Hawaiian Islands weather details & Aloha paragraphs / March 1-2, 2011

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

Lihue, Kauai –                   80
Honolulu airport, Oahu –    81
Kaneohe, Oahu –               78
Molokai airport –                77
Kahului airport, Maui –        79
Kona airport –                      81
Hilo airport, Hawaii –          76

Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountain tops…as of 5pm Tuesday evening:

Port Allen, Kauai – 81F
Hilo, Hawaii – 73

Haleakala Crater –     missing (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 39 (under 14,000 feet on the Big Island)

Precipitation Totals – The following numbers represent the largest precipitation totals Tuesday evening:

0.43    Kilohana, Kauai
0.18    Maunawili, Oahu
0.12    Molokai
0.00    Lanai
0.00    Kahoolawe
1.36    West Wailuaiki, Maui
0.73    Laupahoehoe, Big Island

Marine Winds – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing low pressure systems far to the northeast of Hawaii…with a weak front just southeast of the islands. A high pressure ridge will be to our north. Our winds will be northeast to east through Wednesday, then gradually swing around to the south and southwest Thursday.

Satellite and Radar Images: To view the cloud conditions we have here in Hawaii, please use the following satellite links, starting off with this Infrared Satellite Image of the islands to see all the clouds around 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 web cam 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 web cams 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.

Tropical Cyclone activity in the eastern and central Pacific – Here’s the latest weather information coming out of the National Hurricane Center, covering the eastern north Pacific. You can find the latest tropical cyclone information for the central north Pacific (where Hawaii is located) by clicking on this link to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center. Here’s a tracking map covering both the eastern and central Pacific Ocean. A satellite image, which shows the entire ocean area between Hawaii and the Mexican coast…can be found here. Of course, as we know, our hurricane season ends November 30th here in the central Pacific.

 Aloha Paragraphs

Fair weather through mid-week…a few showers

 

 Northeast winds will gradually turn more easterly through mid-week, then veer around to the south and southwest towards Thursday into Friday.  According to this weather map, we find a 1024 millibar high pressure system located far to the north of the islands Tuesday night. The current slightly cool northeast breezes will likely remain in place through mid-week…turning a bit more easterly as we go. As a cold front approaches Kauai and Oahu during the second half of this work week, we'll find stronger winds developing from the south and southwest directions ahead of it. Winds in the wake of the front will be northeast, while southeast towards the Big Island end of the chain this weekend.

Winds will be generally light, although locally a bit stronger…the following numbers represent the strongest gusts, along with directions Tuesday evening:

24 mph       Barking Sands, Kauai – NNE
22              Wheeler AFB, Oahu – NE
10              Molokai – NNE
21              Kahoolawe – NE
18              Kapalua, Maui – NE
21              Lanai Airport 
15              South Point, Big Island – NE

We can use the following links to see what’s going on in our area of the north central Pacific Ocean Tuesday night. This large University of Washington satellite image shows lots of high clouds to the west through north and east, as well as streaks over the Hawaiian Islands as well. Looking at this NOAA satellite picture, we see generally partly to mostly cloudy skies, a combination of high and low level clouds. We can use this looping satellite image to see that most of the high level clouds are streaming along to the north of us, with streaks of cirrus dropping down over the Aloha state at times. Checking out this looping radar image, it shows that despite all the cloudiness, there aren't that many showers falling at the time of this writing. This radar image allows us to see that the winds have turned more northeast, or even east-northeast…heading even more easterly as we move through Wednesday.

Our weather here in the islands will remain generally pleasant through mid-week, then change quite a bit during the second half of the week…especially on the Kauai and Oahu side of the state. As has been the case for the last several days, the models are showing changes in store for us, as we pass the half way in the week…even into the weekend time frame.  A cold front, with associated low pressure systems will approach the state Thursday and Friday into Saturday. This in turn will trigger increasingly strong south to southwest Kona winds. The computer models still don't have a great handle on the exact details, although are suggesting that rain would arrive over Kauai as early as Wednesday night or Thursday…working its way down towards Oahu thereafter. Maui County and the Big Island could get into this wet weather picture, although perhaps to a lesser extent into the weekend. There remains uncertainty in the exact details, although in a broad brush sweep…becoming cloudier, windier, and wetter Thursday into Friday on Kauai and Oahu, perhaps deeper into the state eventually.

~~~ Here in Kihei, Maui at around 535pm Tuesday evening, skies were partly to mostly cloudy, as they have been most of the day. The northeasterly breezes are keeping somewhat cooler than normal temperatures happening around the state. As noted above, our weather will be generally ok through Wednesday, and perhaps into Thursday on the Big Island end of the island chain. Things may be different on the Kauai side starting Wednesday night or Thursday, as gusty Kona winds and increasing showers arrive then into Friday. The cold front that brings these changes to Kauai and Oahu may stretch down to Maui County or even the Big Island, bringing some showers to the eastern end of the state eventually too. I'll be back early Wednesday morning with more updates, and the latest information about this upcoming windy and wet weather pattern. I hope you have a great Tuesday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Extra: As I've been doing lately, here's the statistics for this website during the month of February: there were 427,181 page impressions, according to google. At the same time, there were 9,434 clicks on the google ads…which is a way that I make a few bucks in return for putting in my time. Adding January into this mix, there were about 1 million visits to this site in about 60 days…which is approximately 16,666 visits a day. Considering that I'm maintaining Hawaii Weather Today by myself, I'm honestly very happy with the so called traffic that uses this weather information.

Traffic isn't the right word of course, as I don't consider you folks as traffic. I consider my visitors as guests, and in many cases as friends…even though I haven't personally met most of you. Nonetheless, the point of all this is really just to thank you, to sincerely thank you for trusting this site, and according to your emails…even enjoying your visits! Aloha, Glenn

Interesting: China, the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitter, wants rich nations to vow bigger cuts to emissions as part of a new international deal on fighting global warming, Beijing's top climate negotiator said on Tuesday. The negotiator, Xie Zhenhua, said he expects "arduous" wrangling about that and other issues facing governments seeking to settle on the key parts of a comprehensive climate change pact at talks in Durban, South Africa, in late 2011.

Above all, Xie said in a policy-setting essay in China's official People's Daily, Beijing will not budge from demanding a second lease of life for the Kyoto Protocol, the greenhouse gas emissions pact which Japan, Russia, Canada and other critics have said does too little to curb the fast-growing emissions of China and other big developing countries.

"The negotiating talks remain arduous," Xie said. "There's still much work that needs to be done if we're going to convert political will into progress at Durban." Xie's paper was China's first lengthy overview of climate change negotiations since the last major round in Cancun, Mexico, late last year.

Those talks brought progress on funding to cope with global warming and sharing green technology, but left key points of contention to be dealt with this year.

Although Xie revealed no new negotiating positions from China, his comments underscored the entrenched differences that will test negotiators facing warnings that droughts, floods and other extreme weather will worsen with global warming. A main dispute is about the Kyoto Protocol.

Interesting2: A pioneering program by one of the world's largest cities to switch its vehicle fleet to clean fuel has not significantly improved harmful vehicle emissions in more than 5,000 vehicles — and worsened some vehicles' climate impacts — a new University of British Columbia study finds. The study — which explores the impacts of New Delhi, India's 2003 conversion of 90,000 buses, taxis and auto-rickshaws to compressed natural gas (CNG), a well-known "clean" fuel — provides crucial information for other cities considering similar projects.

Of the city's more than 5,000 auto-rickshaws with two-stroke engines — a common form of transportation in Asia and Africa — the study found that CNG produced only minor reductions in emissions that cause air pollution and an increase in emissions that negatively impact climate change.

According to the researchers, the New Delhi's program could have achieved greater emission reductions at a cheaper price by simply upgrading two-stroke models to the cleaner, more fuel-efficient four-stroke variety. "Our study demonstrates the importance of engine type when adopting clean fuels," says lead author and UBC post-doctoral fellow Conor Reynolds.

"Despite switching to CNG, two-stroke engine auto-rickshaws in Delhi still produce similar levels of particulate matter per kilogram of fuel to a diesel bus — and their climate impacts are worse than before." Published online in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, the study is the first to comprehensively examine the pollutant emissions from small vehicle engines fuelled with CNG.

It included significant laboratory testing of Indian auto-rickshaws. The study finds that as much as one third of CNG is not properly burned in two-stroke engines, producing high emissions of methane, a major greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change.

CNG use also produced substantial emissions of high particulate matter from unburned lubricating oil, which can appear as blue smoke. The findings show the importance of strong scientific data for policymakers and the need to consider small vehicles like auto-rickshaws in emissions reduction programs, according to the researchers.

"If policymakers have information about emissions and their potential impacts, they can make better decisions to serve both the public and the environment," says Reynolds, who co-authored the study with Prof. Milind Kandlikar and post-doctoral fellow Andrew Grieshop from UBC's Liu Institute for Global Issues and Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability.

According to the researchers, the study has broad implications for the design of public health interventions. "Clean fuels are being used in Indian cities for transportation when they could save many more lives if used for cooking," says Kandlikar. "The interests of the rural poor, particularly women and children, are being put below those of the urban consumer."

According to the researchers, several Asian cities have more two-stroke auto-rickshaws than New Delhi. They say the study provides important information to other cities considering fuel-switching programs, especially those in rapidly industrializing cities in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Philippines, Thailand, and Indonesia, where major auto-rickshaw fleets exist.

Interesting3: Almost 600 million years ago, before the rapid evolution of life forms known as the Cambrian explosion, a community of seaweeds and worm-like animals lived in a quiet deep-water niche near what is now Lantian, a small village in south China. Then they simply died, leaving some 3,000 nearly pristine fossils preserved between beds of black shale deposited in oxygen-free and unbreathable waters.

Scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Virginia Tech in the United States and Northwest University in Xi'an, China report the discovery of the fossils in this week's issue of the journal Nature.

The long-running puzzlement about the appearance of the Cambrian fauna, seemingly abruptly and from nowhere, centers on three key points: whether there really was a mass diversification of complex organisms over a relatively short period of time during the early Cambrian; what might have caused such rapid change; and what it would imply about the origin and evolution of animals.

Interpretation is difficult due to a limited supply of evidence, based mainly on an incomplete fossil record and chemical signatures left in Cambrian rocks. The Lantia discovery suggests a much part of the picture. In addition to ancient versions of algae and worms, the Lantian biota–named for its location–included macrofossils with complex and puzzling structures.

In all, scientists have identified some 15 species at the site. The fossils suggest that structural diversification of macroscopic eukaryotes–the earliest versions of organisms with complex cell structures–may have occurred only tens of millions of years after the Snowball Earth event that ended 635 million years ago.

Snowball Earth refers to the hypothesis that the Earth's surface became entirely or nearly entirely frozen at least once, some time earlier than 650 million years ago. The geological community generally accepts this hypothesis because it best explains sedimentary deposits generally regarded as of glacial origin at tropical paleolatitudes and other otherwise enigmatic features in the geological record.

Opponents to the hypothesis contested the implications of the geological evidence for global glaciation, the geophysical feasibility of an ice- or slush-covered ocean, and the difficulty of escaping an all-frozen condition.

The presence of macroscopic eukaryotes in the highly organic-rich black shale suggests that, despite the overall oxygen-free conditions, brief oxygenation of the oceans did come and go, according to H. Richard Lane, program director in the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s Division of Earth Sciences, which funded the research.

By 635 million years ago, the snowball Earth event ended and the oceans were clear of ice. Perhaps, Xiao (one of the authors) says, "that prepared the ground for the evolution of complex eukaryotes."

The team examined the black shale rocks because, although they were laid down in less than optimal waters for oxygen-dependent organisms, "they are known to be able to preserve fossils very well," says Shuhai (another author).

"In most cases, dead organisms were washed in and preserved in black shales. In this case, we discovered fossils that were preserved in pristine condition–some seaweeds still rooted–where they had lived."

The conclusion that the environment would have been poisonous is derived from geochemical data, "but the bedding surfaces where these fossils were found represent moments of geologic time during which oxygen was available and conditions were favorable," says Xiao.

The research team suggests that the Lantian basin was largely without oxygen, but was punctuated by brief oxic episodes that were populated by complex new life forms. Those life forms were subsequently killed and preserved when the oxygen disappeared.

Proving that hypothesis awaits further study. The rocks in the study region are deposited in layered beds. The nature of the rock changes subtly, and there are finer and finer layers that can be recognized within each bed.

Interesting4: A review of more than 160 studies of human and animal subjects has found "clear and compelling evidence" that — all else being equal — happy people tend to live longer and experience better health than their unhappy peers. The study, in the journal Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being, is the most comprehensive review so far of the evidence linking happiness to health outcomes.

Its lead author, University of Illinois professor emeritus of psychology Ed Diener, who also is a senior scientist for the Gallup Organization, of Princeton, N.J., analyzed long-term studies of human subjects, experimental human and animal trials, and studies that evaluate the health status of people stressed by natural events.

"We reviewed eight different types of studies," Diener said. "And the general conclusion from each type of study is that your subjective well-being — that is, feeling positive about your life, not stressed out, not depressed — contributes to both longevity and better health among healthy populations."

A study that followed nearly 5,000 university students for more than 40 years, for example, found that those who were most pessimistic as students tended to die younger than their peers.

An even longer-term study that followed 180 Catholic nuns from early adulthood to old age found that those who wrote positive autobiographies in their early 20s tended to outlive those who wrote more negative accounts of their young lives.

There were a few exceptions, but most of the long-term studies the researchers reviewed found that anxiety, depression, a lack of enjoyment of daily activities and pessimism all are associated with higher rates of disease and a shorter lifespan.

Animal studies also demonstrate a strong link between stress and poor health. Experiments in which animals receive the same care but differ in their stress levels (as a result of an abundance of nest mates in their cages, for example) have found that stressed animals are more susceptible to heart disease, have weaker immune systems and tend to die younger than those living in less crowded conditions.

Laboratory experiments on humans have found that positive moods reduce stress-related hormones, increase immune function and promote the speedy recovery of the heart after exertion. In other studies, marital conflicts and high hostility in married couples were associated with slow wound healing and a poorer immune response.

"I was almost shocked and certainly surprised to see the consistency of the data," Diener said. "All of these different kinds of studies point to the same conclusion: that health and then longevity in turn are influenced by our mood states."

While happiness might not by itself prevent or cure disease, the evidence that positive emotions and enjoyment of life contribute to better health and a longer lifespan is stronger than the data linking obesity to reduced longevity, Diener said.

"Happiness is no magic bullet," he said. "But the evidence is clear and compelling that it changes your odds of getting disease or dying young." "Although there are a handful of studies that find opposite effects," Diener said, "the overwhelming majority of studies support the conclusion that happiness is associated with health and longevity.

Current health recommendations focus on four things: avoid obesity, eat right, don't smoke, and exercise. It may be time to add 'be happy and avoid chronic anger and depression' to the list."

Interesting5: Climate change makes the planet warmer and snowstorms stronger and more frequent, US scientists say. "Heavy snowstorms are not inconsistent with a warming planet," said scientist Jeff Masters today, as part of a conference call with reporters and colleagues convened by the Union of Concern Scientists.

"In fact, as the Earth gets warmer and more moisture gets absorbed into the atmosphere, we are steadily loading the dice in favor of more extreme storms in all seasons, capable of causing greater impacts on society."

Professor Masters said that the northeastern United States has been coated in heavy snowfall from major Category Three storms or larger three times in each of the past two winters, storms that are unparalleled since the winter of 1960-61.

"If the climate continues to warm, we should expect an increase in heavy snow events for a few decades, until the climate grows so warm that we pass the point where it's too warm for it to snow heavily."

Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Boulder, Colorado, said less sea ice in the Artic translates to more moisture in the atmosphere, and could also cause an atmospheric circulation pattern in polar regions known as Arctic Oscillation.

"It's still cutting-edge research and there's no smoking gun, but there's evidence that with less sea ice, you put a lot of heat from the ocean into the atmosphere, and the circulation of the atmosphere responds to that," Mr Serreze said. "We've seen a tendency for autumns with low sea ice cover to be followed by a negative Arctic Oscillation."

Even though spring in North America is just around the corner, Professor Masters said more snow is on the way next week in the upper Midwest, and the melting snow pack could spark record floods in Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota this spring.