Hawaiian Islands Weather details & Aloha paragraphs / January 24-25, 2012

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

Lihue, Kauai –                    79  
Honolulu airport, Oahu –      80
Kaneohe, Oahu –                M
Molokai airport –                 81
Kahului airport, Maui –            86  (Record high temperature on this date – 88F – 1981) 
Kona airport –                    81 
Hilo airport, Hawaii –           80   

Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountain tops…as of 6pm Tuesday evening:

Barking Sands, Kauai – 78
Princeville, Kauai – 73

Haleakala Crater –  43 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea –         34 (near 13,800 feet on the Big Island)

Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live web cam on the summit of near 13,800 foot Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. This web cam is available during the daylight hours here in the islands…and when there’s a big moon shining down during the night at times. Plus, during the nights you will be able to see stars, and the sunrise and sunset too…depending upon weather conditions. Here's the Haleakala Crater webcam on Maui…which is working only sometimes lately.

 Aloha Paragraphs

 
    Light winds from the south to southeast…
showers locally – rather thick volcanic haze
 

As this weather map shows, we have deep low pressure systems located far to the northeast, along with an associated cold front draping southwest into a new low that has formed to our west.  At the same time we have near 1029 millibar high pressure system parked out to our northeast, with its associated ridge running southwest to near Kauai. Our winds will be generally light from the southeast this week…with trade winds returning again later Friday into the weekend.

The following numbers represent the strongest wind gusts (mph), along with directions Tuesday evening:

09                 Port Allen, Kauai – SE
12                 Bellows, Oahu – SE
09                 Molokai – NE 
14                 Kahoolawe – SW 
22                 Lipoa, Maui – E
13                 Lanai – NNE  
23                    South Point, Big Island – ENE

We can use the following links to see what’s going on in our area of the north central Pacific Ocean Tuesday evening.  Looking at this NOAA satellite picture we see scattered low level clouds over the ocean, a few of which are impacting the islands locally. We can use this looping satellite image to see the clouds associated with a cold front just to the northwest of the state. Checking out this looping radar image we see light to moderately heavy showers over the ocean, although coming in over the islands in a couple of places, carried along in the southeast to southerly breezes across the state.

Here are the 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands as of Tuesday evening:

0.02               Wainiha, Kauai
0.02               St. Stephens, Oahu
0.04               Molokai
0.00               Lanai
0.00               Kahoolawe
0.17               Kepuni, Maui
1.29                 Pahala, Big Island

Sunset Commentary:   A cold front has stalled to the northwest of Kauai, and as it approached, pushed our high pressure ridge down near the Garden Isle. This has prompted lighter winds, blowing from the south to southeast over the open ocean. There will however be localized daytime sea breezes, and overnight offshore downslope land breezes. The larger scale southeast breezes will carry additional tropical air over us Wednesday and Thursday, which could increase our afternoon interior showers then…and along the southeast sides of the Big Island too.  We'll also see volcanic haze continuing to spread across the state, along with rather muggy conditions during the days locally. The trade winds will rebound this weekend, which will help to ventilate away the poor air qualities then. This too will bring some increase in showers to our windward sides into early next week.

Here in Kula, Maui at around 645pm HST, it was mostly cloudy and calm…with an air temperature of 63F degrees. The volcanic haze is thick here on Maui Tuesday evening! As I was mentioning above, the approaching cold front to our northwest has finally stalled in its travel southeast towards the tropics. Southeast breezes draw relatively warm and humid air into the state, along with the volcanic haze (vog) from the Big Island vents. The one deviation with this warmer air mass will be the cooler than normal early morning air temperatures, as there will be chilly air draining down towards the coasts during the nights…from off the mountains. The winds will continue to be light enough, that we'll see afternoon sea breezes developing, carrying moisture off the ocean into the upcountry areas, where it will condense into rather extensive clouds. These clouds will spread down towards the coasts too, and may drop a few light showers locally…although will clear back during the night. The trade winds should become rather gusty this weekend, helping to bring at least some measure of windward biased showers back into our weather picture. ~~~ I'll be back early Wednesday morning with your next new weather narrative. I hope you have a great Tuesday night wherever you're spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting: A huge pool of fresh water in the Arctic Ocean is expanding and could lower the temperature of Europe by causing an ocean current to slow down, British scientists said Sunday. Using satellites to measure sea surface height from 1995 to 2010, scientists from University College London and Britain's National Oceanography Center found that the western Arctic's sea surface has risen by about 15 cms since 2002.

The volume of fresh water has increased by at least 8,000 cubic km, or about 10 percent of all the fresh water in the Arctic Ocean. The fresh water comes from melting ice and river run-off. The rise could be due to strong Arctic winds increasing an ocean current called the Beaufort Gyre, making the sea surface bulge upwards.

The Beaufort Gyre is one of the least understood bodies of water on the planet. It is a slowly swirling body of ice and water north of Alaska, about 10 times bigger than Lake Michigan in the United States. Some scientists believe the natural rhythms of the gyre could be affected by global warming which could have serious implications for the ocean's circulation and rising sea levels.

Climate models have suggested that wind blowing on the surface of the sea has formed a raised dome in the middle of the Beaufort Gyre, but there have been few in-depth studies to confirm this. If the wind changes direction, which happened between the mid-1980s to mid-1990s, the pool of fresh water could spill out into the rest of the Arctic Ocean and even into the north Atlantic Ocean, the study said.

This could cool Europe by slowing down an ocean current coming from the Gulf Stream, which keeps Europe relatively mild compared with countries at similar latitudes. "Our findings suggest that a reversal of the wind could result in the release of this fresh water to the rest of the Arctic Ocean and even beyond," said Katharine Giles at UCL's Center for Polar Observation and Modelling and lead author of the study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Interesting2: Scientists have devised a new way to produce ethanol directly from seaweed, offering the potential to generate biofuels that don't compete with terrestrial food production and won't suck up scarce freshwater, reports a study published today in Science. Researchers from the Bio Architecture Lab in Berkeley, California engineered E. coli bacterium to digest brown seaweed and produce ethanol as a byproduct. Kelp, which grows up to a meter a day and is abundant in temperate coastal regions, is a type of brown seaweed.

"BAL's technology to ferment a seaweed feedstock to renewable fuels and chemicals has suggested an entirely new pathway for biofuels development, one that is no longer constrained to terrestrial sources," said Jonathan Burbaum of the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency, which helped fund the research.

"When fully developed and deployed, large scale seaweed cultivation combined with BAL's technology promises to produce renewable fuels and chemicals without forcing a tradeoff with conventional food crops such as corn or sugarcane." Scientists have long struggled to produce ethanol from seaweed.

The stumbling block was alginate, one of four kinds of sugars produced by seaweed. Alginate — a complex polysaccharide — is difficult for microbes to breakdown. The breakthrough came when the researchers identified a biochemical pathway used by Vibrio splendidus, a marine microbe that feeds on brown seaweed, and inserted the responsible genes into a strain of E. coli. The bacterium was designed to convert the seaweed sugars directly into ethanol.

Interesting3: Duke University researchers have predicted that climate change in California will result in a declining percentage of rangeland. Such a change will have widespread impact on the state's large cattle industry of California's Central Valley. No matter if climate change will cause wetter or drier weather, available pasture will decline. Forage areas, known as one of nature's free services, may no longer be so free.

The grasses will either wither as arid conditions creep north, or be pushed out as inedible shrubs and brush take over. The study has been published in the journal, Climatic Change, by Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment in conjunction with the Environmental Defense Fund.

The change in the rangeland ecosystem is expected to occur gradually over the coming century. Total costs expected to hit California ranchers over the next sixty years may be as high as $209 million a year if the ecosystem dries up. Less grazing land will mean smaller herds, and less productive herds. Movement of cattle will also be much more difficult because of highways and suburban sprawl.

If the weather becomes wetter rather than drier, biodiversity is expected to increase. However, this will come at the expense of the ranchers. Cattle like to eat grasses, not trees or bushes. The US Department of Agriculture has estimated about 5.2 million head of cattle in the state of California. Of these, less than 10 percent are raised in large feedlots. The rest can roam across the range, munching on free grasses.

A decline of rangeland may result in an increasing percentage of cattle raised in feedlots, where cattle food has to be bought and fed, adding to the costs of beef production. California's cattle industry brings in over $2 billion in total income through about 11,800 ranches. The hit the industry will take will likely affect the state's overall economy.

If similar climate changes occur in states like Texas and Oklahoma where cattle are much bigger slice of the economy, the nation's economy may be affected. In order to prevent this, rangeland preservation efforts may be required. This may be legislated through California’s new cap and trade system.