Hawaii Weather Today » 2009

March 11-12, 2009

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

Lihue, Kauai – 75
Honolulu, Oahu – 82
Kaneohe, Oahu – 76
Kahului, Maui – 78
Hilo, Hawaii – 76
Kailua-kona – 80

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

Barking Sands, Kauai – 78F
Molokai airport – 72

Haleakala Crater – 45 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 34 (near 14,000 feet on the Big Island)

Precipitation Totals – The following numbers represent the largest precipitation totals (inches) during the last 24 hours on each of the major islands, as of Wednesday afternoon:

0.34 Mount Waialaele, Kauai
0.61 Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
0.00 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.04 West Wailuaiki, Maui
1.35 Kealakekua, Big Island

Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a 1035 millibar high pressure system located far to the northwest of the islands. Meanwhile, we have a cold passing down through the state Thursday. Our winds will be north to NNE, becoming stronger and gusty 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

Hawaiian sunset painting
Artist credit: A. Dzigurski

We’re moving into a period of cooler north winds, which will become locally windy at times through Friday. Our winds will be a bit cooler as they take on this more northerly aspect Thursday into Friday, and become locally strong and gusty in places. The NWS forecast office in Honolulu has issued a small craft wind advisory for all coastal and channel waters…between Kauai and Maui County, through 6pm Saturday evening. The winds this coming weekend are still a little up in the air as far as direction goes, although will likely be somewhat lighter, and may be coming from a more unusual NW or even westerly direction then.

Wednesday was a great day, with generally sunny conditions prevailing on most of the islands. As we have the current northerly breezes, we found a distinctly dry atmosphere. We will see a shower producing frontal cloud band passing down through the island chain Thursday…although heavy rainfall isn’t expected. The bulk of the showers will fall along the north facing coasts and slopes. As a low pressure system arrives to the north of our islands Friday into the weekend. As this low gets into place, we’ll see somewhat unsettled weather. Depending upon where this low ends up, will determine whether we see lots of rain, or just some showers…that’s still unclear at this point.

As noted in the paragraph above, a cloud band, with its associated showers, will slide down over the state, mostly along the north facing areas during the day Thursday. The winds will be north then, and with the clouds and generally light showers, it’s going to feel cooler. Our weather outlook remains more difficult going into the weekend, although with a low pressure system in our vicinity, our weather will be less than perfect Friday through Sunday. The models are suggest that we would see improving weather going into next week, which is the one place we can add a positive spin to this situation.

Thursday will find that showery cloud band being pushed down into the state, by an approaching high pressure system to our northwest. The upper air support for this shower producing band of clouds won’t be available, thus eliminating the prospect of flooding. Often, during these types of situations, we find small drop precipitation, with lots of drizzle and mist, although with some bonafide showers riding along with the frontal passage. Things get even more interesting Friday into the weekend. By the way, here’s a satellite image, showing what’s left of the high clouds to our southeast…and the approaching frontal cloud band to our north and northwest.

The computer forecast models are still trying to get a solid handle on what exactly this low pressure system will do, once it gets near us by Friday. The big question remains how far west this low will migrate. If it pushes into the area west of Kauai, its counterclockwise circulation could pull up lots of tropical moisture over us…with rain, or even heavy rains in the process. By the way, as this low gets in near us, we can begin to call it a Kona low pressure system. Kona low’s are well know, again depending upon where they end up, to be agents of wet weather. If the low remains to our north, we would see fewer showers. As I was stating in the paragraphs above, this will all become more clear, at least in terms of our understanding, over the next couple of days.

It’s early Wednesday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I begin writing this last part of this evening’s narrative. What a great day Wednesday was, which qualified easily, at least in most places…as mostly sunny. We haven’t had a day quite like this in quite some time. We will have to wait for another like it, after this coming weekend, at the earliest. Looking out the window here in Kihei, just before I take the drive back upcountry, to Kula, I see much, much more blue skies, than I do puffy white cumulus clouds. Now that I think about it, I’d better add this looping radar image, so we can start to track those incoming showers heading our way from the north. There will be a few showers arriving overnight, probably around Kauai and Oahu at first, before the showers start falling along the islands of Maui County during the afternoon Thursday, and then a little later in the day on the Big Island. ~~~ I’ll be back early Thursday morning with your next new weather narrative, I hope you have a great Wednesday night, and try and step outside, or look up if you are out driving around, as that near full moon of March, will still be beaming down lots of light! Aloha for now…Glenn.

One more thing, if you have left me a response in the reply box, down the page from here, and you can’t find it…or my answer, here’s what to do: go to the left hand margin of this page, and find where it says "Other Useful Links", and from there scroll down to where it says Archived Narratives. If you click there, you can go back to the previous day, where you’ll find what you wrote, and what I wrote back at the bottom of that page. By the way, from there you can go back and find any narrative that I’ve written, over the last almost three years!

Interesting: Most people consume far too much salt, and a University of Iowa researcher has discovered one potential reason we crave it: it might put us in a better mood. UI psychologist Kim Johnson and colleagues found in their research that when rats are deficient in sodium chloride, common table salt, they shy away from activities they normally enjoy, like drinking a sugary substance or pressing a bar that stimulates a pleasant sensation in their brains.

"Things that normally would be pleasurable for rats didn’t elicit the same degree of relish, which leads us to believe that a salt deficit and the craving associated with it can induce one of the key symptoms associated with depression," Johnson said.

The UI researchers can’t say it is full-blown depression because several criteria factor into such a diagnosis, but a loss of pleasure in normally pleasing activities is one of the most important features of psychological depression. And, the idea that salt is a natural mood-elevating substance could help explain why we’re so tempted to over-ingest it, even though it’s known to contribute to high blood pressure, heart disease and other health problems.

Past research has shown that the worldwide average for salt intake per individual is about 10 grams per day, which is greater than the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommended intake by about 4 grams, and may exceed what the body actually needs by more than 8 grams.

Interesting2: College women may be drinking to excess to impress their male counterparts on campuses across the country, but a new study suggests most college men are not looking for a woman to match them drink for drink. A survey of 3,616 college students at two American universities found an overwhelming majority of women overestimated the amount of alcohol a typical guy would like his female friends, dates or girlfriends to drink.

"Although traditionally, men drink more than women, research has shown that women have steadily been drinking more and more over the last several decades," said the study’s lead author, Joseph LaBrie, PhD, associate professor of psychology at Loyola Marymount University. "Our research suggests women believe men find excessive drinking sexually attractive and appealing, but it appears this is a giant misperception."

For this article, the researchers invited the participating students, ages 18 to 25, to complete an online survey during the 2007 fall semester. The students were at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles or the University of Washington. The women answered several questions to determine, on average, how many drinks they thought a typical college man would like his female friends to drink at a typical event, as well as the maximum number of drinks they thought the men would like their female friends to drink.

They then had to say, on average, how many drinks they thought a woman would have to consume for a guy to consider being friends with her, consider dating her or consider her sexually attractive. The men were asked their actual preferences. The researchers also asked the women to estimate how much they drank in any given week or month, and how much alcohol they thought the average woman at their university drank in any given week.

The results showed 71 percent of women overestimated the men’s actual preference of drinks at any given event. The women overestimated by an average of one-and-a-half drinks. When the researchers looked at the different subgroups, 26 percent of women said that men would most likely want to be friends with a woman who drinks five or more drinks and 16 percent said that men would be most sexually attracted to a woman who drank that much alcohol. Both estimates were nearly double what the men actually preferred. They also found the women who overestimated the men’s preferences were more likely to engage in excessive drinking.

Interesting3: Researchers have found what they say is some of the first unambiguous evidence that an animal other than humans can make spontaneous plans for future events. The report in the March 9th issue of Current Biology highlights a decade of observations in a zoo of a male chimpanzee calmly collecting stones and fashioning concrete discs that he would later use to hurl at zoo visitors. "These observations convincingly show that our fellow apes do consider the future in a very complex way," said Mathias Osvath of Lund University.

"It implies that they have a highly developed consciousness, including life-like mental simulations of potential events. They most probably have an ‘inner world’ like we have when reviewing past episodes of our lives or thinking of days to come. When wild chimps collect stones or go out to war, they probably plan this in advance. I would guess that they plan much of their everyday behavior."

While researchers have observed many ape behaviors that could involve planning both in the wild and in captivity, it generally hasn’t been possible to judge whether they were really meeting a current or future need, he added. For instance, when a chimp breaks a twig for termite fishing or collects a stone for nut cracking, it can always be argued that they are motivated by immediate rather than future circumstances.

And that’s what makes the newly described case so special, Osvath said. It is clear that the chimp’s planning behavior is not based on a "current drive state." In contrast to the chimp’s extreme agitation when throwing the stones, he was always calm when collecting or manufacturing his ammunition.

Osvath said he thinks wild chimps in general, as well as other animals, probably have the planning ability demonstrated by the individual described in the study. Indeed, experiments conducted recently with other captive chimpanzees have shown they are capable of making such plans.

Interesting4: University of Illinois plant geneticist Stephen Moose has developed a corn plant with enormous potential for biomass, literally. It yields corn that would make good silage, Moose said, due to a greater number of leaves and larger stalk, which could also make it a good energy crop. The gene known as Glossy 15 was originally described for its role in giving corn seedlings a waxy coating that acts like a sun screen for the young plant.

Without Glossy 15, seedling leaves instead appear shiny and glossy in sunlight. Further studies have shown that the main function of Glossy15 is to slow down shoot maturation.

Moose wondered what would happen if they turned up the action of this gene. "What happens is that you get bigger plants, possibly because they’re more sensitive to the longer days of summer. We put a corn gene back in the corn and increased its activity. So, it makes the plant slow down and gets much bigger at the end of the season."

The ears of corn have fewer seeds compared to the normal corn plant and could be a good feed for livestock. "Although there is less grain there is more sugar in the stalks, so we know the animal can eat it and they’ll probably like it." This type of corn plant may fit the grass-fed beef standard, Moose said>

Interesting5: Khajura, Bangladesh – In this obscure village perched on the rugged coastline along the Bay of Bengal, climate change exudes a taste — the taste of salt. As recently as five years ago, water from the village well tasted sweet to Mohammed Jehangir.

But now a glassful, flecked with tiny white crystals, tastes of brine. Like other paddy farmers in this southern village, Mr Jehangir is baffled by the change. But international scientists are not surprised as global warming causes sea levels to rise. It is a sign that the brackish water from the Bay of Bengal is encroaching, surging up Bangladesh’s freshwater rivers, percolating deep into the soil, fouling ponds and the underground water supply that millions depend on to drink and to cultivate their farms.

Salt is slowly making its way to the rice paddies of farmers like Mr Jehangir, destroying their only source of income. “These white particles severely impede rice productivity,” he said, darting his finger at a patch of mud covered in traces of white. “Paddy husks take on an abnormal red coloration before drying and wilting away”, he said. “The poor quality of rice doesn’t sell much. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to feed my family.”

Khajura is on the front lines of climate change, and some of the poorest of the world’s poor are feeling the consequences of the fossil-fuel emissions by industrialized nations half a world away. There is little chance of, literally, turning back the tide. So the implications are dire for many millions living in here and for others in low-lying areas around the world.

Bangladesh tops the 2009 Global Climate Risk Index, a rating of 170 countries most vulnerable to climate change complied by Germanwatch, an international non-governmental organization. The nation is particularly at risk because it is a vast delta plain with 230 small and large rivers, many of which swell during the monsoon rains.

This, combined with water from the melting Himalayan mountain glaciers in the north, and an encroaching Bay of Bengal in the south, makes the region prone to floods and the effects of intense storms that are also seen as a marker of climate stresses. Calamities like Cyclone Sidr — the category four tropical storm that ravaged southern Bangladesh in November 2007, killing about 3,500 people and displacing two million — have wiped out homes and paddy fields.

The cyclone was followed by two heavier-than-normal floods that killed some 1,500 people and damaged about two million tons of food. The United Nations warns that one-quarter of Bangladesh’s coastline could be inundated if the sea rises one meter in the next 50 years, displacing 30 million Bangladeshis from their homes and farms. If that happens, the capital, Dhaka, now at the centre of the country, would have its own sea promenade.

But beyond the long-term peril, an immediate threat comes from soil salinity that jeopardizes food output in Bangladesh, a country where 40 per cent of its 150 million people live below the poverty line. In the past few years, due to rising soil salinity, Mr Jehangir has begun noticing a white film of salt that envelopes his paddy farm.

To boost his declining income, he may follow the example of many of his neighbors who switched to shrimp farming, making money from the salty water awash over Khajura’s fields. In an occupational shift, shrimp farming is becoming more popular than cultivation. But this has come with its own share of problems.

Because it is less labor-intensive, shrimp farming has contributed to unemployment, compelling some residents to migrate to cities. Recognizing the plight of farmers, the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) has increased research on salinity issues.

Interesting6: As part of a National Geographic expedition, scientists caught what could be the world’s biggest stingray. The fish was tagged and released in central Thailand on Jan. 28, during the expedition, which seeks to find and protect specimens of the world’s largest freshwater fish. A photo marking the catch was widely circulated along with a rumor that it weighed a whopping 771 pounds. But while the stingray was indeed a heavyweight, its exact weight is unknown.

"While the photo is genuine and there’s no denying that this is a huge stingray, the stingray in the photo was never weighed," said conservation biologist Zeb Hogan of the University of Nevada, Reno. Hogan was the lead researcher on the expedition. Freshwater giant stingrays are among the largest of the approximately 200 species of rays.

They can be found in a handful of rivers in Southeast Asia and northern Australia. The fish, caught by volunteer angler Ian Welch from a small boat using a rod and reel, will be featured in an upcoming documentary airing on the National Geographic Channel.

Hogan, along with his team of researchers and anglers on site at the time of capture, approximate the fish’s weight to be between 550 and 770 pounds. An even slightly larger fish than the one tagged would almost certainly be a world record freshwater fish, he said. "In terms of disk width, this is the second largest stingray I’ve seen, the largest was in Cambodia in 2003," Hogan said.

"This recent fish was very thick, so it may have weighed more." "It’s clear that this species of giant freshwater stingray has the potential to be the largest freshwater fish in the world," Hogan said. The current record holder for world’s largest freshwater fish is a 646-pound Mekong giant catfish caught by fishermen in northern Thailand in 2005.

March 10-11, 2009

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

Lihue, Kauai – 73
Honolulu, Oahu – 81
Kaneohe, Oahu – 77
Kahului, Maui – 81
Hilo, Hawaii – 71
Kailua-kona – 78

Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountains…at 5 p.m. Tuesday afternoon:

Port Allen, Kauai – 81F
Hilo, Hawaii – 68

Haleakala Crater – 41 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – missing (near 14,000 feet on the Big Island)

Precipitation Totals – The following numbers represent the largest precipitation totals (inches) during the last 24 hours on each of the major islands, as of Tuesday afternoon:

1.08 Mount Waialaele, Kauai
8.12 Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
0.01 Molokai
0.02 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
3.89 West Wailuaiki, Maui
3.02 Piihonua, Big Island

Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a 1030 millibar high pressure system located far to the northeast of the islands, and a 1033 millibar high to our NW Wednesday. Meanwhile, we have a trough of low pressure still to east of the Big Island. Our winds will remain generally light from the north to NE into Thursday…locally stronger and gusty.

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

Nice snorkeling…Hawaii
Photo credit: Flickr.com

Our local winds are coming in from the north to northeast direction Tuesday, and will remain so into Wednesday…perhaps longer. Our winds will remain generally light to moderate, although locally stronger and gusty when they get pinched through valleys. A developing low pressure system to the northeast of the islands, will keep cool northerly breezes our way during the second half of this week. The computer forecast models are a little fuzzy about how long this low pressure system will remain to our north.

Our local weather has generally calmed down, with the threat of heavy showers tapering off nicely…as the trough of low pressure edges eastward. This area of low pressure is definitely moving away Tuesday evening, which is allowing drier air to move in now. This means that we’ll continue to see spotty rainfall, although much less than we’ve seen lately. As we find northerly breezes coming our way, we’ll also find a drying out of our overlying atmosphere. We will likely see a precipitation producing frontal cloud band arriving at some point Thursday…although it won’t be a big deal.

We actually saw lots more sunshine during the day Tuesday, which was a nice change…finally! Our overlying skies started off partly cloudy to mostly cloudy Tuesday morning…but sunshine filled our skies during the afternoon hours…at least in most areas. Wednesday should be a nice day, with slightly cooler breezes, but at the same time less showers. As noted in the paragraph above, a weak cold front may slide down over the state, mostly along the windward sides at some point during the last two days of this work week.

I’m just getting ready to leave Kihei, for the 40 minute or so drive back home to Kula. Looking out the window down here by the ocean, I can see blue skies for a change. I’m looking forward to hoping in my car, and then out of my work clothes once I get home. Then, I’ll be out on the road for my usual walk, which I greatly enjoy. If I see something unusual on the way upcountry, in terms of weather that is, I’ll get back online a little later and let you know. Otherwise, I’ll be back early Wednesday morning for your next new weather narrative. I anticipate that there will be generally clear skies overhead then, and that it will be cooler in Kula, than it has been for the last several days. I hope you have a great Tuesday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.

One more thing, if you have left me a response in the reply box, down the page from here, and you can’t find it…or my answer, here’s what to do: go to the left hand margin of this page, and find where it says "Other Useful Links", and from there scroll down to where it says Archived Narratives. If you click there, you can go back to the previous day, where you’ll find what you wrote, and what I wrote back at the bottom of that page. By the way, from there you can go back and find any narrative that I’ve written, over the last almost three years!

Interesting: It’s hard to visualize a water crisis while driving the lush boulevards of Los Angeles, golfing Arizona’s green fairways or watching dancing Las Vegas fountains leap more than 20 stories high. So look Down Under. A decade into its worst drought in a hundred years Australia is a lesson of what the American West could become. Bush fires are killing people and obliterating towns. Rice exports collapsed last year and the wheat crop was halved two years running. Water rationing is part of daily life. "Think of that as California’s future," said Heather Cooley of California water think tank the Pacific Institute.

Water raised leafy green Los Angeles from the desert and filled arid valleys with the nation’s largest fruit and vegetable crop. Each time more water was needed, another megaproject was built, from dams of the major rivers to a canal stretching much of the length of the state. But those methods are near their end. There is very little water left untapped and global warming, the gradual increase of temperature as carbon dioxide and other gases retain more of the sun’s heat, has created new uncertainties.

Global warming pushes extremes. It prolongs drought while sometimes bringing deluges the parched earth cannot absorb. California Department of Water Resources Director Lester Snow says two things keep him up at night: drought and flood. "It isn’t that drought is the new norm," said Snow. "Climate change is bringing us higher highs and lower lows in terms of water supplies."

Take Los Angeles, which had its driest year in 2006-2007, with 3 inches of rain. Only two years earlier, more than 37 inches fell, barely missing the record. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a drought emergency last month, and Los Angeles plans to ration water for the first time in 15 years. Courts are limiting the amount of water taken from rivers to save decimated fish populations, which is cutting back even more to farms.

California farmers lost more than $300 million in 2008 and economic losses may accelerate to 10 times that this year as 95,000 people lose their jobs. Farmers will get zero water from the main federal supplier. Nick Tatarakis sank his life savings into the fertile San Joaquin Valley but now thinks his business will die of thirst. "Every year it seems like this water thing is getting rougher and rougher," he said. "I took everything I had saved over the last three or four years, put it into farming almonds, developed this orchard. Now it is coming into its fifth year and probably won’t make it through this year."

Interesting2: Arsenic may be tough, but scientists have found a Yellowstone National Park alga that’s tougher. The alga — a simple one-celled algae called Cyanidioschyzon — thrives in extremely toxic conditions and chemically modifies arsenic that occurs naturally around hot springs, said Tim McDermott, professor in the Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences at Montana State University. Cyanidioschyzon could someday help reclaim arsenic-laden mine waste and aid in everything from space exploration to creating safer foods and herbicides, the scientists said.

The alga and how it detoxifies arsenic are described in a paper that’s posted this week (week of March 9) in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, or PNAS. Lead authors are McDermott and Barry Rosen, of Florida International University. Among the four co-authors is Corinne Lehr, who formerly worked with McDermott as a postdoctoral scientist at MSU and is now a faculty member at California Polytechnic State University.

Arsenic is the most common toxic substance in the environment, ranking first on the Superfund list of hazardous substances, the researchers wrote in their paper. McDermott said arsenic is very common in the hot, acidic waters of Yellowstone and presents real challenges for microorganisms living in these conditions. Indeed, there are challenges for the researchers. McDermott said the acid in the soil and water are strong enough that it sometimes eats holes through his jeans when he kneels to collect samples.

Interesting3: A recent study reports that high school students who study fewer science topics, but study them in greater depth, have an advantage in college science classes over their peers who study more topics and spend less time on each. Robert Tai, associate professor at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education, worked with Marc S. Schwartz of the University of Texas at Arlington and Philip M. Sadler and Gerhard Sonnert of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics to conduct the study and produce the report.

The study relates the amount of content covered on a particular topic in high school classes with students’ performance in college-level science classes. "As a former high school teacher, I always worried about whether it was better to teach less in greater depth or more with no real depth. This study offers evidence that teaching fewer topics in greater depth is a better way to prepare students for success in college science," Tai said. "These results are based on the performance of thousands of college science students from across the United States."

The 8,310 students in the study were enrolled in introductory biology, chemistry or physics in randomly selected four-year colleges and universities. Those who spent one month or more studying one major topic in-depth in high school earned higher grades in college science than their peers who studied more topics in the same period of time. The study revealed that students in courses that focused on mastering a particular topic were impacted twice as much as those in courses that touched on every major topic.

Interesting4: It seems we’re not the only ones struggling to adapt to the summer weather – University of Queensland researchers have found the increased temperatures may be affecting turtles too. Zoologist Dr David Booth, from UQ’s School of Biological Sciences, said green turtle hatchlings from Heron Island weren’t swimming as well as usual. “The 2008-2009 green turtle nesting season on Heron Island has seen the highest nest temperatures recorded at this site, with many nests having average temperatures above 31 degrees, and experiencing temperatures above 35 degrees during the last week of incubation,” Dr Booth said.

“Initial impressions are that hatchlings emerging from these hot nests are not as strong swimmers as hatchlings coming from cooler nests recorded in previous years. “If climate change results in consistently high nest temperatures in the future, then the poorer swimming ability of hatchlings emerging from hot nests may have a negative impact on recruitment of hatchlings from coral cays because predation rate is thought to be related to swimming ability.”

Interesting5: Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has affirmed on March 6 the decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove gray wolves from the list of threatened and endangered species in the western Great Lakes and the northern Rocky Mountain states of Idaho and Montana and parts of Washington, Oregon and Utah. Wolves will remain a protected species in Wyoming. “The recovery of the gray wolf throughout significant portions of its historic range is one of the great success stories of the Endangered Species Act,” Salazar said.

“When it was listed as endangered in 1974, the wolf had almost disappeared from the continental United States. Today, we have more than 5,500 wolves, including more than 1,600 in the Rockies.”

“The successful recovery of this species is a stunning example of how the Act can work to keep imperiled animals from sliding into extinction,” he said. “The recovery of the wolf has not been the work of the federal government alone. It has been a long and active partnership including states, tribes, landowners, academic researchers, sportsmen and other conservation groups, the Canadian government and many other partners.”

The Fish and Wildlife Service originally announced the decision to delist the wolf in January, but the new administration decided to review the decision as part of an overall regulatory review when it came into office. The Service will now send the delisting regulation to the Federal Register for publication. The Service decided to delist the wolf in Idaho and Montana because they have approved state wolf management plans in place that will ensure the conservation of the species in the future.

Interesting6: Colorful poison frogs in the Amazon owe their great diversity to ancestors that leapt into the region from the Andes Mountains several times during the last 10 million years, a new study from The University of Texas at Austin suggests. This is the first study to show that the Andes have been a major source of diversity for the Amazon basin, one of the largest reservoirs of biological diversity on Earth. The finding runs counter to the idea that Amazonian diversity is the result of evolution only within the tropical forest itself.

"Basically, the Amazon basin is a ‘melting pot’ for South American frogs," says graduate student Juan Santos, lead author of the study. "Poison frogs there have come from multiple places of origin, notably the Andes Mountains, over many millions of years. We have shown that you cannot understand Amazonian biodiversity by looking only in the basin.

Adjacent regions have played a major role." Santos and Dr. David Cannatella, professor of integrative biology, published their findings this month in the journal PLoS Biology. It has been assumed that much of the evolution of biodiversity in the Amazon basin occurred over the last one to two million years, a mere snapshot in time.

Interesting7: Scientists have warned that the impact of global warming is accelerating well beyond a forecast made by UN experts two years ago. Sea levels this century may rise several times higher than predictions made in 2007 that form the scientific foundation for policymakers today, a meeting meeting of climate experts has heard. In March 2007, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that global warming, if unchecked, would lead to a devastating amalgam of floods, drought, disease and extreme weather by the century end.

The world’s oceans would creep up 18cm to 59 centimetres, enough to wipe out several small island nations and wreak havoc for tens of millions living in low-lying deltas in east Asia, the Indian subcontinent and Africa. But a new study, presented at the Copenhagen meeting overnight, factored in likely water runoff from disintegrating glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica, and found the rise could be much higher. The IPCC estimate had been based largely on the expansion of oceans from higher temperatures, rather than meltwater and the impact of glaciers tumbling into the sea.

Using the new model, "we get a range of sea level rise by 2100 between 75cm and 190cm when we apply the IPCC’s temperature scenarios for the future", said climate expert Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Even if the world manages to dramatically cut the emission of greenhouse gases driving global warming, the "best estimate" is about one metre, he said. "A few years ago, those of us who talked about the impact of the ice sheets were seen as extremists. Today it is recognised as the central issue," said glaciologist Eric Rignot of the University of California at Irvine.

"The world has very little time," IPCC chief Rajendra Pachauri told the meeting after the new findings were presented. Participants also spoke out about fears that greenhouse gases – mainly emissions from oil, gas and coal – could trigger tipping points that would be nearly impossible to reverse. The shrinking of the Arctic ice cap, and the release of billions of tonnes of greenhouse gases trapped in melting permafrost are two such "positive feedbacks" that could become both cause and consequence of global warming.

"We need to look at what is a ‘reasonable worst case’ in the lifetime of people alive today," said John Ashton, Britain’s top climate negotiator, noting even rich nations had yet to take such scenarios seriously. "A sea level rise of one or two metres would not just be damaging for China, it would be an absolute catastrophe. And what is catastrophic for China is catastrophic for the world," he said.

Interesting8: Asian cities have shot up the list of the world’s most expensive places as currency fluctuations bring down the relative cost of living in Europe, a survey found Wednesday. Tokyo and Osaka leapfrogged Oslo and Paris to rank as first and second respectively in the cost of living index by the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Singapore jumped five places to 10th while Hong Kong overtook London and Vienna to leap 17 places to 11th on the twice-yearly survey of costs in 140 cities worldwide. With the yuan strengthening considerably over the last year, major Chinese cities have comparatively become sharply more expensive with Shanghai climbing 16 places to 29th on the index.

Beijing rose 22 places to 36th while southern cities Shenzhen and Guangzhou each climbed 26 places to rank as 41st and 53rd respectively. Taipei moved up 10 places to 57th. Despite the relative fall in living costs, Europe still claimed seven out of the top 10 most expensive cities on the index with Copenhagen, Zurich, Frankfurt, Helsinki and Geneva also claiming top- 10 berths.

March 9-10, 2009

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

Lihue, Kauai – 72
Honolulu, Oahu – 81
Kaneohe, Oahu – 74
Kahului, Maui – 79
Hilo, Hawaii – 75
Kailua-kona – 78

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

Kapalua, Maui – 79F
Lihue, Kauai – 68

Haleakala Crater – 41 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 28 (near 14,000 feet on the Big Island)

Precipitation Totals – The following numbers represent the largest precipitation totals (inches) during the last 24 hours on each of the major islands, as of Monday afternoon:

2.99 Hanalei River, Kauai
3.59 Poamoho 2, Oahu
0.17 Molokai
0.06 Lanai
0.04 Kahoolawe
1.16 Oheo Gulch, Maui
3.93 Hilo airport, Big Island

Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a 1033 millibar high pressure system located far to the northeast of the islands. Meanwhile, we have a trough of low pressure, both at the surface and aloft aligned over the Big Island. Our winds will remain generally light, although stronger and gusty in some 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

Sunset on the Kona coast
Photo credit: Flickr.com

Our local winds will be variable in strength, with a tendency towards locally gusty trade winds during the first half of this week…then cool north breezes brought in by a cold Front Thursday onward. We have a low pressure system, with its associated trough, over the islands as we start this new work week. Our winds will remain generally light, although locally stronger and gusty going into Tuesday. A developing low pressure system to the north of the islands by Thursday, will bring cool northerly breezes our way going into the upcoming weekend.

Weather maps show a trough of low pressure running through the island chain early Monday evening. This area of low pressure will keep unsettled weather in our vicinity over the next couple of days. This means that we’ll continue to see spotty rainfall, some of which will be locally heavy. It’s not out of the question for a thunderstorm or two to develop here and there. As we reach Thursday, we will likely see a shower producing cold front arrive…with another one late this weekend.

This atmospheric destabilizing low pressure system, with its trough, will help to keep our sunshine limited. Our overlying skies will remain partly to mostly cloudy going into Tuesday. This looping satellite image shows the extent of this cloudiness…much of which consists of the high clouds brought our way on the upper winds aloft…although there’s lower level clouds around too. The combination of ample moisture, along with the presence of low pressure in our area, will keep the threat of heavy showers around for the time being.

Showers are mostly falling over the ocean offshore from the islands Tuesday evening. Looking at this looping radar image, we see the extent of the showers in our area remains most active to the south of Oahu and Maui County, and to the north of those islands as well…in addition to the area east of the Big Island. The air mass is still shower prone, so that we could see showers coming ashore at times overnight into Tuesday. The daytime heating of the islands, could easily prompt thick clouds again, especially over the interior sections. These cumulus clouds may lead to more showers on each of the islands.

The cloudy skies just won’t go away! A multi-level canopy of high, middle, and lower level clouds are sticking like glue to our area. At the moment, it appears that these clouds may be thinning, or even shifting to the east, away from Kauai and Oahu. The thickest part of this conveyor belt of clouds, are riding over Maui County and the Big Island. I think just about everyone here in the islands now, would like to see these semi-permanent upper level clouds move away…which may be happening more fully during the day Tuesday into Wednesday.

~~~ Looking out the window here in Kihei, Maui, before I take the drive upcountry to Kula…it’s cloudy out there! I feel like I’ve been writing those same words almost everyday for weeks! We haven’t seen a mostly sunny day forever, or so it seems. At any rate, I’m going home to change clothes, and to get out there for a walk under these cloudy skies now. I don’t see any rain around, so at least that’s good. I’ll be back early Tuesday morning with your next new weather narrative, can I still call it paradise, even with all these clouds around? By the way, after driving through thick fog between Pukalani and Kula, which cleared shortly thereafter, making way for a wonderfully bright orange sunset! I hope you have a great Monday night wherever you happen to be reading from! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Icy looking picture of the top of Mauna Kea summit…on the Big Island!

One more thing, if you have left me a response in the reply box, down the page from here, and you can’t find it…or my answer, here’s what to do: go to the left hand margin of this page, and find where it says "Other Useful Links", and from there scroll down to where it says Archived Narratives. If you click there, you can go back to the previous day, where you’ll find what you wrote, and what I wrote back at the bottom of that page. By the way, from there you can go back and find any narrative that I’ve written, over the last almost three years!

Interesting: A glass of wine or a bottle or two of beer a day may strengthen the bones of older men and women, but drinking more than that could actually weaken bones, according to new research from the Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston. The research, on men and post-menopausal women over 60 years of age, found that regular moderate alcohol intake was associated with greater bone mineral density (BMD).

While earlier research had suggested the link between moderate drinking and improved bone density, the Tufts’ study looked specifically at the "possible effects of three alcohol classes, beer, wine and liquor, on BMD," said Katherine Tucker, the director of the epidemiology research program at Tufts. "We saw stronger associations between higher BMD and beer drinkers, who were mostly men, and wine drinkers, who were mostly women, compared with liquor drinkers," she said.

Tucker and her colleagues speculated that silicon found in beer is contributing to the higher bone density in men. It is less clear why liquor and wine might protect bone density. The researchers also emphasized that drinking too much is damaging to bones and noted that "no one should depend solely on alcohol to maintain bone density."

Interesting2: The Amazon is surprisingly sensitive to drought, according to new research conducted throughout the world’s largest tropical forest. The 30-year study, published in Science, provides the first solid evidence that drought causes massive carbon loss in tropical forests, mainly through killing trees. "For years the Amazon forest has been helping to slow down climate change.

But relying on this subsidy from nature is extremely dangerous", said Professor Oliver Phillips, from the University of Leeds and the lead author of the research. "If the earth’s carbon sinks slow or go into reverse, as our results show is possible, carbon dioxide levels will rise even faster. Deeper cuts in emissions will be required to stabilize our climate."

The study, a global collaboration between more than 40 institutions, was based on the unusual 2005 drought in the Amazon. This gave scientists a glimpse into the region’s future climate, in which a warming tropical North Atlantic may cause hotter and more intense dry seasons. The 2005 drought sharply reversed decades of carbon absorption, in which Amazonia helped slow climate change.

In normal years the forest absorbs nearly 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide. The drought caused a loss of more than 3 billion tons. The total impact of the drought – 5 billion extra tons of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – exceeds the annual emissions of Europe and Japan combined. "Visually, most of the forest appeared little affected, but our records prove tree death rates accelerated. Because the region is so vast, even small ecological effects can scale-up to a large impact on the planet’s carbon cycle," explained Professor Phillips.

Interesting3: The United States must make deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions than proposed by President Barack Obama if the world is to stand a chance of avoiding devastating, an EU official said. Jos Delbeke, the European Commission’s deputy director-general of the environment, said a goal of bringing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions back to 1990 levels by 2020, set by Obama last month, will probably not be enough.

"I doubt whether that will bring us to the average required by developed countries," he told Reuters on Friday. "We in Europe would hope the U.S. will do more than stabilization of 1990 levels. I will not hide that." Scientists say global emissions must stabilize by 2015, than fall by some 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 if the world is to keep temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius.

A rise of over 2 degrees may trigger widespread flooding, droughts, disease and famine, United Nations scientists said. The 27-nation European Union has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, upping that target to 30 percent if a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol climate pact is signed.

"The EU’s position is that developed countries, as a group, must cut 30 percent below 1990 levels by 2020," Delbeke told a clean energy conference held by analysts New Energy Finance. With its carbon dioxide emissions rising nearly 20 percent since 1990, the United States is the most polluting developed country. Stabilization of U.S. emissions at 1990 levels in 2020 would make it near impossible for developed countries to reach the EU’s 30 percent group target.

March 8-9, 2009

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

Lihue, Kauai – 75
Honolulu, Oahu – 80
Kaneohe, Oahu – 76
Kahului, Maui – 78
Hilo, Hawaii – 69
Kailua-kona – 72

Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountains…at 5 p.m. Sunday evening:

Barking Sands, Kauai – 77F
Hilo, Hawaii – 68

Haleakala Crater – 41 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 32 (near 14,000 feet on the Big Island)

Precipitation Totals – The following numbers represent the largest precipitation totals (inches) during the last 24 hours on each of the major islands, as of Sunday afternoon:

2.25 Wainiha, Kauai
1.12 Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
0.27 Molokai
0.38 Lanai
0.89 Kahoolawe
1.84 Oheo Gulch, Maui
10.71 Waiakea Uka, Big Island

Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing high pressure systems located far to the north and northeast of the islands. Meanwhile, we have a trough of low pressure, both at the surface and aloft aligned over the Hawaiian Islands. Our winds will remain generally light, although quicker paced over the windward sides.

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

Kauai coast
Artist credit: Pierre Bouret

A trough of low pressure, both at the surface and aloft, will keep our winds variable in direction Sunday night…gradually getting back to being light trade winds into the new week ahead. Weather maps Sunday night show high pressure systems far to the northwest and northeast of our Hawaiian Islands. At the same time, we have this area of low pressure over the western side of the Aloha state. This situation will bring us generally light winds…although locally stronger trade winds at times. We’ll see generally light trade winds through the first half of the new week.

The trough of low pressure, mentioned in the above paragraph, is keeping our skies quite cloudy, with generally light showers falling…although heavier at times. This shower producing area of low pressure is keeping our air mass destabilized to some degree Sunday evening. The cold air associated with the trough, will help to enhance whatever showers that form over and around the Aloha state. Some of this precipitation will be locally heavy on each of the islands in turn. The threat of these showers will extend into the first part of the new week ahead.

We’ve seen locally very generous rainfall over some parts of the islands, especially the Big Island. The following numbers represented the largest precipitation totals (inches), through the last 24 hours. on each of the islands as of Sunday evening:

Kauai:             1.89
Oahu:              2.61
Molokai:          .29
Maui:             1.95
Kahoolawe:     .88
Lanai:             .40
Big Island:    9.73

The pool of cold air aloft over the islands, has helped to enhance the showers that are falling over the islands now. Our overlying skies are partly to mostly cloudy Sunday evening, which isn’t that unusual lately. This looping satellite image shows the extent of this heavy canopy of clouds. This is a multi-layered affair, which will cause generally light showers just about anywhere. There is that chance however, that we will continue see areas of more intense rainfall.

This cold air above, with warmer air near the surface, will keep our air mass unstable. This is the classic recipe for showers, and even heavy showers. Each of the islands, or at least most of them, have taken their turns in being wet, to very wet at times. Meanwhile, the tops of the mountains on the Big Island will continue to see light snow falling…here’s a link to Mauna Kea. The camera lens on that webcam will have rime ice, or snow on it at times going into Sunday night.

It’s Sunday evening here in Kula, Maui, as I begin writing this last section of today’s narrative. The incredibly large 10.00+ inch rainfall total on the windward side of the Big Island, gives us a good idea how rain prone our local atmosphere has been during the last 24 hours! There were several 10.00"+ rainfall accumulations along that soggy windward side of the Big Island. Looking at this looping radar image early Sunday evening, we see most of the showers concentrating their efforts over the area from the Big Island and Maui, up through parts of Oahu. The showers over Oahu will likely end after sunset, while the showers continue into the night on Maui and the Big Island.

~~~ Looking a bit further ahead, now that the computer models are showing the way ahead, we have more afternoon showers through Tuesday…and then cooler and drier weather during the second half of the week. The trough of low pressure over the state will work with any daytime sunshine, to provide more afternoon convective showers Monday and Tuesday. As we move into the mid-week period, we will find our winds turning more northerly, or northeasterly in direction. This will bring in cooler air for the one thing, which will also as usual, be drier for the most part.

~~~ It’s around 6pm Sunday evening here in Kula, where it has been cloudy all day. There have been off and on foggy periods, with light showers falling at times. It has been the kind of day that I very much enjoy, as pea soup fog really catches my attention. This afternoon, after having a nice cozy lunch with my close neighbors, I came back home, and came up to this weather tower. I got into bed, got under that nice warm down comforter, and sat there watching the fog envelop me totally. I was able to fall asleep briefly, which was really nice too. It’s still lightly showering out there, and the thick fog is still restricting visibilities to a very short distance. I’m about ready to go downstairs for a light dinner, some reading, and then probably some telephone calling. I don’t have a television, as I gave both of them away several years ago. So, if I have some extra time, I’ll enjoy sinking into a great poetry book that I’ve been reading lately. I hope you have a great Sunday night, and that you will join me here again early Monday morning, when I’ll have your next new weather narrative from paradise waiting for you then! Aloha for now…Glenn.

One more thing, if you have left me a response in the reply box, down the page from here, and you can’t find it…or my answer, here’s what to do: go to the left hand margin of this page, and find where it says "Other Useful Links", and from there scroll down to where it says Archived Narratives. If you click there, you can go back to the previous day, where you’ll find what you wrote, and what I wrote back at the bottom of that page. By the way, from there you can go back and find any narrative that I’ve written, over the last almost three years!

Interesting: Scientists identified seven new species of bamboo coral discovered on a NOAA-funded mission in the deep waters of the Papahnaumokukea Marine National Monument. Six of these species may represent entirely new genera, a remarkable feat given the broad classification a genus represents. Scientists expect to identify more new species as analysis of samples continues.

“These discoveries are important, because deep-sea corals support diverse seafloor ecosystems and also because these corals may be among the first marine organisms to be affected by ocean acidification,” said Richard Spinrad, Ph.D., NOAA’s assistant administrator for Oceanic and Atmospheric Research.

Ocean acidification is a change in ocean chemistry due to excess carbon dioxide. Researchers have seen adverse changes in marine life with calcium-carbonate shells, such as corals, because of acidified ocean water. “Deep-sea bamboo corals also produce growth rings much as trees do, and can provide a much-needed view of how deep ocean conditions change through time,” said Spinrad. Rob Dunbar, a Stanford University scientist, was studying long-term climate data by examining long-lived corals.

“We found live, 4,000-year-old corals in the Monument – meaning 4,000 years worth of information about what has been going on in the deep ocean interior.” “Studying these corals can help us understand how they survive for such long periods of time, as well as how they may respond to climate change in the future,” said Dunbar.

Interesting2: Moths need just the essence of a flower’s scent to identify it, according to new research from The University of Arizona in Tucson. Although a flower’s odor can be composed of hundreds of chemicals, a moth uses just a handful to recognize the flower. It’s like identifying a piece of music from hearing only the notes played by a few key instruments, said lead researcher Jeffrey A. Riffell. "The moth isn’t paying attention to all the chemicals at the same time," Riffell said.

"It’s actually just paying attention to a few." The finding provides insight into how the brain processes a specific smell from the sea of odors floating through the air. The UA team recorded from the brains of tobacco hornworm moths as they smelled each individual chemical of the 60-some that comprise the fragrance emitted by the moth’s preferred source of nectar, sacred datura flowers.

It is the first time researchers have recorded an insect’s brain activity as the animal smelled all the individual chemicals captured from a real flower. Previous research used only synthetic odors. Just nine of the chemicals provoked a neural response. However, all nine had to be presented simultaneously for the moth to fly to the smell’s source and then stick out its tongue seeking nectar.

Interesting3: University of Montana researcher Scott Mills and his students have noticed an exceptional number of white snowshoe hares on brown earth. He contends that climate change and the color mismatch are causing much more hare mortality. On an unseasonably warm May afternoon, University of Montana wildlife biology Professor Scott Mills treks into the shadowy forests above the Seeley-Swan Valley in pursuit of his quarry. He skirts the rivulets of water melting from snow patches.

In one hand he holds an antenna and in the other a receiver that’s picking up signals from a radio-collared snowshoe hare. The beeps increase in volume as he draws nearer. Mills picks his way over downed branches, steps out from behind a western larch and spots the white hare crouched on the bare brown earth. “That’s just an embarrassing moment for a snowshoe hare to think that it’s invisible when it’s not,” said Mills with a grin, quickly adding that seeing such mismatched colors is becoming all too common and disturbing.

For the past decade, Mills has directed teams of biologists and students to investigate snowshoe hares on more than 35 study sites in Montana, Wyoming and Washington, including just outside UM’s back door near Seeley Lake. His findings have led to improved forest thinning practices that maintain patches of dense trees for hares. He’s delved into population dynamics and genetics of hares in their southern range.

His research has turned directly to lynx, too, as a key predator of snowshoe hares and a threatened species. Increasingly Mills and his students have noted an exceptional number of white hares on brown earth. Radio telemetry data revealed spring and fall to be the most deadly seasons for hares and a bonanza for predators.

Interesting4: Children and adolescents aren’t meeting guidelines for fruit and vegetable consumption, according to researchers at Ohio State University. The researchers analyzed results of the 1999-2002 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to assess the amounts of fruits and vegetables consumed by children and adolescents compared to Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommendations, and to identify factors related to low fruit and vegetable consumption.

In a study of more than 6,500 children ages 2 to 18, the researchers found those not meeting recommendations tended to be male, older and living in households making between 130 percent and 350 percent of the federal poverty level. The researchers found 2-to-5 year-olds consumed significantly more fruit and juice than children ages 6 to 11 and 12 to 18 year olds. Total vegetable consumption was significantly higher among 12-to-18 year-olds. However, only 8 percent of vegetables consumed by children in all groups were dark green or orange; fried potatoes constituted about 46 percent of total vegetable consumption.

The study also found fruit consumption differed significantly among race, ethnicities and household income. Mexican Americans consumed significantly more fruit than non-Hispanic white children and adolescents. In addition, non-Hispanic black children and adolescents consumed significantly more dark-green vegetables and fewer deep-yellow vegetables than Mexican American and non-Hispanic white children and adolescents.

The researchers concluded: "These children and adolescents should be targeted for nutritional interventions focusing on amounts and types of fruits and vegetables to consume. Nevertheless, there is a common need among American children and adolescents for nutritional interventions designed to increase daily fruit and vegetable consumption. When counseling children, adolescents and their parents/caregivers, dietitians need to address factors that may influence fruit and vegetable intake, such as gender, age, race/ethnicity and income."

Interesting5: Ancient groundwater being tapped by Jordan, one of the 10 most water-deprived nations in the world, has been found to contain twenty times the radiation considered safe for drinking water in a new study by an international team of researchers. "The combined activities of 228 radium and 226 radium – the two long-lived isotopes of radium – in the groundwater we tested are up to 2000 percent higher than international drinking standards," said Avner Vengosh, associate professor of earth and ocean sciences in the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University.

Making the water safe for long-term human consumption is possible, he said, but it will require extra steps to reduce its radioactivity. Vengosh and his research team, made up of scientists from Jordan, Palestine, Israel and the United States, published their findings Feb. 19 in a paper in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science & Technology. Jordan’s annual water use exceeds the natural replenishment of its major river, the Yarmouk, and its local aquifers that are becoming salinized as a result of over-pumping.

In 2007, the Jordanian government announced plans for a $600-million project to pump low-saline fossil groundwater from the Disi aquifer, located along the nation’s remote southern border with Saudi Arabia, and pipe it 250 kilometers north to the capital, Amman, a city of 3.1 million people, and other population centers.Fossil groundwater is a nonrenewable supply of water trapped underground in aquifers.

In recent years, policymakers in countries facing chronic water shortages have increasingly viewed low-saline supplies of fossil groundwater as an important potential source of water for human and agricultural use. Libya and Saudi Arabia, for example, have relied extensively on fossil groundwater from Nubian sandstone aquifers similar to the Disi to meet their water needs in recent decades.

Interesting6: A Spanish researcher has discovered a newfound species of fish in an area of the Antarctic Ocean that has not been studied since 1904. The fish, given the name Gosztonyia antarctica, was found at a depth of 2,000 feet in the Bellingshausen Sea, an area between two islands along the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula. The area has been little explored by scientists because it is relatively inaccessible and the ocean floor beneath it has not been mapped, said the researcher who made the discovery, Jesús Matallanas of the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

Since the expedition of the boat Bélgica, which obtained two unique specimens of fish in 1904, no one has fished in the sea. Matallanas collected four specimens of the newfound species — measuring between 10 to 12 inches — during Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO) campaigns in the southern hemisphere summers of 2003 and 2006. His findings were detailed in the January issue of the journal Polar Biology.

The fish is from the family Zoarcidae, a dominant group of fish on continental slopes that has some 240 species. The discovery yielded some insight into the makeup of the fauna of the Bellingshausen Sea. "One of the most significant results is that the ichthyofauna of the Bellingshausen Sea, contrary to what was previously believed, is more closely related to that of the Eastern Antarctic than the Western," Matallanas said.

March 7-8, 2009

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

Lihue, Kauai – 73
Honolulu, Oahu – 74
Kaneohe, Oahu – 73
Kahului, Maui – 75
Hilo, Hawaii – 68
Kailua-kona – 74

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

Kahului, Maui – 78F
Hilo, Hawaii – 66

Haleakala Crater – 41 (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 Saturday afternoon:

4.95 Hanalei River, Kauai
1.74 Poamoho 2, Oahu
0.16 Molokai
0.16 Lanai
0.54 Kahoolawe
4.79 Hana airport, Maui
7.52 Hilo airport, Big Island

Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a very strong 1042 millibar high pressure system located far to the north-northeast of the islands. This high pressure system will keep our trade winds still locally gusty Saturday, remaining at generally light to moderately strong levels Sunday into Monday.

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 palm trees, tall mountains…Kauai
Artist credit: Pierre Bouret

The trade winds continue to blow…which remain somewhat gusty in places into Sunday. The trade winds remain active this weekend, thanks to a far away, and very strong high pressure system, in the north central Pacific. The central pressure of this trade wind producing feature, is 1042 millibars Saturday evening. If this cell of high pressure weren’t so far away, it would be generating stronger trade winds locally. There’s a trough of low pressure in our vicinity this weekend though, which is helping to stem the wind flow to some degree.

The trough of low pressure, mentioned in the above paragraph, is keeping our skies quite cloudy, with generally light showers falling…although heavier at times. This shower producing area of low pressure is destabilizing our air mass this weekend. The cold air associated with the trough, will help to enhance whatever showers that form over and around the Aloha state. There’s a chance that some of this precipitation will be locally heavy…with even a few thunderstorms at times. The threat of these showers may extend into the first part of the new week ahead.

The locally very generous rainfall over and around the islands, has stepped into the top spot…in terms of headline weather news. The following numbers represented the largest precipitation totals (inches), through the last 24 hours. on each of the islands as of Saturday night:

Kauai:            4.94
Oahu:             1.83
Molokai:         .19
Maui:              4.86
Kahoolawe:      .61
Lanai:              .16
Big Island:   8.86

The pool of cold air aloft over the islands, is helping to enhance the showers that are falling over Hawaii now. Our overlying skies are mostly cloudy Saturday evening, which isn’t that unusual lately. This looping satellite image shows the extent of this heavy canopy of clouds. This is a multi-layered affair, which will cause generally light showers just about anywhere. There is that chance however, that we will see areas of more intense rainfall…with even a thunderstorm.

This cold air above, with warmer air near the surface, will keep our air mass unstable. This is the classic recipe for showers, and even heavy showers. As we end up the day Saturday evening, there was spotty rainfall happening on each of the islands. Meanwhile, the tops of the mountains on the Big Island will likely find snow falling…so in order to keep track of that, here’s a link to Mauna Kea. The camera lens on that webcam will have rime ice, or snow on it at times into Sunday.

It’s Saturday late afternoon here in Kula, Maui, as I write about today’s less than perfect weather conditions. While the winds are no longer much of an issue, our rainfall has certainly increased on the larger islands. As you saw in the list of rain totals just up the page, the rainiest part of the Big Island, which happened to be the Hilo airport…ended up with almost 8.00" of the wet stuff falling during the last 24 hours. Before we go any further though, here’s a looping radar image so you can keep track of where these showers are falling. If you have a chance, take a quick glance at that radar picture, which will help you visualize what’s going on here in the islands now.

I went to see the new film called Watchmen (2009) Friday night after work. This was a very interesting film, starring Malin Akerman, and Billy Crudup…among others. The short synopsis of this film: after a law is passed to thwart the efforts of a group of crime fighters, one of them is mysteriously murdered…which starts a whole host of chain reactions! The film was very long, bordering on 3 hours! It was a complex excursion into comic book mythology, and to be honest, didn’t always make sense to me. There was lots of violence, along with plenty of special effects, and even a love affair that threaded through the film, between two of the characters…which combined in such a way to keep me fully entertained. Here’s a trailer of this wild new film.

Today was a little busier than I would have preferred…after having a big work week under my belt. It started off with a haircut appointment in Paia, where I also did my weekly grocery shopping. I then came home for a while, before soon heading out again to meet a friend down in lower Kula for a visit and dinner. This friend is having a serious health issue, so I’m bringing fresh wild salmon, along with organic cauliflower and brocolli for dinner. It will be good to just be with her, relax, and talk about this and that…and probably have some soothing music too. I’ve known this person for a long time, and had a five year business association, which turned out very well for both of us. In the face of her deep troubles, I am finding, fortunately, a peaceful place within myself to share with her. I wasn’t too sure about how I would react, but found the where-with-all to listen, and to hold her hand for comfort. ~~~ I’ll be back here Sunday morning with your next new weather narrative. I hope you have a great Saturday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.