Thursday, our trade winds will slow down, and our shower activity will fade.

~~~ Just so that everyone is clear, former Elida poses no danger to the Hawaiian Islands. We will see our local winds increasing Tuesday, as high pressure strengthens to our north, and the tropical vortex of former Elida passes by to our south Wednesday. This won’t be anything radical by any means, but it will be gustier than normal for a couple of days. The fringe moisture from this area of disturbed weather should extend far enough northward to bring an increase in showers, falling mostly along the windward sides. As we move through the second half of the week, our weather will snap back into what we call a normal trade wind weather pattern. I’ll be back very early Tuesday morning with your next new weather narrative, I hope you have a great Monday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting: The town of Cherrapunjee, in the north-eastern Indian state of Meghalaya, is reputed to be the wettest place in the world.  But there are signs that its weather patterns may be being hit by global climate change. "Not without reason has Cherrapunjee achieved fame as being the place with the heaviest rainfall on earth," wrote German missionary Christopher Becker more than 100 years ago. "One must experience it to have an idea of the immense quantity of rain which comes down from the skies, at times day and night without a stop. It is enough to go a few steps from the house to be drenched from head to foot. An umbrella serves no purpose."  But according to Cherrapunjee’s most renowned weather-watcher, Denis Rayen, the climate of the town is changing fast. "In the days of the Raj, the British used to come here to the the Khasi hills to escape the heat – we are 4,823ft (1,484m) above sea level," he says.

"But today I am not sure they would be able to do that, because it is getting a lot hotter here and the monsoon is arriving later." Official figures compiled by the Indian Meteorological Office in the nearby city of Guwahati back up Mr Rayen’s arguments that north-east India as a whole is getting hotter. "The average temperature for Guwahati at this time of the year should be around 32C – but this year the temperature has been as high as 38C," said weather expert Harendas Das. It’s too early yet to say precisely what is happening, but the evidence suggests that higher temperatures mean the whole area is experiencing less rainfall."

Interesting2:

Half of Beijing‘s drivers left their cars at home and took public transportation instead on Monday, the first workday under new restrictions meant to clear this city’s notoriously polluted skies before next month’s Olympics. Under a two-month plan that started Sunday, half of the capital’s 3.3 million cars will be removed from city streets on alternate days, depending on whether the license plate ends in an odd or even number. Those caught driving on days they shouldn’t will be fined $14, a pricey penalty even for China‘s capital. Drivers with even-numbered plates were forced Monday to take public transportation, where crowds remained surprisingly manageable.

That’s likely because employers have been asked to stagger work schedules, and public institutions will open an hour later than normal. "It seems that the subway isn’t as busy as I expected. There are fans and air conditioning, so you don’t feel very hot," said Chen Songde, who normally drives to work in Beijing. Traffic still snaked along main thoroughfares and highways Monday, but it moved at a steady pace. "Before we would be at a dead standstill," said a taxi driver who would give only his surname, Zhang, as he steered around cars. "Now it’s better."

Interesting3: The Arctic may get some temporary relief from global warming if the annual North American wildfire season intensifies, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Colorado and NOAA. Smoke transported to the Arctic from northern forest fires may cool the surface for several weeks to months at a time, according to the most detailed analysis yet of how smoke influences the Arctic climate relative to the amount of snow and ice cover. "Smoke in the atmosphere temporarily reduces the amount of solar radiation reaching the surface. This transitory effect could partly offset some of the warming caused by the buildup of greenhouse gases and other pollutants," said Robert Stone, an atmospheric scientist with the university and NOAA Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and lead author of the study, which appears this week in the Journal of Geophysical Research. How much solar energy is prevented from reaching the surface depends on the smoke’s opacity, the elevation of the sun above the horizon, and the brightness of the surface, according to the study.

Stone and his research colleagues analyzed the short-term climate impact of numerous wildfires that swept through Alaska and western Canada in 2004. That summer, fires burned a record 10,000 square miles of Alaska‘s interior and another 12,000 square miles in western Canada.  A NOAA climate observatory near Barrow, Alaska, provided the data for the study. Smoke observed at Barrow was so thick that at times visibility dropped to just over one mile. The aerosol optical depth (AOD), a measure of the total absorption and scattering of solar radiation by smoke particles, rose a hundredfold from typical summer values. Smoke in the atmosphere tends to cool the snow-free tundra while warming the smoke layer itself, the authors found. Smoke has an even greater cooling effect over the darker, ice-free ocean and less over bright snow.

Aloha Paragraphs



Napili Bay, Maui
Photo Credit: Flickr.com

The trade winds will continue blowing across the islands through Monday. High pressure systems, the source of our trade winds, are now well established to the north of our islands. These winds are lighter now than they were during the past work week, as a surface trough has moved through the islands, slowing down the trade winds in the process. This lighter variety of trade winds will begin to pick up later Monday into Tuesday, becoming rather strong and gusty again by mid-week onward. The passage of a tropical vortex, the remains of former tropical cyclone Elida, as it passes to the south of the islands, will add to the gustiness of our local trade winds by mid-week.

Showers, brought in on the trade winds, will continue to arrive at times. The bulk of these showers have ended up falling along the windward coasts and slopes. The inversion layer is still higher than normal, destabilizing our local atmosphere somewhat…augmented by the passage of the surface trough of low pressure across the islands. This means that cloud tops have been allowed to grow vertically more than normal, enhancing the showers. This higher than normal inversion is allowing some showers to stretch over into the leeward sides at times, particularly on the smaller islands. Conditions should change towards the drier end of the precipitation spectrum over the next couple of days.

We may see another increase in showers arriving by Tuesday night into Wednesday, from moisture arriving from a retired tropical cyclone named Elida. Elida, which was a hurricane earlier in her life, recently lost its designation as a tropical cyclone, given its final warning by the National Hurricane Center in Miami. If you click on this looping satellite image, you will see what’s left of Elida, on the right hand side of the picture…as it spins westward. Looking further east, we see hurricane Fauso still churning the waters towards Mexico. Here is a current storm track map for Fausto…which poses no danger to the Hawaiian Islands.

~~~ It’s early Sunday evening here in Kula, Maui, as I begin updating this last section of today’s narrative. There continue to be more than the ordinary amount of clouds stretched across our island chain as we move into Sunday n ight, some of which consist of the locally rather thick high cirrus clouds. Some of the lower clouds have been dropping showers at times. Last evening I had a friend visit from Marin County, in northern California. We had a nice dinner of bbq’d Ahi, fresh picked salad out of the garden, and steamed Kula corn on the cob…followed by a slice of key lime cheese cake. We were invited over to the neighbors house afterwards, to watch some DVD’s of the old days. Three of us have been old friends since the 1970’s, as we all arrived here on Maui then. It was so much fun to see those old video’s, which were put in the DVD format! We all looked so young, as would be expected, but it’s so interesting to see yourself all those many years ago.

I’m about ready to go downstairs to cook dinner, actually prepare my dinners that will take me through the upcoming work week. I will make a simple red sauce pasta sauce this time, which I’ll grate a nice pecorino cheese on spaghetti each evening. The sky here in Kula is really cloudy, with light sprinkles of rain falling occasionally. I enjoy the cloud cover however, and the relatively cool air temperatures here in the upcountry area. I’ll be back very early Monday morning with your next new weather narrative from paradise, I hope you have a great Sunday night wherever you happen to be reading from! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Sunday evening/night music video – Zero 7…Somersault

Interesting:







The cacao bean is in danger. The Nature Conservation Research Council (NCRC) recently announced that in 20 years time, "Chocolate will be much like caviar today." So what’s the deal?  Unsustainable farming practices are to blame. Cacao typically grows in rainforest conditions with high biodiversity. Instead, farmers now clear the forest and use hybrid seeds to increase output over the short-term. Unfortunately, this leads to soil erosion and shorter lifespan of trees. Over time, this practice is predicted to lead to an overall shortage of cacao.

Most of the world’s cacao is grown in West Africa….even though Ghana is a net exporter of cacao, most of the country’s inhabitants could not afford to purchase a Cadbury or Hershey’s bar. For Ghanaians, "no chocolate 20 years from now" is now. Such reminders are necessary to place in perspective predictions of ecological change and impacts on human populations. While we, in wealthy, industrialized countries, may fear with trepidation the loss of resources and biodiversity associated with global warming, it is important to remember that half the world’s peoples are already living that reality.

Interesting2:

Did the tropics overheat during the Eocene some 55 to 34 million years ago? The answer holds the key to how our planet will respond to global warming, according to one climate researcher. The Earth went through a prolonged phase of extremely high temperatures during the Eocene, in which even the poles were ice-free.  However, there has always been some doubt about the temperatures of the tropics during this period. Most paleo-climate records show that the tropics had mean annual temperatures of 28 to 33°C, which is not much warmer than today. Recently, however, better calibrated data have suggested that ocean temperatures could have soared as high as 41°C (105.8F). If the tropics were indeed this hot, it would solve a huge problem faced by existing climate models, including those used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Existing models have difficulty duplicating climates in which the temperature gradient from the tropics to the poles is small, as suggested by the older paleo-climate data for the Eocene.

Interesting3: From Don Knotts’ portrayle of "Mr. Limpet" to the children’s favorite "Nemo" and the tuna-pitching character in the "Sorry, Charlie" commercials, we all have seen fish that can talk. But that’s just fiction, right? Well … Researchers say real fish can communicate with sound, too. And they say (the researchers, that is) that your speech skills and, in fact, all sound production in vertebrates can be traced back to this ability in fish. (You got your ears from fish, too.)  The new study was led by Andrew Bass (we did not make this up) of Cornell University. The scientists mapped developing brain cells in newly hatched midshipman fish larvae and compared them to those of other species.

They found that the chirp of a bird, the bark of a dog and all the other sounds that come out of animals’ mouths are the products of the neural circuitry likely laid down hundreds of millions of years ago with the hums and grunts of fish. "Fish have all the same parts of the brain that you do," Bass explained. His team traced the development of the connection from the midshipman fish’s vocal muscles to a cluster of neurons located in a compartment between the back of its brain and the front of its spinal cord. The same part of the brain in more complex vertebrates, such as humans, has a similar function, indicating that it was highly selected for during the course of evolution. The finding is published in the July 18 issue of the journal Science.

Interesting4:

If busy bars and blasting music seem to go hand in hand, new research from France suggests that might be because loud music encourages more drinking. The finding is reported in the October issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, and is drawn from research led by Nicolas Gueguen, a professor of behavioral sciences at the Université de Bretagne-Sud in France. "This is an informative and good study that I think a lot of people will identify with, because it makes a lot of sense," said Dr. Marc Galanter, director of the division of alcoholism and drug abuse at the LangoneMedicalCenter at New York University. "Because it seems that loud music throws people off their game and renders them less in control of their capacity to moderate their drinking."

Galanter was not a part of the research team, which noted that prior explorations into the effect of music on drinking have already revealed that people spend more time in a bar that plays music than one that doesn’t, and that fast music in particular seems to prompt fast drinking. The style of music played in a bar can also affect drinking behavior, although in varying ways, depending on the cultural setting. In the current effort, the authors observed 40 male patrons between the ages of 18 and 25 while they visited one of two bars located in the western region of France. Both establishments were local hangouts for young people. The male participants — unaware that they were being tracked — were chosen for monitoring only if they were sitting at a table in pairs and had initially ordered an 8-ounce glass of draft beer.

Aloha Paragraphs



Laupahoehoe Point on the Big Island of Hawaii
Photo Credit: Flickr.com

The trade winds will continue blowing across the islands…although they will be lighter this weekend than recently. High pressure systems, the source of our trade winds, are now well established to the north of our islands. The latest computer forecast models show these gusty trade winds easing off some into Monday. This lighter brand of trade winds will begin to pick up on Tuesday, becoming rather strong and gusty again by mid-week onward.

Showers, brought in on the trade winds, will continue to arrive at times. The bulk of these showers will end up falling along the windward coasts and slopes. The inversion layer is still considerably higher than normal. This means that cloud tops will be allowed to grow vertically more than normal, enhancing the showers…some of which may be locally heavy. This higher than normal inversion is allowing some showers to stretch over into the leeward sides at times, particularly on the smaller islands.

There’s off and on showery clouds moving into the state from the east, which will keep our islands, especially along the windward sides, off and on wet into Sunday. We can keep an eye on these incoming shower clouds by clicking on this looping radar image. This looping satellite image, shows this showery area moving into the state, as well as an area of high clouds moving in our direction from the west, on the upper winds.

We may see another increase in showers arriving by next Wednesday, from moisture arriving from a retired tropical cyclone named Elida. Elida, which was a hurricane earlier in her life, recently lost its designation as a tropical cyclone, given its final warning by the National Hurricane Center in Miami. If you click on this looping satellite image, you will see what’s left of Elida, on the far right hand side of the picture. Looking further east, we see hurricane Fauso still churning the waters towards Mexico. Here is a current storm track map for Fausto.

~~~ It’s early Saturday evening here in Kula, Maui, as I begin updating this last section of today’s narrative. There have been more than the ordinary amount of clouds cloaking many parts of the island chain. Some of these clouds have been dropping showers at times. Here in Kula, there were several periods of light showers falling during the afternoon hours…the eaves are still dripping at the time of this writing. I went to Lahaina this morning, and got to surf some small waves. It wasn’t crowded, and the wind wasn’t a problem, but the surf was pretty weak…at least compared to the last 4-5 weekend surf sessions that I’ve been fortunate enough to catch. I have a friend from Marin County, California coming over for dinner this evening, and she’ll be sleeping over downstairs. She is one of the friends that I stay with when I go to California for vacation. I’ll make her a nice breakfast Sunday morning, before she heads back over to Haiku, where she also owns a very nice property. I hope you have a great Saturday night wherever you happen to be spending it! I’ll be back Sunday with your next new weather narrative. Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting:







The cacao bean is in danger. The Nature Conservation Research Council (NCRC) recently announced that in 20 years time, "Chocolate will be much like caviar today." So what’s the deal?  Unsustainable farming practices are to blame. Cacao typically grows in rainforest conditions with high biodiversity. Instead, farmers now clear the forest and use hybrid seeds to increase output over the short-term. Unfortunately, this leads to soil erosion and shorter lifespan of trees. Over time, this practice is predicted to lead to an overall shortage of cacao.

Most of the world’s cacao is grown in West Africa….even though Ghana is a net exporter of cacao, most of the country’s inhabitants could not afford to purchase a Cadbury or Hershey’s bar. For Ghanaians, "no chocolate 20 years from now" is now. Such reminders are necessary to place in perspective predictions of ecological change and impacts on human populations. While we, in wealthy, industrialized countries, may fear with trepidation the loss of resources and biodiversity associated with global warming, it is important to remember that half the world’s peoples are already living that reality.

Interesting2:

Did the tropics overheat during the Eocene some 55 to 34 million years ago? The answer holds the key to how our planet will respond to global warming, according to one climate researcher. The Earth went through a prolonged phase of extremely high temperatures during the Eocene, in which even the poles were ice-free.  However, there has always been some doubt about the temperatures of the tropics during this period. Most paleo-climate records show that the tropics had mean annual temperatures of 28 to 33°C, which is not much warmer than today. Recently, however, better calibrated data have suggested that ocean temperatures could have soared as high as 41°C (105.8F). If the tropics were indeed this hot, it would solve a huge problem faced by existing climate models, including those used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Existing models have difficulty duplicating climates in which the temperature gradient from the tropics to the poles is small, as suggested by the older paleo-climate data for the Eocene.

Interesting3: From Don Knotts’ portrayle of "Mr. Limpet" to the children’s favorite "Nemo" and the tuna-pitching character in the "Sorry, Charlie" commercials, we all have seen fish that can talk. But that’s just fiction, right? Well … Researchers say real fish can communicate with sound, too. And they say (the researchers, that is) that your speech skills and, in fact, all sound production in vertebrates can be traced back to this ability in fish. (You got your ears from fish, too.)  The new study was led by Andrew Bass (we did not make this up) of Cornell University. The scientists mapped developing brain cells in newly hatched midshipman fish larvae and compared them to those of other species.

They found that the chirp of a bird, the bark of a dog and all the other sounds that come out of animals’ mouths are the products of the neural circuitry likely laid down hundreds of millions of years ago with the hums and grunts of fish. "Fish have all the same parts of the brain that you do," Bass explained. His team traced the development of the connection from the midshipman fish’s vocal muscles to a cluster of neurons located in a compartment between the back of its brain and the front of its spinal cord. The same part of the brain in more complex vertebrates, such as humans, has a similar function, indicating that it was highly selected for during the course of evolution. The finding is published in the July 18 issue of the journal Science.

Interesting4:

If busy bars and blasting music seem to go hand in hand, new research from France suggests that might be because loud music encourages more drinking. The finding is reported in the October issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, and is drawn from research led by Nicolas Gueguen, a professor of behavioral sciences at the Université de Bretagne-Sud in France. "This is an informative and good study that I think a lot of people will identify with, because it makes a lot of sense," said Dr. Marc Galanter, director of the division of alcoholism and drug abuse at the LangoneMedicalCenter at New York University. "Because it seems that loud music throws people off their game and renders them less in control of their capacity to moderate their drinking."

Galanter was not a part of the research team, which noted that prior explorations into the effect of music on drinking have already revealed that people spend more time in a bar that plays music than one that doesn’t, and that fast music in particular seems to prompt fast drinking. The style of music played in a bar can also affect drinking behavior, although in varying ways, depending on the cultural setting. In the current effort, the authors observed 40 male patrons between the ages of 18 and 25 while they visited one of two bars located in the western region of France. Both establishments were local hangouts for young people. The male participants — unaware that they were being tracked — were chosen for monitoring only if they were sitting at a table in pairs and had initially ordered an 8-ounce glass of draft beer.

Aloha Paragraphs



We’ll be seeing more rainbows here in the islands
Photo Credit: Flickr.com

We’ve entered in what looks to be a period of prolonged trade winds. High pressure systems, the source of our trade winds, are now well established far to the north and northeast of our islands. This has been quite a change from the lighter than normal winds that we’ve seen for much of the last week and more. The latest computer forecast models show these gusty trade winds staying active right on into next week…and potentially longer. The windiest places around Maui and the Big Island, including most coastal and channel waters, now find small craft wind advisory flags waving in the gusty breezes.

Showers have been on the increase, carried to us off the tropical ocean…by the trade winds. The bulk of these showers will end up falling along the windward coasts and slopes. The inversion layer is still quite high, capping the clouds between 9,000 and 11,000 feet. This means that cloud tops will be allowed to grow vertically more than normal, enhancing the showers…some of which will be locally heavy. This higher than normal inversion is allowing some showers to stretch over into the leeward sides at times, particularly on the smaller islands…which have lower mountains separating the windward and leeward sections. We can keep an eye on the incoming shower clouds, and the showery plumes coming off the west side of the Big Island (at least at the time of this viewing), by clicking on this looping radar image. Meanwhile, it appears the next batch of showery clouds, at least in any increased way, is still a ways to our east. This looping satellite image, also shows an area of high cirrus clouds moving in our direction from the west, on the upper winds…those that travel at jet stream altitudes of the atmosphere, or 20,000 feet and above.

The computer models are still showing a decent chance of increased windward biased showers into this weekend. We might see another more organized increase in showers next week, from moisture arriving from what will then be former tropical storm Elida. Further out to the east, over closer to Mexico, we find a second system, called hurricane Fausto…which may end up bringing some of its leftover showers to us eventually too. If there ‘s enough of a low pressure vortex still holding together, as it moves by to the south of the state around next Tuesday or Wednesday…we may see our local trade winds surge noticeably. Neither of these two tropical cyclones pose any threat to our Hawaiian Islands. Here is a current storm track map for Elida and Fausto.

~~~ It’s early Friday evening here in Kula, Maui, as I begin updating this last section of today’s narrative. During the last 24 hours there has been a substantial increase in showers, most notably along the windward coasts and slopes…some of which were locally heavy Thursday night into early Friday morning. All the ingredients appear to be still in place, so that during the next 24 hours, it wouldn’t surprise me to see more incoming showers, with some embedded downpours included. As many of you regular readers know, it wouldn’t be unusual for me to take in a new film after work on Friday. I can’t wait to see the new Batman film, but thought I’d wait for a week or even two, to let the crowds die down some. It’s gotten amazingly positive reviews, and I’m quite sure opening night will be a full house at the local theater. Therefore, I’m home, with not much to do but have a little dinner, read some, and probably go to bed relatively early for a Friday night. This will put me in a good place to get up early Saturday morning, in order to get an early start on a surfing trip to the Lahaina side. I will of course be back to bring you your new weather narrative before I leave however. I hope you have a great Friday night, and it will be another bright one, with the just past full moon beaming down from above. Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting:







The cacao bean is in danger. The Nature Conservation Research Council (NCRC) recently announced that in 20 years time, "Chocolate will be much like caviar today." So what’s the deal?  Unsustainable farming practices are to blame. Cacao typically grows in rainforest conditions with high biodiversity. Instead, farmers now clear the forest and use hybrid seeds to increase output over the short-term. Unfortunately, this leads to soil erosion and shorter lifespan of trees. Over time, this practice is predicted to lead to an overall shortage of cacao.

Most of the world’s cacao is grown in West Africa….even though Ghana is a net exporter of cacao, most of the country’s inhabitants could not afford to purchase a Cadbury or Hershey’s bar. For Ghanaians, "no chocolate 20 years from now" is now. Such reminders are necessary to place in perspective predictions of ecological change and impacts on human populations. While we, in wealthy, industrialized countries, may fear with trepidation the loss of resources and biodiversity associated with global warming, it is important to remember that half the world’s peoples are already living that reality.

Interesting2:

Did the tropics overheat during the Eocene some 55 to 34 million years ago? The answer holds the key to how our planet will respond to global warming, according to one climate researcher. The Earth went through a prolonged phase of extremely high temperatures during the Eocene, in which even the poles were ice-free.  However, there has always been some doubt about the temperatures of the tropics during this period. Most paleo-climate records show that the tropics had mean annual temperatures of 28 to 33°C, which is not much warmer than today. Recently, however, better calibrated data have suggested that ocean temperatures could have soared as high as 41°C (105.8F). If the tropics were indeed this hot, it would solve a huge problem faced by existing climate models, including those used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Existing models have difficulty duplicating climates in which the temperature gradient from the tropics to the poles is small, as suggested by the older paleo-climate data for the Eocene.

Interesting3: From Don Knotts’ portrayle of "Mr. Limpet" to the children’s favorite "Nemo" and the tuna-pitching character in the "Sorry, Charlie" commercials, we all have seen fish that can talk. But that’s just fiction, right? Well … Researchers say real fish can communicate with sound, too. And they say (the researchers, that is) that your speech skills and, in fact, all sound production in vertebrates can be traced back to this ability in fish. (You got your ears from fish, too.)  The new study was led by Andrew Bass (we did not make this up) of Cornell University. The scientists mapped developing brain cells in newly hatched midshipman fish larvae and compared them to those of other species.

They found that the chirp of a bird, the bark of a dog and all the other sounds that come out of animals’ mouths are the products of the neural circuitry likely laid down hundreds of millions of years ago with the hums and grunts of fish. "Fish have all the same parts of the brain that you do," Bass explained. His team traced the development of the connection from the midshipman fish’s vocal muscles to a cluster of neurons located in a compartment between the back of its brain and the front of its spinal cord. The same part of the brain in more complex vertebrates, such as humans, has a similar function, indicating that it was highly selected for during the course of evolution. The finding is published in the July 18 issue of the journal Science.

Interesting4:

If busy bars and blasting music seem to go hand in hand, new research from France suggests that might be because loud music encourages more drinking. The finding is reported in the October issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, and is drawn from research led by Nicolas Gueguen, a professor of behavioral sciences at the Université de Bretagne-Sud in France. "This is an informative and good study that I think a lot of people will identify with, because it makes a lot of sense," said Dr. Marc Galanter, director of the division of alcoholism and drug abuse at the LangoneMedicalCenter at New York University. "Because it seems that loud music throws people off their game and renders them less in control of their capacity to moderate their drinking."

Galanter was not a part of the research team, which noted that prior explorations into the effect of music on drinking have already revealed that people spend more time in a bar that plays music than one that doesn’t, and that fast music in particular seems to prompt fast drinking. The style of music played in a bar can also affect drinking behavior, although in varying ways, depending on the cultural setting. In the current effort, the authors observed 40 male patrons between the ages of 18 and 25 while they visited one of two bars located in the western region of France. Both establishments were local hangouts for young people. The male participants — unaware that they were being tracked — were chosen for monitoring only if they were sitting at a table in pairs and had initially ordered an 8-ounce glass of draft beer.