April 24-25, 2009
Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Friday afternoon:
Lihue, Kauai – 76
Honolulu, Oahu – 80
Kaneohe, Oahu – 75
Kahului, Maui – 76
Hilo, Hawaii – 73
Kailua-kona – 80
Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountains…at 6 a.m. Saturday morning:
Kailua-kona – 69F
Port Allen, Kauai – 59
Haleakala Crater – 34 (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 Saturday morning:
0.05 Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.18 Maunawili, Oahu
0.15 Molokai
0.01 Lanai
0.09 Kahoolawe
1.16 West Wailuaiki, Maui
2.30 Pohakuloa West, Big Island
Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a big 1038 millibar high pressure system far to the northeast of the islands. This high pressure system, due to the trough of low pressure to the southeast of the Big island…will keep northeast to ENE trade winds blowing through Sunday.
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
The Keanae Peninsula…along the Hana coast, Maui
A trough of low pressure, which kept our atmosphere shower prone the last 24 hours, has for the most part…lost its influence as we move into the weekend. The locally generous showers, and rain in places, has quickly backed off during the day. Here’s a looping radar image, which shows that what few showers that remain in our area, continue to congregate to the northeast of the Big Island. The few showers that will be in falling in the Aloha state soon, will generally be brought in our direction on the northeast to ENE trade winds.
The cold air associated with a low pressure system in the upper atmosphere over the islands…is through making our air mass unstable now. The instability, working with the considerable low level moisture…kept localized heavy showers around Thursday into Friday. The weather definitely took a turn for the better during the day
Friday, which is expected to continue Saturday and Sunday. There should be more sunshine than we’ve seen over the last several days, which I’m sure everyone here in the islands will appreciate!
Looking a bit further ahead, there’s a good chance that we’ll see a cold front approaching the islands after the weekend, more about that on Saturday.
Just in time for the weekend, we’re moving into a much improved weather pattern. The heavy showers that fell over the state are now quickly departing our area, heading eastward. If we look at this looping satellite image, it shows all those clouds now generally to the east of the Big Island. There will be a few showers, but those will be generally of little importance, falling over the windward sides. This will leave the south and west facing leeward beaches in good shape, with warmer air temperatures making things delightful again.
Since it’s Friday evening, I’m just about ready to take a drive over to Kahului, to take in a few film. There are actually several that I find appealing, but have decided to see Dragonball Evolution (2009), starring no one that you would have heard of. This is another one of those action adventure, including science fiction and fantasy. I can see my Mom rolling her eyes, as she can’t understand why I enjoy seeing these types of films! I always ask her, did you check out the trailer…she says of course not…smile. At any rate, the brief synopsis reads:
"Goku and a handful of friends battle for the Earth against the deadly forces of the Saiyans, who are sweeping across the universe, leaving a path of destruction. Goku and his friends’ best chance for survival rests with the Namekian DragonBalls, which provide them the power to summon a mighty dragon.
The truth is that I’m just going to make a flying leap into the theatre, plop down in the seat, and just take what I get…I’m just in that kind of mood! By the way, here’s a trailer just in case you have the slightest interest in taking a quick peek.
It’s early Friday evening as I begin writing this last section of today’s weather narrati ve. Looking out the window here in Kihei, Maui, before I take the drive over to Kahului, for my film, it’s at least partly cloudy out there. The trade winds are blowing, hich are actually quite breezy at a little after 6pm. It’s been a good week of work, really interesting, which kept my attention focused really well. I’m happy that I have the next two days off from work, although as you know, I’ll keep this
website updated both Saturday and Sunday. I’ll be back fairly early Saturday morning with your next new narrative, yes from paradise. I hope you have a great Friday night, wherever you happen to be spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.
Interesting: Fire must be accounted for as an integral part of climate change, according to 22 authors of an article published in the April 24 issue of the journal Science. The authors determined that intentional deforestation fires alone contribute up to one-fifth of the human-caused increase in emissions of carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping gas that increases global temperature.
The work is the culmination of a meeting supported by the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP) and the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), both based at the University of California, Santa Barbara and funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
The authors call on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to fully integrate fire into their assessments of global climate change, and consider fire-climate feedbacks, which have been largely absent in global models. The article ties together various threads of knowledge about fire, which have, until now, remained isolated in disparate fields including ecology, global modeling, physics, anthropology and climatology.
Increasing numbers of wildfires are influencing climate as well, the authors report. "The tragic fires in Victoria, Australia, emphasize the ubiquity of recent large wildfires and potentially changing fire regimes that are concomitant with anthropogenic climate change," said David Bowman of the University of Tasmania. "Our review is both timely and of great relevance globally."
Carbon dioxide is the most important and well-studied greenhouse gas that is emitted by burning plants. However, methane, aerosol particulates in smoke, and the changing reflectance of a charred landscape each contribute to changes in the atmosphere caused by fire. Consequences of large fires have huge economic, environmental, and health costs, report the authors.
The authors state, "Earth is intrinsically a flammable planet due to its cover of carbon-rich vegetation, seasonally dry climates, atmospheric oxygen, wide spread lightning and volcano ignitions. Yet, despite the human species’ long-held appreciation of this flammability, the global scope of fire has been revealed only recently by satellite observations available beginning in the 1980s."
Interesting2: An expansion of wetlands and not a large-scale melting of frozen methane deposits is the likely cause of a spike in atmospheric methane gas that took place some 11,600 years ago, according to an international research team led by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. The finding is expected to come as a relief to scientists and climate watchers concerned that huge accelerations of global warming might have been touched off by methane melts in the past and could happen again now as the planet warms.
By measuring the amount of carbon-14 isotopes in methane from air bubbles trapped in glacial ice, the researchers determined that the surge that took place nearly 12,000 years ago was more chemically consistent with an expansion of wetlands. Wetland regions, which produce large amounts of methane from bacterial breakdown of organic matter, are known to have spread during warming trends throughout history.
"This is good news for global warming because it suggests that methane clathrates do not respond to warming by releasing large amounts of methane into the atmosphere," said Vasilii Petrenko, a postdoctoral fellow at University of Colorado, Boulder, who led the analysis while a graduate student at Scripps.
Interesting3: The oil company Royal Dutch Shell said Thursday that it had reached a $5.8 million settlement over claims of air pollution at its Deer Park refinery near Houston. The proposed settlement would require Shell to reduce emissions from air pollutants from its plant by 80 percent within three years, upgrade chemical units and reduce gas flaring.
The agreement is subject to review by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Justice Department. It must also be approved by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, where the complaint was filed.
Shell was sued last year by Environment Texas Citizen Lobby and the Sierra Club, claiming violations of the Clean Air Act. The suit contended there had been more than a thousand instances of illegal pollution at the plant since 2003, releasing a total of five million pounds of air pollutants into the atmosphere, including toxic chemicals like benzene and 1,3-butadiene, as well as sulfur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen.
Interesting4: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today announced that the Tehachapi slender salamander could warrant federal Endangered Species Act protection due to the destruction of its very limited habitat in the Tehachapi mountains and southern Sierras of California. The salamander now lives primarily on Tejon Ranch, the massive, privately owned biodiversity gem north of Los Angeles.
"The Tehachapi slender salamander has taken a beating in the northern part of its range, while its southern range is now threatened by proposed developments on Tejon Ranch," said Ileene Anderson, a Center for Biological Diversity biologist. "This very rare animal needs immediate protection."
The Tehachapi slender salamander is known from only two populations. One in Caliente Canyon in the southern Sierras and one in the Tehachapi Mountains entirely on Tejon Ranch. Development plans on Tejon Ranch threaten five of the known locations of the secretive salamander. The salamander is also threatened by road construction, mining, livestock grazing, and flood-control projects. It has, for example, been eliminated from the Tehachapi Pass area due to highway construction.
Interesting5: The California Air Resources Board overwhelmingly approved the nation’s first Low Carbon Fuel Standard that will reduce carbon pollution and provide cleaner air for Californians. The new standard will cover emissions from "well to wheels," representing the most comprehensive and ambitious program to account for the pollution created by extracting, growing or refining fuels. It will also give Californians new choices for low carbon fuels, such as advanced biofuels and electricity for plug-in hybrids. Following is a statement by Roland Hwang, Transportation Program Director for the Natural Resources Defense Council:
"California’s adoption of the Low Carbon Fuel Standard marks the beginning of the end for dirty fuels and the dawning of cleaner fuels for America. The handwriting is on the wall: Big Oil needs to stop investing in dirty, high carbon fuels and move to produce more advanced biofuels and other low carbon fuels. Already 14 states are poised to follow California’s lead, representing roughly 40 percent of the United States. Business as usual is not going to work for the ethanol industry, and we hope that they will meet this challenge with the same spirit of innovation that makes California the center of clean technology.
The ethanol industry needs to become a bridge, not a roadblock to America’s clean energy future. But our work is not done. The Air Resources Board unfortunately postponed the adoption of critical safeguards for our native forests, fish and wildlife habitat, and scenic wild lands. We’ll continue to work with the Air Resources Board to encourage the implementation of important safeguards to ensure that biofuel production does not sacrifice the unique natural heritage of California."
Interesting6: It’s not just what you eat and how much you exercise that can pack on the pounds. What your mother consumed during her pregnancy may also add to your own waistline later in life. A new study found that pregnant women who ate the most DDT-contaminated fish while pregnant in the 1970s had daughters that carried as much as 20 extra pounds three decades later.
The study adds to growing evidence that chemicals in the environment can affect body weight and that conditions in the womb can have health effects in adulthood. "The things that mothers are exposed to and that circulate in their blood while babies are in utero really do make a difference a long time later," said Janet Osuch, an epidemiologist at Michigan State University in East Lansing. "Obesity researchers have not looked at this at all."
Interesting7: The Earth’s ailing ozone layer will probably recover, but it will never look exactly like it used to. That is the conclusion of a new study, which found that greenhouse gasses are interfering with ozone’s rebound in complicated ways. The study predicts a patchy future for the ozone layer, with some sections becoming even thicker than they were before bans on ozone-damaging chemicals kicked in. Other sections, meanwhile, may remain sparse. "This shows that greenhouse gas increases could have some surprising effects on ozone," said Feng Li, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Goddard Earth Sciences and Technology Center in Greenbelt, Md.
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