February 25-26, 2009
Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Wednesday afternoon:
Lihue, Kauai – 73
Honolulu, Oahu – 78
Kaneohe, Oahu – 75
Kahului, Maui – 76
Hilo, Hawaii – 72
Kailua-kona – 87 — wow!
Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountains…at 4 p.m. Wednesday afternoon:
Kailua-kona – 81F
Hilo, Hawaii – 69
Haleakala Crater – 46 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 30 (near 14,000 feet on the Big Island)
Precipitation Totals – The following numbers represent the largest precipitation totals (inches) during the last 24 hours on each of the major islands, as of Wednesday afternoon:
1.20 Mount Waialeale, Kauai
1.24 Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
0.019 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
2.55 Puu Kukui, Maui
0.74 Laupahoehoe, Big Island
Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a very strong 1047 millibar high pressure system located far to the north-northwest of the islands. This high pressure system will cause strengthening winds into Friday.
Satellite and Radar Images: To view the cloud conditions we have here in Hawaii, please use the following satellite links, starting off with the Infrared Satellite Image of the islands to see all the clouds around the state during the day and night. This next image is one that gives close images of the islands only during the daytime hours, and is referred to as a Close-up visible image. This next image shows a larger view of the Pacific…giving perspective to the wider ranging cloud patterns in the Pacific Ocean. Finally, here’s a looping IR satellite image, making viewable the clouds around the islands 24 hours a day. To help you keep track of where any showers may be around the islands, here’s the latest animated radar image.
Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live webcam on the summit of near 14,000 foot Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. The tallest peak on the island of Maui is the Haleakala Crater, which is near 10,000 feet in elevation. These two webcams are available during the daylight hours here in the islands…and when there’s a big moon rising just after sunset for an hour or two! Plus, during the nights and early mornings you will be able to see stars, and the sunrise too…depending upon weather conditions.
Aloha Paragraphs
Sunset colors on the island of Oahu
We are moving into a prolonged period of blustery trade winds, which will last through the next week…at least. Looking at this latest weather map, we find a very strong 1043 millibar high pressure system in the area north-northwest of Hawaii Wednesday evening. These stronger winds, with their associated wind chill, will keep cooler than normal weather in place too. The NWS in Honolulu has small craft wind advisories active across all of Hawaii’s coasts and channels, along with a high surf advisory for surf being generated by these fresh winds.
These blustery winds will bring some showery clouds to our windward sides, although nothing too heavy is expected. There has been quite a lot of high and middle level clouds to the southwest and west of the island chain recently. This looping satellite image shows more of that coming our way Wednesday evening…after going away during the day. This in turn allowed much sunnier skies to return to many parts of the state, especially those leeward beaches.
The main weather feature will continue to be the gusty winds, which at this point show no sign of easing up…and will likely become even stronger at certain times during the next week. Looking around the state early Wednesday evening, the winds were strong and gusty…as they have been all day. The following numbers represented the strongest gusts on each of the islands at around 8pm:
Kauai: 31 mph
Oahu: 40
Molokai: 31
Maui: 32
Kahoolawe: 36
Lanai: 40
Big Island: 35
Meanwhile, a flow of air from the northwest direction aloft, at high altitudes over the islands…will keep drier than normal weather over us. This doesn’t mean that there won’t be those off and on passing showers, or times of drizzle along our windward sides. It’s just that the speed with which these showery clouds will be moving by, won’t give them much of a chance to rain down heavily. The leeward sides may see a few light showers spraying their way over there too, carried by the strong and gusty winds…coming over from the windward sides.
It’s early Wednesday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I begin writing this last section of today’s weather narrative. It was a windy, and relatively cool day here in the islands, which is just the beginning of what will turn out to be a long series of days with more windy weather. The strongest gust that I saw Wednesday occurred on the small island of Lanai, where just under a 50 mph gust topped the list. Here in Kihei, it was good and windy, with the ocean offshore all the way from Maalaea Bay, down through Wailea, whipped-up with white caps! The coconut palm trees were bent over under the influence of these strong and gusty winds. In the upcountry area, up towards Pukalani and Kula, it was windy up there as well. The winds weren’t all that strong over the top of the Haleakala Crater yet, but they will be getting windier towards the weekend.
~~~ Looking out the window here in Kihei, before I begin the drive upcountry, it is absolutely windy out there! It’s majorly windy just about everywhere here in the state of Hawaii. It wouldn’t surprise me to see winds, in gusts, topping 50 mph during the day Thursday and Friday…and then into the weekend. These gusty winds, which are catching all of our eyes here in the islands now, will continue to rake the Aloha state well into next week. February is often windy, and cool too, so that this isn’t an alarming situation, but should perhaps have us securing loose objects, like trash cans, that kind of stuff…if we live in a particularly windy location. I’ll be back early Thursday morning with more information about this windy episode. I hope you have a great Wednesday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.
Interesting: The Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets are melting, but the amounts that will melt and the time it will take are still unknown, according to Richard Alley, Evan Pugh professor of geosciences, Penn State. In the past, the Greenland ice sheet has grown when its surroundings cooled, shrunk when its surroundings warmed and even disappeared completely when the temperatures became warm enough.
If the ice sheet on Greenland melts, sea level will rise about 23 feet, which will inundate portions of nearly all continental shores. However, Antarctica, containing much more water, could add up to another 190 feet to sea level. "We do not think that we will lose all, or even most, of Antarctica’s ice sheet," said Alley.
"But important losses may have already started and could raise sea level as much or more than melting of Greenland’s ice over hundreds or thousands of years," Alley told attendees Feb 16 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Warming is expected to cause more precipitation on Greenland and Antarctica, adding snow.
Previously, many scientists suggested that this would offset increasing melting. However, recent studies show that the ice sheets on both Greenland and in Antarctica are melting faster than the snow is replacing the mass. A number of things can contribute to the increased rate of melting in Greenland and Antarctica. Large lakes of water on the ice in Greenland pose a problem.
This water, by wedging open a crack or crevasse in the ice, quickly flows through to the bottom, melting the bottom of the ice sheet and causing it to move more rapidly toward the ocean. Observers have seen lakes on the Greenland ice sheet drain at the speed of Niagara Falls.
All ice sheets spread due to their large mass, but friction from the rocks beneath slows the ice’s motion. Water beneath the ice allows the ice to move more rapidly.
Interesting2: Climate change will not be taken seriously until the media highlights its significance, say researchers at the University of Liverpool. Dr Neil Gavin, from the School of Politics and Communication Studies, believes the way the media handles issues like climate change shapes the public’s perception of its importance. Limited coverage is unlikely to convince readers that climate change is a serious problem that warrants immediate and decisive action.
Researchers found that the total number of articles on climate change printed over three years was fewer than one month’s worth of articles featuring health issues. The articles offered mixed messages about the seriousness and imminence of problems facing the environment. Dr Gavin explains: “Our research suggests that the media is not treating these issues with the seriousness that scientists would say they deserve.
The research company lpsos-MORI found that 50% of people think the jury is still out on the causes of global warming. The limited amount of media coverage – which tends to be restricted to the broadsheets – means that this statistic is unlikely to alter in the short-term. “Climate change, therefore, may not be high enough on the media agenda to stimulate the sort of public concern that prompts concerted political action.
The media may well continue to focus its attention on health, the economy or crime, thereby drawing public attention away from the issue of climate change. “This is more likely when resources are stretched, government popularity is on the wane, or where more pressing, non-climate-related issues force the government to direct expenditure or invest its political capital and energy elsewhere.”
He added: “Even if the British Government wanted to push climate change further up the media agenda, it is not necessarily in a position to shape the debate that takes place in the media.
Interesting3: If you are a fish eater, it’s likely that the salmon you had for dinner was not caught in the wild, but was instead grown in a mesh cage submerged in the open water of oceans or bays. Fish farming, a relatively inexpensive way to provide cheap protein to a growing world population, now supplies, by some estimates, 30 percent of the fish consumed by humans.
Two hundred and twenty species of finfish and shellfish are now grown in farms. Intuitively, it seems a good idea—the more fish grown in pens, the fewer need be taken from wild stocks in the sea. But marine aquaculture can have some nasty side effects, especially when the pens are set near sensitive coastal environments.
All those fish penned up together consume massive amounts of commercial feed, some of which drifts off uneaten in the currents. And the crowded fish, naturally, defecate and urinate by the tens of thousands, creating yet another unpleasant waste stream.
The wastes can carry disease, causing damage directly. Or the phosphate and nitrates in the mix may feed an algae bloom that sucks the oxygen from the water, leaving it uninhabitable, a phenomenon long associated with fertilizer runoff.
It has been widely assumed that the effluent from pens would be benignly diluted by the sea if the pens were kept a reasonable distance from shore, said Jeffrey Koseff, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and co-director of Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment.
But early results from a new Stanford computer simulation based on sophisticated fluid dynamics show that the icky stuff from the pens will travel farther, and in higher concentrations, than had been generally assumed, Koseff said. "What we’ve basically debunked is the old adage that ‘The solution to pollution is dilution,’ " he said. "It’s a lot more complicated."
Interesting4: ESA’s Venus Express spacecraft has observed an eerie glow in the night-time atmosphere of Venus. This infrared light comes from nitric oxide and is showing scientists that the atmosphere of Earth’s nearest neighbour is a temperamental place of high winds and turbulence.
Unfortunately, the glow on Venus cannot be seen with the naked eye because it occurs at the invisible wavelengths of infrared. ESA’s Venus Express, however, is equipped with the Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer (VIRTIS) instrument, which can see these wavelengths.
VIRTIS has made two unambiguous detections of the so-called nightglow for nitric oxide at Venus. This is the first time such infrared detections have been made for any planet and provide a new insight into Venus’s atmosphere.
“The nightglow can give us a lot of information,” says Antonio García Muñoz, who was at the Australian National University when the research was carried out; he is now located at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Tenerife, Spain. "It can provide details about the temperature, wind direction, composition and chemistry of an atmosphere."
Interesting5: We all do things to impress others—exaggerate our accomplishments, downplay our faults, even fib on surveys. A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research sheds light on why we don’t tell the strict truth about ourselves in surveys and what, if anything, can be done about it.
"The tendency of people to portray themselves in a more favorable light than their thoughts or actions, called socially desirable responding, is a problem that affects the validity of statistics and surveys worldwide," writes author Ashok K. Lalwani (University of Texas at San Antonio).
When asked about their own behavior in relation to materialism, compulsive buying, drug and alcohol addiction, cigarette smoking, shoplifting, gambling, prostitution, and intolerant attitudes, people tend to answer in a less than candid manner.
The research teased out two separate forms of "socially desirable responding," and found that people’s cultural orientations lead them to different forms. For example, people from cultures that have a "collectivist orientation" (China, Korea, India, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan) are more likely to engage in impression management, which is "a deliberate, strategic presentation of a socially approved image of the self."
Impression management is "a conscious, active and deliberate attempt to fake good behavior in front of a real or imagined audience," writes Lalwani. That need to give the "right" answer can be reduced by keeping survey participants "cognitively busy" by playing background music during surveys, he found.
In contrast, consumers with an individualist cultural orientation (the United States, Canada, France, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany) are more likely to engage in self-enhancement, which is "a spontaneous tendency to present an internalized, unrealistically positive view of the self." This behavior is so unconscious that there is little that can be done to curtail it.
The study can help researchers evaluate the validity of survey responses in light of people’s tendency toward socially desirable responding. It also helps consumers predict their own behavior and potentially modify it.
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