March 24-25, 2009
Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Tuesday afternoon:
Lihue, Kauai – 75
Honolulu, Oahu – 81
Kaneohe, Oahu – 77
Kahului, Maui – 82
Hilo, Hawaii – 78
Kailua-kona – 81
Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountains…at 4 p.m. Tuesday afternoon:
Kailua-kona – 79F
Princeville, Kauai – 73
Haleakala Crater – missing (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 23 (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 early Tuesday afternoon:
3.37 Mount Waialaele, Kauai
2.29 Poamoho 2, Oahu
0.10 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
1.40 West Wailuaiki, Maui
1.60 Piihonua, Big Island
Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a strong 1039 millibar high pressure system far to the northeast of the islands. Our trade winds will be moderate to locally strong and gusty Wednesday and Thursday…lighter in those more protected places.
Satellite and Radar Images: To view the cloud conditions we have here in Hawaii, please use the following satellite links, starting off with the Infrared Satellite Image of the islands to see all the clouds around the state during the day and night. This next image is one that gives close images of the islands only during the daytime hours, and is referred to as a Close-up visible image. This next image shows a larger view of the Pacific…giving perspective to the wider ranging cloud patterns in the Pacific Ocean. Finally, here’s a looping IR satellite image, making viewable the clouds around the islands 24 hours a day. To help you keep track of where any showers may be around the islands, here’s the latest animated radar image.
Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live webcam on the summit of near 14,000 foot Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. The tallest peak on the island of Maui is the Haleakala Crater, which is near 10,000 feet in elevation. These two webcams are available during the daylight hours here in the islands…and when there’s a big moon rising just after sunset for an hour or two! Plus, during the nights and early mornings you will be able to see stars, and the sunrise too…depending upon weather conditions.
Aloha Paragraphs
Coconut palms, sunset…north shore of Oahu
Photo Credit: Google.com
The gusty trade winds will continue, through the rest of this week, right on into next week…which is fairly normal for this time of year. A strong 1039 millibar high pressure system, far to the northeast of Hawaii, is the source of these strong and gusty trade winds Tuesday night. These winds are strong enough to keep small craft wind advisories active in just about all Hawaiian coastal and channel waters, from Kauai down through the Big Island. Those areas that are more protected from the trade winds will have lighter winds as usual. By the way, a NWS issued high surf advisory, is active in response to the large waves generated by the gusty trade winds…along the east facing windward shores.
The windward sides, and some mountain areas, will see passing showers, generally at night…while most leeward sides will remain dry through mid-week. Looking at this satellite image, we see a diminishing amount of that high cloudiness over and around the Hawaiian Islands now. There are no organized rainmakers on our weather horizon at this time. Days will be nice, with more sunshine slated for our beaches well into the future.
This last week of March 2009 will remain favorably inclined, in terms of our weather here in the Hawaiian Islands. The most most noticeable weather feature will be the gusty trade winds. As this weather map shows, we have a strong 1039 millibar high pressure system located far to the northeast. This high pressure system is monopolizing the entire eastern Pacific Ocean, with its southwestern flank extending down across the Hawaiian Islands. The trade winds blow typically around 61% of the time, on average during the month of March.
It’s difficult to find anything too unusual about any of the weather happening here in the islands now. As has been pointed out above, the trade winds are definitely a bit stronger than usual…with some very strong gusts locally. Rainfall remains well within the normal boundaries, although some of the mountain areas, especially on Kauai and Oahu, have received some generous amounts during the last 24 hours. Those high clouds seem to be fading now, which will allow even more sunshine to beam down Wednesday. The surf is rolling in along our beaches, the largest of which is breaking along our east facing shores…thanks to the wind swell generated by the gusty trade winds. A new west-northwest swell will bring the surf up along our north and west facing beaches late Wednesday into Thursday.
I left Kihei, and rushed back up to Kula, where I had a tax appointment. I’m home now, and remembering how the weather was Tuesday, am delighted to tell you that it was quite special. The high cloudiness diminished during the day, although glancing outside just before sunset, it appears that we still may get a bit of color in a little while. The main thing, or the most dynamic thing today, was by far the strong and gusty trade winds. At one point, there were 40+ mph gusts in those windiest places, with South Point on the Big Island, topping out with a remarkable 50 mph gust early Tuesday afternoon! At around 630pm, there were still 43 mph gusts at both Upolu Point on the Big Island, and on Kahoolawe. I expect more of these locally very strong gusts Wednesday. ~~~ It’s almost sunset, so I want to go sit out on my weather deck to see it. I’ll be back early Wednesday morning with your next new weather narrative from paradise. I hope you have a grand Tuesday night wherever you happen to be spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.
Interesting: In the future, natural gas derived from chunks of ice that workers collect from beneath the ocean floor and beneath the arctic permafrost may fuel cars, heat homes, and power factories. Government researchers are reporting that these so-called "gas hydrates," a frozen form of natural gas that bursts into flames at the touch of a match, show increasing promise as an abundant, untapped source of clean, sustainable energy. The icy chunks could supplement traditional energy sources that are in short supply and which produce large amounts of carbon dioxide linked to global warming, the scientists say.
"These gas hydrates could serve as a bridge to our energy future until cleaner fuel sources, such as hydrogen and solar energy, are more fully realized," says study co-leader Tim Collett, Ph.D., a research geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Denver, Colo. Gas hydrates, known as "ice that burns," hold special promise for helping to combat global warming by leaving a smaller carbon dioxide footprint than other fossil fuels, Collett and colleagues note.
Last November, a team of USGS researchers that included Collett announced a giant step toward that bridge to the future. In a landmark study, the USGS scientists estimated that 85.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas could potentially be extracted from gas hydrates in Alaska’s North Slope region, enough to heat more than 100 million average homes for more than a decade.
"It’s definitely a vast storehouse of energy," Collett says. "But it is still unknown how much of this volume can actually be produced on an industrial scale." That volume, he says, depends on the ability of scientists to extract useful methane, the main ingredient in natural gas, from gas hydrate formations in an efficient and cost-effective manner. Scientists worldwide are now doing research on gas hydrates in order to understand how this strange material forms and how it might be used to supplement coal, oil, and traditional natural gas.
Although scientists have known about gas hydrates for decades, they’ve only recently begun to try to use them as an alternative energy source. Gas hydrates, also known as "clathrates," form when methane gas from the decomposition of organic material comes into contact with water at low temperatures and high pressures. Those cold, high-pressure conditions exist deep below the oceans and underground on land in certain parts of the world, including the ocean floor and permafrost areas of the Arctic.
Interesting2: Even after nine months soaking in the womb, a newborn’s skin is smooth – unlike an adult’s in the bath. While occupying a watery, warm environment, the newborn manages to develop a skin fully equipped to protect it in a cold, dry and bacteria-infected world. A protective cream called Vernix caseosa (VC), which covers the fetus and the newborn, aids in the growth of skin both before and after birth. VC provides ‘waterproofing’ in utero, allowing skin to grow in wet conditions, while after birth it hydrates and cleanses, even healing when applied to ulcers.
Prof. Joke Bouwstra, a specialist in the skin barrier and its synthesis at Leiden University, and her colleague Robert Ribmann set out to study VC in detail and has produced a synthetic version of this natural buttery ointment which shows the same structure and unique properties. As well as helping pre-term babies develop essential protection against temperature changes, dehydration and infection, artificial VC could also benefit sufferers of skin disease.
Interesting3: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found that climate-warming greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, pose a danger to human health and welfare, a White House website showed on Monday. EPA’s proposed "endangerment finding," sent to the Obama administration on Friday, could pave the way for U.S. limits on emissions that spur climate change. The substance of the proposal was not immediately made public, but the White House Office of Management and Budget showed EPA sent a proposed rule for an "Endangerment Finding for Greenhouse Gases under the Clean Air Act."
An endangerment finding is essential for the U.S. government to regulate climate-warming emissions like carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act. The environment agency had no comment on the endangerment finding, but such a finding is only sent to the White House when the EPA determines that human health and welfare are threatened.
Interesting4: The modest global warming trend has stopped – maybe even reversed itself. And it’s not just the record low temperatures experienced in much of the world this winter. For at least the last five years, global temperatures have been falling, according to tracking performed by Roy Spencer, the climatologist formerly of NASA. "Global warming" was going to bring more and more horrific hurricanes, climate change scientists and the politicians who subscribed to their theories said.
But since 2005, only one major hurricane has struck North America. A new study by Florida State University researcher Ryan Maue shows worldwide cyclone activity – typhoons, as well as hurricanes – has reached at least a 30-year low. Two more studies – one by the Leibniz Institute of Marine Science and the Max Planck Institute of Meteorology in Germany and another by the University of Wisconsin – predict a slowing, or even a reversal of warming, for at least the next 10 to 20 years.
The Arctic sea ice has grown more on a percentage basis this winter than it has since 1979. The number of polar bears has risen 25 percent in the past decade. There are 15,000 of them in the Arctic now, where 10 years ago there were 12,000. "The most recent global warming that began in 1977 is over, and the Earth has entered a new phase of global cooling," says Don Easterbrook, professor of geology at Western Washington University in Bellingham, confidently. He maintains a switch in Pacific Ocean currents "assures about three decades of global cooling.
New solar data showing unusual absence of sun spots and changes in the sun’s magnetic field suggest … the present episode of global cooling may be more severe than the cooling of 1945 to 1977." Climatologist Joe D’Aleo of the International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project, says new data "show that in five of the last seven decades since World War II, including this one, global temperatures have cooled while carbon dioxide has continued to rise." "The data suggest cooling not warming in Earth’s future," he says.
Interesting5: When the mood strikes her, Bonnie whistles. She’s not very good at it — she utters only single notes and can’t carry a tune. But don’t judge her too harshly; as an orangutan, she’s the first nonhuman primate ever documented to whistle, or to spontaneously mimic the sound of another species. Now thirty years old, Bonnie lives at the Smithsonian’s National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C.
In the 1980s, she probably heard a happy caretaker whistling, and she soon made whistles of her own, seemingly just for the fun of it. Recently, a team of primatologists, led by Serge A. Wich of the Great Ape Trust of Iowa in Des Moines, took a closer look at Bonnie’s abilities. By comparing recordings, they confirmed that the sounds she makes are nothing like normal orangutan sounds or vocalizations, and that her whistling tends to be imitative.
For example, she usually replicates the duration and number of whistles (one or two) that caretakers produce in front of her. Other orangutans and chimpanzees known to produce unusual sounds have typically received extensive training — yet Bonnie isn’t alone in her spontaneous whistling. Another National Zoo orangutan named Indah also took up the habit, but died before she was recorded. And Wich says that since publishing, he’s heard from workers at other zoos with whistling orangutans in their care.
Interesting6: A cosmetic surgery technique called laser resurfacing is soaring in popularity as men and women flock to clinics to get their wrinkles smoothed out. Over the past three years, the number of procedures has increased 456 percent among men and 215 percent among women, according to new numbers released today by the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery. Laser resurfacing involves pulses from a carbon dioxide laser to minimize wrinkles and lines.
The laser vaporizes water molecules in skin cells, damaging the surrounding tissue. In response, the skin produces more of the protein collagen, which fills in wrinkles. While the recession has dampened enthusiasm for many popular cosmetic procedures, de-wrinkling seems to be somewhat immune.
"These laser procedures are looking to be recession proof," according to a statement from the academy. Studies suggest the laser resurfacing does indeed reduce wrinkles, at least for a time. Wrinkles are caused by a structural breakdown inside the skin.
Some existing treatments effectively counteract the breakdown by stimulating the growth of new collagen from cells called fibroblasts. As skin ages, fibroblasts collapse and there is an increase in the production of collagenase, which breaks down collagen, researchers at the University of Michigan explained in writing about a study they did on all this last year. People in their 80s have four times more broken collagen than people in their 20s, they said.
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