Air Temperatures – The following high temperatures (F) were recorded across the state of Hawaii Monday…along with the low temperatures Monday:
87 – 77 Lihue, Kauai
88 – 75 Honolulu, Oahu
89 – 76 Molokai
90 – 72 Kahului AP, Maui – record high Monday was 93…back in 2004
88 – 75 Kailua Kona
82 – 70 Hilo AP, Hawaii
Here are the latest 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands as of Monday evening:
1.17 Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.32 Waihee Pump, Oahu
0.32 Molokai
0.03 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.78 West Wailuaiki, Maui
0.46 Waiakea Uka, Big Island
The following numbers represent the strongest wind gusts (mph) as of Monday evening:
25 Port Allen, Kauai
31 Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
25 Molokai
28 Lanai
35 Kahoolawe
32 Maalaea Bay, Maui
29 Pali 2, Big Island
Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live webcam on the summit of our tallest mountain Mauna Kea (nearly 13,800 feet high) on the Big Island of Hawaii. This webcam is available during the daylight hours here in the islands, and at night whenever there’s a big moon shining down. Also, at night you will be able to see the stars — and the sunrise and sunset too — depending upon weather conditions.
Aloha Paragraphs
High pressure north-northeast of the islands…low pressure south
Thunderstorms far southwest, south and southeast…high cirrus southwest
Low clouds arriving from the east on the trades
Showers locally…generally offshore and windward
Looping radar image
Small Craft Advisory…windiest coasts and channels around Maui County and the Big Island
~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~
Broad Brush Overview: High pressure along with a rather stable air mass over the islands, will keep quiet conditions well established through this new work week. Clouds and showers will be carried our way on the trades, favoring windward and mountain areas. The leeward side of the Big island will have some clouds and a few showers each afternoon and evening…as usual during August.
Looking further ahead: The models show low pressure moving westward towards the state by the weekend. This will elevate inversion heights, and we may have an increase in available moisture too. At the same time the trades will become lighter, with sea breezes possible into next Monday. As a result, windward showers will continue, although with the chance of showers in the leeward upcountry areas during the afternoons and evenings then too.
Here’s a wind profile of the Pacific Ocean – Closer view of the islands / Here’s the vog forecast animation / Here’s the latest weather map
Marine environment details: The Small Craft Advisory (SCA) for the channels between Molokai and the Big Island, Maalaea Bay, and the waters south of the Big Island has been extended through Wednesday…due to strong trade winds. These winds are forecast to hold through much of the week, then lower slightly going into the upcoming weekend.
Surf along south facing shores will continue to lower through the day today, as the south swell over the weekend lowers. A small reinforcement out of the same direction is expected tonight through Wednesday…which will keep the surf from going flat through the first half of the week.
A small south-southeast swell is expected Thursday, peak Thursday night into Friday, then lower into the upcoming weekend.
Surf along east facing shores will remain rough through the first half of this new week, due to fresh to strong trades locally and upstream of the islands. Surf may trend down by the end of the week…as the trades over the state and upstream weaken.
Just strumin’ my ukulele…between Hula dances
World-wide tropical cyclone activity
>>> Atlantic Ocean:
Hurricane 08L (Gert) remains active, here’s a NHC graphical track map, a satellite image, and what the computer models are showing
1.) An elongated area of low pressure located more than a thousand miles east of the Lesser Antilles is producing disorganized showers and thunderstorms. This system is expected to move westward at 15 to 20 mph across the tropical Atlantic Ocean, crossing into the Caribbean Sea on Friday. Environmental conditions appear somewhat supportive of tropical cyclone formation over the next few days but should become less favorable once the system moves into the Caribbean Sea.
* Formation chance through 48 hours…low…20 percent
* Formation chance through 5 days…medium…40 percent
2.) A second area of low pressure, associated with a tropical wave, is also producing disorganized shower and thunderstorm activity a few hundred miles west-southwest of the Cabo Verde Islands. Environmental conditions could be conducive for some slow development of this system over the next few days while it moves westward to west-northwestward at 15 to 20 mph.
* Formation chance through 48 hours…low…10 percent
* Formation chance through 5 days…low…20 percent
3.) A tropical wave over western Africa is forecast to emerge over the far eastern Atlantic Ocean on Wednesday. Conditions appear conducive for some development after that time while the wave moves westward to west-northwestward at about 15 mph.
* Formation chance through 48 hours…low…near 0 percent
* Formation chance through 5 days…low…20 percent
>>> Caribbean Sea: No active tropical cyclones
>>> Gulf of Mexico: No active tropical cyclones
Here’s a satellite image of the Caribbean Sea…and the Gulf of Mexico
Here’s the link to the National Hurricane Center (NHC)
>>> Eastern Pacific: No active tropical cyclones
1.) An elongated area of disturbed weather is located several hundred miles southwest of the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula. Shower and thunderstorm activity remains disorganized, and development, if any, should be slow to occur while the system moves slowly westward.
* Formation chance through 48 hours…low…near 0 percent
* Formation chance through 5 days...low…10 percent
2.) A westward-moving trough of low pressure located several hundred miles southwest of Acapulco, Mexico, continues to produce limited showers and thunderstorms. Environmental conditions are not forecast to support significant development of this system during the next several days.
* Formation chance through 48 hours…low…near 0 percent
* Formation chance through 5 days...low…10 percent
3.) A tropical wave near the Gulf of Tehuantepec is producing a few showers and thunderstorms. Environmental conditions are expected to be only marginally conducive for development of this system while it moves west-northwestward to northwestward at 15 to 20 mph.
* Formation chance through 48 hours…low…near 0 percent
* Formation chance through 5 days...low…10 percent
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: No active tropical cyclones
1. Showers and thunderstorms associated with a broad area of low pressure, located slightly less than 1000 miles southeast of Hilo, Hawaii remain disorganized early this morning. Environmental conditions may become conducive for some gradual development of this system during the next few days as it moves slowly toward the northwest.
* Formation chance through 48 hours…low…30 percent
* Formation chance through 5 days...medium…50 percent
Here’s a link to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC)
>>> Northwest Pacific Ocean:
Typhoon 14W (Banyan) is active, here’s a JTWC graphical track map, a satellite image…and what the computer models are showing
>>> North and South Indian Oceans / Arabian Sea: No active tropical cyclones
Here’s a link to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC)
Interesting: What Is Global Warming? — The globe is heating up. Both land and oceans are warmer now than record-keeping began in 1880, and temperatures are still ticking upward. This temperature rise, in a nutshell, is global warming.
Here are the bare numbers, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA): Average surface temperatures rose a total of 1.71 degrees Fahrenheit between 1880 and 2016. The pace of change has been an additional 0.13 degrees F per decade, with the land surface warming faster than the ocean surface — 0.18 degrees F versus 0.11 degrees F per decade, respectively.
The Paris Agreement, ratified by 159 nations as of the summer 2017, aims to halt that warming at 2.7 degrees F above Earth’s average temperature during preindustrial times — a goal most scientists and policy makers agree will be a challenge to meet. (The United States participated in the crafting of that nonbinding treaty under President Barack Obama, but President Donald Trump has said that his administration will not participate.) Here’s how humanity has managed to heat up the planet.
The Greenhouse Effect
The main driver of today’s warming is the combustion of fossil fuels. These hydrocarbons heat up the planet via the greenhouse effect, which is caused by the interaction between Earth’s atmosphere and incoming radiation from the sun. “The basic physics of the greenhouse effect were figured out more than a hundred years ago by a smart guy using only pencil and paper.”
That “smart guy” was Svante Arrhenius, a Swedish scientist and eventual Nobel Prize winner. Simply put, solar radiation hits Earth’s surface and then bounces back toward the atmosphere as heat. Gases in the atmosphere trap this heat, preventing it from escaping into the void of space (good news for life on the planet). In a paper presented in 1895, Arrhenius figured out that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide could trap heat close to the Earth’s surface — and that small changes in the amount of those gases could make a big difference in how much heat was trapped.
Greenhouse gases
Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, humans have been rapidly changing the balance of gases in the atmosphere. Burning fossil fuels like coal and oil releases water vapor, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), ozone and nitrous oxide (N2O) — the primary greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide is the most common greenhouse gas. Between about 800,000 years ago and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, its presence in the atmosphere amounted to about 280 parts per million (ppm). Today, it’s about 400 ppm. (This number means there are 400 molecules of carbon dioxide in the air per every million air molecules.)
Levels of CO2 haven’t been that high since the Pliocene epoch, which occurred between 3 million and 5 million years ago, according to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
In 2015, CO2 accounted for about 82 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, according to an EPA inventory.
“We know through high-accuracy instrumental measurements that there is an unprecedented increase in CO2 in the atmosphere. We know that CO2 absorbs infrared radiation [heat] and the global mean temperature is increasing,” Keith Peterman, a professor of chemistry at York College of Pennsylvania, and his research partner, Gregory Foy, an associate professor of chemistry at York College of Pennsylvania.
CO2 makes its way into the atmosphere through a variety of routes. Burning fossil fuels releases CO2 and is by far the primary way that U.S. emissions warm the globe. According to the EPA’s 2015 report, U.S. fossil fuel combustion, including electricity generation, releases just over 5.5 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere annually. Other processes — such as non-energy use of fuels, iron and steel production, cement production and waste incineration — boost the total annual CO2 release in the U.S. to almost 6 billion tons.
Deforestation is also a large contributor to excessive CO2 in the atmosphere. In fact, deforestation is the second largest anthropogenic (human-made) source of carbon dioxide, according to research published by Duke University. When trees are killed, they release the carbon they have stored during photosynthesis. According to the 2010 Global Forest Resources Assessment, deforestation releases nearly a billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere per year.
Methane is the second most common greenhouse gas, but it is much more efficient at trapping heat. In 2012, the gas accounted for about 9 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, according to the EPA. The EPA reports that methane has 20 times more impact than carbon dioxide on climate change over a 100-year period.
Methane can come from many natural sources, but humans cause a large portion of methane emissions through mining, the use of natural gas, the mass raising of livestock and the use of landfills, according to the Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks report from 1990 to 2012. In fact, according to the EPA, humans are responsible for more than 60 percent of methane emissions.
There are some hopeful trends in greenhouse gas emissions. Though U.S. emissions increased by a total of 7.7 percent between 1990 and 2014, according to EPA data, they have declined 8 percent in the timeframe between 2005 and 2014. Much of the reason for this recent decline is the replacement of coal with natural gas, according to the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. The U.S. economy is also transitioning from manufacturing-based to a less carbon-intense service economy. Fuel-efficient vehicles and energy-efficiency standards for buildings have also improved emissions, according to the EPA.
Effects of global warming
Global warming doesn’t just mean warming — which is why “climate change” has become the trendier term among researchers and policy makers. While the globe is becoming hotter on average, this temperature increase can have paradoxical effects, such as more serious snowstorms. There are several big ways climate change can and will affect the globe: By melting ice, by drying out already-arid areas, by causing weather extremes and by disrupting the delicate balance of the oceans.
The big melt
Perhaps the most visible effect of climate change so far is the melting of glaciers and sea ice. The ice sheets have been retreating since the end of the last Ice Age about 11,700 years ago, but the last century’s warming has hastened their demise. A 2016 study found that there is a 99 percent chance that global warming has caused the recent retreat of glaciers; in fact, the research showed, these rivers of ice retreated 10 to 15 times the distance they would have if the climate had stayed stable. Glacier National Park in Montana had 150 glaciers in the late 1800s. Today it has 26. The loss of glaciers can cause the loss of human life when icy dams holding back glacier lakes destabilize and burst, or when avalanches caused by unstable ice bury villages.
At the North Pole, warming is proceeding twice as quickly as it is at middle latitudes, and the sea ice is showing the strain. Fall and winter ice in the Arctic hit record lows in both 2015 and 2016, meaning the ice expanse did not cover as much of the open sea as previously observed. According to NASA, the 13 smallest maximum winter extents of sea ice in the Arctic have all happened in the last 13 years. The ice also forms later in the season and melts more readily in spring. Some scientists think the Arctic Ocean will see ice-free summers within 20 or 30 years.
In the Antarctic, the picture has been a little less clear. The Western Antarctic Peninsula is warming faster than anywhere else besides some parts of the Arctic, according to the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition. The peninsula is where the Larsen C ice shelf just rifted in July 2017, spawning an iceberg the size of Delaware. The sea ice off Antarctica is very variable, though, and some areas have actually hit record highs in recent years — though those record highs could bear the fingerprints of climate change, as they might result from land-based ice moving out to sea as the glaciers melt, or in warming-related changes to wind. In 2017, though, this pattern of record-high ice abruptly reversed, with a record low. On March 3, 2017, Antarctic sea ice was measured at an extent of 71,000 square miles less than the previous low from 1997.
Hotter and drier
Global warming will change things between the poles, too. Many already-dry areas are expected to become even drier as the world warms. The Southwest and Central Plains of the United States, for example, are expected to experience decades-long “megadroughts” harsher than anything else in human memory.
“The future of drought in western North America is likely to be worse than anybody has experienced in the history of the United States,” Benjamin Cook, a climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City who published research projecting these droughts in 2015. “These are droughts that are so far beyond our contemporary experience that they are almost impossible to even think about.”
The study predicted an 85 percent chance of droughts lasting at least 35 years in the region by 2100. The main driver, the researchers found, is the increasing evaporation of water from hotter and hotter soil. Much of the precipitation that does fall in these arid regions will be lost.
Meanwhile, 2014 research finds that many areas will likely see less rainfall as the climate warms. Subtropical regions, including the Mediterranean, the Amazon, Central America and Indonesia will likely be hardest hit, that study found, while South Africa, Mexico, western Australia and California will also dry out.
Extreme weather
Another impact of global warming: extreme weather. Hurricanes and typhoons are expected to become more intense as the planet warms. Hotter oceans evaporate more moisture, which is the engine that fuels these storms. The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that even if the planet diversifies its energy sources and transitions to a less fossil-fuel intense economy (known as the A1B scenario), tropical cyclones are likely to be up to 11 percent more intense on average. That means more wind and water damage on vulnerable coastlines. (The IPCC is an international organization created by the United Nations to report on the state of climate change science and to provide the best projections of climate impacts and strategies for adapting to the projections.)
Paradoxically, climate change may also cause more extreme snowstorms. According to the National Centers for Environmental Information, extreme snowstorms in the eastern United States have become twice as common since the early 1900s. Again, warming ocean temperatures lead to increased evaporation of moisture into the atmosphere. This moisture powers storms that hit the continental United States.
Ocean disruption
Some of the most immediate impacts of global warming are beneath the waves. Oceans act as a carbon sink — they absorb dissolved carbon dioxide. That’s not a bad thing for the atmosphere, but it isn’t great for the marine ecosystem. When carbon dioxide reacts with seawater, it leads to a decline in pH, a process known as ocean acidification. Increased acidity eats away at the calcium carbonate shells and skeletons that many ocean organisms depend on for survival. These include shellfish, pteropods and corals, according to NOAA.
Corals, in particular, are the canary in a coal mine for climate change in the oceans. Marine scientists have observed alarming levels of coral bleaching, events in which coral expel the symbiotic algae that provide them with nutrients and give them their vivid colors. Bleaching occurs when coral are stressed, and stressors can include high temperatures. In 2016 and 2017, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef experienced back-to-back bleaching events. Coral can survive bleaching, but repeated bleaching events make survival less and less likely.
What about the hiatus?
Despite overwhelming scientific consensus about the causes and reality of global warming, the issue is contentious politically. For instance, deniers of climate change have argued that warming slowed between 1998 and 2012, a phenomenon known as the “climate change hiatus.”
Unfortunately for the planet, the hiatus never existed. Two studies, one published in the journal Science in 2015 and one published in 2017 in the journal Science Advances, reanalyzed the ocean temperature data that showed the warming slowdown and found that, in fact, it was a mere measurement era. Between the 1950s and 1990s, most measurements of ocean temperature were taken aboard research boats. Water would be pumped into pipes through the engine room, which ended up heating the water slightly. After the 1990s, scientists began using ocean buoy-based systems, which were more accurate, to measure ocean temperatures. The problem came because no one corrected for the change in measurements between boats and buoys. Making those corrections showed that the oceans warmed 0.22 degrees Fahrenheit on average per decade since 2000, almost twice as fast as earlier estimates of 0.12 degrees F per decade.
How to solve global warming
A growing number of business leaders, government officials and private citizens are concerned about global warming and its implications, and are proposing steps to reverse the trend.
“While some argue that ‘the Earth will heal itself,’ the natural processes for removing this human-caused CO2 from the atmosphere work on the timescale of hundreds of thousands to millions of years. “So, yes, the Earth will heal itself, but not in time for our cultural institutions to be preserved as they are. Therefore, in our own self-interests, we must act in one way or another to deal with the changes in climate we are causing.”
The most ambitious effort to forestall warming is the Paris Agreement. This nonbinding international treaty entered into force in November 2016. The aim is to keep warming “well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius,” according to the United Nations. Each signatory to the treaty agreed to set their own voluntary emissions limits and to make them stricter over time. For the United States under President Obama, that meant limiting greenhouse emissions to less than 28 percent of 2005 levels by 2025. Climate scientists said that the emissions limits suggested so far wouldn’t keep warming as low as 1.5 or even 2 degrees C, but that it would be an improvement over the “business-as-usual” scenario.
However, President Trump said in June that his administration will not honor the Paris Agreement. Shortly thereafter, more than 1,000 mayors, governors and business executives said they would continue to abide by the promised emissions cuts, Inside Climate News Reported.
Solving climate change will require big shifts in energy production, from fossil fuels to less carbon-intensive sources. Some scientists even think geoengineering will be needed to cool the planet.
Eleanor Schofield Says:
Hi Glenn — It’s so nice to know you’re back nearby, even if only temporarily! I still visit your website every morning, but somehow it feels different when you’re not right next door, so to speak…
I have a birthday coming up in a few weeks, and would like my honey to get me a really good BOOK (not a website) on weather, written for novices. Lots of photos of clouds, preferably not too technical, and with more of a focus on tropical weather — not too much on snow and ice. Maybe it will even help me understand what it means when you write “low pressure moving westward…will elevate inversion heights”!
All the best to you from Hilo — and thanks as ever for everything you do,
Eleanor
~~~ Hi Eleanor, good to hear from again, trust you’re doing well.
A birthday, nice, and a possible new book from your hubby, that will be fun!
Yes, I’ve been on Maui for a few weeks, and will continue to come and go. Where I’ll be will depend on how my Mom is doing in Long Beach, she’s my first priority of course…being 95 years old.
Until you get your book, elevated inversions mean that clouds can become more vertical…thicker and even rainy. A lower inversion typically keeps clouds from rising…limiting showers. I hope this overly simplified translation helps a little.
You are very welcome, and as I’m sure you know…it’s my pleasure providing you with information on my website daily.
Aloha, Glenn
Susan Says:
Excellent article on global warming. Very informative and well written. Please post it again from time to time for those who may have missed it. Love your website and check it every day. THE best! Thank you and aloha from Susan in Waikoloa
~~~ Hi Susan, totally agree, and I’m happy that you enjoyed this important reading topic…which is so relevant in this day age. I totally love that you love my website, I greatly appreciate you saying so, as I put many, many hours a day keeping it fresh and alive!
The best to you as well, yet another reader down on the Big Island…thank you all!
Aloha, Glenn
Mike Says:
Glenn;
I read today’s article about “global warming” and anyone reading it should have a better understanding of the term, however, I am hopeful that deniers will not take issue with your attempt at educating the public. There has been a long-termed rise in global temperatures over the past hundreds of thousands of years, but the sudden rise over the past century should be a warning to people to find other sources of energy. It has always been frustrating to me that most all the gases that contribute to “global warming” are man-made and yet the deniers will continue to say people do not contribute to it.
~~~ Hi Mike, thanks for your take on this topic, and as you point out…there are folks on both sides. I wasn’t really trying to twist anyone’s arm, just wanting to point out some information that was clear and easy to understand. There will always be folks on both sides of the isle, on any subject, and I think everyone should be able to have their opinion.
Personally, I come down on the side of truth in this matter, I see no reason to deny the overwhelming evidence. However, as you point out, there are the deniers, and I’m open to sharing their points of view as well.
Aloha, Glenn
jeff Says:
Hi Glenn, not sure about the warming here in Kihei this year, we have had a rather mild summer, not much rain so far this summer but we had a really wet start to the year. It was green here most of the year and only now is it starting to turn it’s usual brown but still green in a lot of the pasture land. The Kiawe trees are still green too. Our pool is usually warm during this time of the year and so far it’s a bit chilly to use. Jeff-
~~~ Hi Jeff, I’ll bet no one in Kihei minds all that much, as Kihei can be really hot on a typical summer day. I know personally, as I worked at the Pacific Disaster Center office, up in the High Tech Research Park…for 17 1/2 years. I still work for the PDC, although can be anywhere in the world and hold down my long lasting job now…which is a great job.
I’ve been down your way a few times this year, and I too noticed the green grass, and the Kiawe trees. It’s nice when enough ground water lasts beyond the rainy season, and hangs on into the later spring and summer months.
It’s nice that you have a pool, dipping in on a hot day is wonderful. I used to walk Charley Young Beach everyday at lunch, and then jump in the ocean for a swim or some bodysurfing when I was lucky. I then walked over to Hawaiian Moons, got a big salad, and went back to my office and ate it.
Fond memories, thanks for your comments Jeff!
Aloha, Glenn
Bett Bidleman Says:
Mahalo, Glenn, for today’s “Interesting” article on Global Warming/Climate Change. I saved it to a computer file because it did such a good job of explaining those terms with factual support in an easy to understand way.
We are experiencing a relatively dry year here on the lower slopes of Kilauea on the eastern Puna side of the Big Island–about 60% of our normal precipitation–along with longer periods of warmer temperatures. We have lost many thousands of ohias (due to Sudden Ohia Death), 66 big trees on just our one small acre. The ohia was our primary tree cover. Can’t help but wonder how that loss will affect temperatures and rainfall in the years to come.
Aloha, Bett
~~~ Hello Bett, I thought the same thing, that this long article sort of set it all up, made it overall more understandable, at least for you and I…and I hope others. I’m glad to know you found some value in the read.
I’m so sorry to hear of your Ohia tree loss, a big problem from the way you describe it! You know, when I think of the Puna District, I always think in terms of lots of passing showers. Yet, your telling us that you’ve received less than 60% of your normal rainfall, that’s dry…way too dry! Plus the warmer temperatures too, that’s hard to take. I find that as I get older, I can handle heat less and less these days.
I’ve been spending more and more time with my Mom lately, since she’s going on 96 and lives alone, there in Long Beach, California. The heat there is tough on me. It seems like I’d really rather skip summer these days! I really enjoy the elevation, and the relatively cooler temperatures here in Upper Kula, Maui, when I’m able to be here.
At any rate, I appreciate your comment, and best of luck to you there on the Big Island. I’m glad that you visit my weather website!
Aloha, Glenn