Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures (F) were recorded across the state of Hawaii Tuesday…along with the minimum temperatures Tuesday:
79 – 62 Lihue, Kauai
79 – 63 Honolulu, Oahu
77 – 53 Molokai AP
80 – 58 Kahului, Maui
80 – 65 Kailua Kona
82 – 65 Hilo, Hawaii
Here are the latest 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands, as of Tuesday evening:
0.02 Lihue, Kauai
0.01 Lualualei, Oahu
0.02 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.00 Maui
0.01 South Point, Big Island
The following numbers represent the strongest wind gusts (mph)…as of Tuesday evening:
23 Lihue, Kauai – S
16 Wheeler AAF, Oahu – SE
12 Molokai -NW
12 Lanai – SW
09 Kahoolawe – NW
09 Kaupo Gap, Maui – SW
14 South Point, Big Island – ESE
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.
Aloha Paragraphs
A cold front to the northwest
Mostly clear to partly cloudy…clouds over the mountains
Limited light showers…hardly any
~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~
Generally light winds from variable directions…for the time being. Here’s the latest weather map, showing the Hawaiian Islands, and the rest of the North Pacific Ocean, along with a real-time wind profiler of the central Pacific. We find a high pressure system far to the northeast, with its associated high pressure ridge trailing back to the southwest…over Oahu. At the same time, we have low pressure systems well to the northwest through north, with the tail-end of an associated cold front draping southwestward…just to the north of Kauai. We’ll find light winds this week, with daytime sea breezes…although becoming more breezy from the southwest near Kauai and Oahu, as a cold front stretches down in our direction later Thursday-Friday into Saturday. Meanwhile, those areas that are exposed to light southeasterly breezes will see volcanic haze (vog). It looks like the trade winds will hold off returning until late this coming weekend…into early next week.
Rainfall will remain limited…with just a few showers here and there. Here’s the looping radar image showing just a few showers across our area…mostly over the nearby ocean. We’ll see our winds remaining light for the most part, carrying a few light showers our way. At the same time, these light winds will prompt clear to partly cloudy mornings, giving way to afternoon upcountry clouds…although showers will be spotty and hard to find. The cold front, now stalled to the north, has pushed a high pressure ridge down over the islands. This in turn will continue the light winds, and keep a mostly dry weather pattern in place. A second cold front will approach later in the week, which might bring a few minor showers to Kauai by Saturday. It appears that the front will stall or dissipate before pushing down through the rest of the state..,stay tuned. I’ll be back with more updates on all of the above, I hope you have a great Tuesday night wherever you’re spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.
World-wide tropical cyclone activity:
>>> Atlantic Ocean: The last regularly scheduled Tropical Weather Outlook of the 2014 Atlantic hurricane season…has occurred. Routine issuance of the Tropical Weather Outlook will resume on June 1, 2015. During the off-season, Special Tropical Weather Outlooks will be issued as conditions warrant.
Here’s a satellite image of the Atlantic Ocean
>>> Caribbean Sea: The last regularly scheduled Tropical Weather Outlook of the 2014 Atlantic hurricane season…has occurred. Routine issuance of the Tropical Weather Outlook will resume on June 1, 2015. During the off-season, Special Tropical Weather Outlooks will be issued as conditions warrant.
>>> Gulf of Mexico: The last regularly scheduled Tropical Weather Outlook of the 2014 Atlantic hurricane season…has occurred. Routine issuance of the Tropical Weather Outlook will resume on June 1, 2015. During the off-season, Special Tropical Weather Outlooks will be issued as conditions warrant.
Here’s a satellite image of the Caribbean Sea…and the Gulf of Mexico.
>>> Eastern Pacific: The last regularly scheduled Tropical Weather Outlook of the 2014 North Pacific hurricane season…has occurred. Routine issuance of the Tropical Weather Outlook will resume on May 15, 2015. During the off-season, Special Tropical Weather Outlooks will be issued as conditions warrant.
Here’s a wide satellite image that covers the entire area between Mexico, out through the central Pacific…to the International Dateline.
Here’s the link to the National Hurricane Center (NHC)
>>> Central Pacific: The central north Pacific hurricane season has officially ended. Routine issuance of the tropical weather outlook will resume on June 1, 2015. During the off-season, special tropical weather outlooks will be issued as conditions warrant.
Here’s a link to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC)
>>> Northwest Pacific Ocean: Tropical cyclone 01W is now active in the western Pacific. Here’s the JTWC graphical track map for this strengthening tropical depression. Here’s the NOAA satellite image of this system…to the east of Yap Island.
>>> South Pacific Ocean: There are no active tropical cyclones
>>> North and South Indian Oceans: Tropical cyclone 05S (Bansi) remains active in the south Indian Ocean. Here’s the JTWC graphical track map for this strengthening tropical cyclone…which will soon be equivalent to a category 5 hurricane! Here’s the NOAA satellite image of this system…to the northeast of La Reunion Island.
Here’s a link to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC)
Interesting: Sudden global warming 55 million years ago was much like today – The Earth’s current warming is looking similar to what took place 55 million years ago, writes David Bond. And if it works out that way, the news is good: we may avoid a mass extinction. On the other hand, the poles will melt away completely, and it will take hundreds of thousands of years for Earth to get back to ‘normal’.
It is often said that humans have caused the Earth to warm at an unprecedented rate.
However researchers have discovered another period, some 55m years ago, when massive volcanic eruptions pumped so much carbon into the atmosphere that the planet warmed at what geologists would think of as breakneck speed.
The good news is that most plants and animals survived the warm spell. The planet has experienced several mass extinctions – and this wasn’t one of them.
But there’s a catch: even after carbon levels returned to their previous levels, the climate took 200,000 years to return to normal.
Geologists have a name for this earlier period of sudden warming: the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. The PETM, as we’ll call it, occurred 55.5-55.3 million years ago.
According to new research published in the journal Nature Geoscience it involved global warming of between 5 and 8°C over a period of 200,000 years.
The massive carbon injections responsible for the PETM probably originated in volcanic eruptions in the North Atlantic and the burning of organic-rich rocks through which lava passed, which further triggered the melting of frozen methane stored at the bottom of the deepest oceans.
Lessons from the PETM
There are obvious analogies between the PETM and the present-day situation, even despite the lack of fossil-fuel burning humans 55m years ago.
The study shows the PETM was caused by annual carbon emissions of at least 900 million tons (900 MT) over the 200,000 years. That is ten times less than the 9500 MT carbon humans are releasing into the atmosphere every year. Surely cause for concern?
However, it is a little misleading to suggest emissions of just 10% of current levels resulted in warming of 5°C or more. It is possible to zoom out too far, even when assessing climate change.
Considering that CO2 only sticks around in the atmosphere for 1,000 years at most, to achieve as much as 8°C warming the bulk of PETM carbon must have been delivered to the atmosphere in a very short time, during which the long-term average was greatly exceeded.
The researchers identify two such ‘pulses’, each lasting no more than 1,500 years. Volcanic eruptions are not predictable – and certainly not consistent – but they would fit the profile of these ‘pulses’.
It is these massive, rapid injections of carbon into the atmosphere that overwhelmed Earth’s otherwise extremely efficient oceanic carbon sink: it takes time to deal with such blows.
The study suggests that it took 200,000 years before Earth returned to normal (probably hindered by volcanic eruptions) – a duration that suggests Earth will not recover from its current stresses any time soon.
‘Nice’ warming?
An intriguing aspect of the PETM warming is that there was no mass extinction. Perhaps ecosystems were resilient having evolved in the aftermath of the great extinction of the dinosaurs some 10m years earlier. Perhaps the warming didn’t last long enough. Perhaps warming just made things ‘nice’.
But global warming hasn’t usually been particularly good news for the planet’s inhabitants. When massive volcanic eruptions in present-day Siberia generated a comparable increase in global temperature 250m years ago, it caused the greatest crisis in Earth’s history.
Around 95% of the planet’s species were wiped out in what is known as the Permian-Triassic extinction, or the Great Dying. Earth was definitely not ‘nice’ and remained inhospitably hot for millions of years. In comparison, the PETM looks like a tea party.
Is humankind off the hook? After all, we are only emitting a bit of carbon each year, nothing like the massive doses administered by enormous eruptions in geological history. No.
The excellent high-resolution palaeoclimate records now emerging indicate that global warming has precedent in the rock record, and it always takes Earth a long time to recover.
The impact of 5-8°C global warming today is hard to define. It is beyond the worst-case scenarios of most climate models – and yet it is not beyond the bounds of possibility.
Time to decide the future Earth we want
Let’s do some rough calculations – and simplify things by talking about CO2 alone: today, Earth’s atmosphere contains at least 3000 gigatons of CO2. Humans inject a further 30,000 megatons every year (1% of the mass in the atmosphere). Volcanoes add only a fraction of the human contribution.
By contrast, the total CO2 release from the Siberian Traps and the rocks burned by its lava is estimated at 30,000 to 100,000 gigatons. That’s ten to thirty times the total amount of carbon currently in the atmosphere.
At current rates it will take humans just 1,000 – 3,000 years to produce this amount (it took the Siberian Traps much longer) and by the year 3014 Earth could be facing another catastrophe. Does that sound a long time away? For a geologist, these are incredibly short timescales.
Our saving grace appears to be that we are coming out of an ice-age with an atmosphere relatively low in CO2, and that we are going to run out of fossil fuels before the above scenario can happen.
However, geologists have shown that massive injections of carbon to the atmosphere can change the climate quite rapidly, and we are already well along the road. We are now seeing major changes to our weather and time will tell if this is the manifestation of longer term climate change.
Undoubtedly Earth’s climate will change as we continue to emit. Our generation might not see the impact of that change, but we need to decide what we want for the future of Earth. It is time to learn from Earth’s past – episodes such as the PETM, and the Permian-Triassic – as we look to its future.
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