Hawaiian Islands weather details & Aloha paragraphs / October 15-16, 2009

October 15-16, 2009

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

Lihue, Kauai – 82
Honolulu, Oahu – 85
Kaneohe, Oahu – 82
Kaunakakai, Molokai – 86
Kahului, Maui – 85
Hilo, Hawaii – 83
Kailua-kona – 86

Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level around the state – and on the highest mountains…at 5 p.m. Thursday evening:

Port Allen, Kauai – 86F
Lihue, Kauai – 79

Haleakala Crater – 54 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 45 (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 Thursday afternoon:

0.12 Omao, Kauai
0.18 Kaneohe MCB, Oahu
0.00 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.02 Kahoolawe
2.00 Hana airport, Maui
0.33 Kapapala Ranch, Big Island

Marine Winds – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a high pressure ridge located over the northern islands…moving northward. This ridge, as it gets north of Kauai, will bring back the trade winds Friday into Saturday.

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 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.

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.

Aloha Paragraphs

The main players, which are dictating today’s weather, are the ridge of high pressure over the central Islands, and the cold front which pushed it there…just to the north of the state Friday evening. This weather map shows those two weather features, plus a few others. The cold front is expected to lose its influence over our tropical latitudes, and thereby allowing the high pressure ridge to migrate back northward. As we know, when the ridge is over us, we have slack winds, thus the light wind episode we’ve seen the last couple of days. The migrating of the ridge north, will coincide with the arrival of a new high pressure system to our north. The map shows this weak 1018 millibar high pressure system to the northwest Friday afternoon…moving closer.

While the ridge is still over the central part of the state, and before it slides back north, we’ll remain in this convective weather pattern. The winds never veered around to the southeast, at least not in any general way, so that hazy weather never really took hold. Winds were generally light and variable in direction, with just the typical onshore sea breezes. These breezes carried moisture up slope into the interiors on all the islands. This moisture condenses as it rises in elevation and cools, with cumulus clouds stacking-up from about 3500 to 4000+ feet on up. The overlying atmosphere remains dry and stable however, so that showers have a difficult time being more than light to locally moderate in intensity. As the sun goes down, the sea breezes stop, the clouds have no driver…collapsing again after dark.

As the trade winds return tonight and tomorrow, the sea breezes will stop, or lose their influence to some degree…as we grade back into a trade wind weather pattern. These trade winds will begin carrying moisture off the ocean in our direction, with a normal increase in clouds and a few showers along our windward coasts and slopes.  This autumn trade wind flow will continue through the weekend, bringing fairly normal weather conditions to the Aloha state. As we move into the new work week ahead, the trade winds will accompany us. The models continue to show low pressure systems originating to the southeast of the islands, moving by to our north. It’s still a little too early to know exactly what will happen by next Tuesday into mid-week.

It’s that time of the year again, when I’ll be taking my annual vacation to the mainland…once again to California. I’ll be leaving next Monday, and be gone for about three weeks. I’ll be visiting my good friends, and also spending some quality time with my family in Long Beach as well. This will be a time when I renew my batteries, and spend time away from my weather schedule here in the islands. I’ll have more to say about this going forward, but just wanted to give you a heads up ahead of time. I’ll probably leave this paragraph here, so that those who drop by every few days, will know of my plans, and won’t be surprised. As usual, I will likely add a few notes when I can, to keep you abreast of what I’m up to while in California.

It’s early Thursday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I begin writing the last section of today’s narrative update.    As noted above, the trade winds are right around the corner, and will begin to blow already tonight on the Big Island and Maui. These refreshing breezes will work their way up the island chain during the day Friday. The air mass remains very dry and stable, which has greatly limited rainfall the last couple of days. As the trade winds pick up, we will begin to see a few passing showers along the windward sides. This returning trade wind weather pattern will last into the new week ahead. ~~~ Looking out the window here in Kihei, before I take the drive back upcountry to Kula, it is very clear out there, with good visibilities. There are many areas around Maui County that are totally clear, especially the windward sides at around 530pm. ~~~ I’ll be back very early Friday morning with your next new weather narrative from paradise. I hope you have a great Thursday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting: The Arctic Ocean could be largely ice-free and open to shipping during the summer in as little as ten years’ time, a top polar specialist has said. "It’s like man is taking the lid off the northern part of the planet," said Professor Peter Wadhams, from the University of Cambridge. Professor Wadhams has been studying the Arctic ice since the 1960s.

He was speaking in central London at the launch of the findings of the Catlin Arctic Survey. The expedition trekked across 435km of ice earlier this year. Led by explorer Pen Hadow, the team’s measurements found that the ice-floes were on average 1.8m thick – typical of so-called "first year" ice formed during the past winter and most vulnerable to melting.

The survey route – to the north of Canada – had been expected to cross areas of older "multi-year" ice which is thicker and more resilient. When the ridges of ice between floes are included, the expedition found an average thickness of 4.8m.

Professor Wadhams said: "The Catlin Arctic Survey data supports the new consensus view – based on seasonal variation of ice extent and thickness, changes in temperatures, winds and especially ice composition – that the Arctic will be ice-free in summer within about 20 years, and that much of the decrease will be happening within 10 years.

"That means you’ll be able to treat the Arctic as if it were essentially an open sea in the summer and have transport across the Arctic Ocean." According to Professor Wadhams, faster shipping and easier access to oil and gas reserves were among short-term benefits of the melting.

But in the longer-term, losing a permanent feature of the planet risked accelerated warming, changing patterns of circulation in the oceans and atmosphere, and having unknown effects on ecosystems through the acidification of waters.

Pen Hadow and his companions Ann Daniels and Martin Hartley endured ferocious weather – including a wind chill of minus 70 – delayed resupply flights and starvation rations during the expedition from 1 March to 7 May.

Interesting2: The US Geological Survey, in partnership with the Ecological Society of America, University of Alaska Fairbanks published the results of a study on the changing climate and the important role that the Arctic plays in sequestering carbon. The study shows that the arctic could potentially alter the Earth’s climate by becoming a possible source of global atmospheric carbon dioxide.

The arctic now traps or absorbs up to 25 percent of this gas but climate change could alter that amount, according to a study published in the November issue of Ecological Monographs. In their review paper, David McGuire of the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Alaska at Fairbanks and his colleagues show that the Arctic has been a carbon sink since the end of the last Ice Age, which has recently accounted for between zero and 25 percent, or up to about 800 million metric tons, of the global carbon sink.

On average, says McGuire, the Arctic accounts for 10-15 percent of the Earth’s carbon sink. But the rapid rate of climate change in the Arctic — about twice that of lower latitudes — could eliminate the sink and instead, possibly make the Arctic a source of carbon dioxide.

Carbon generally enters the oceans and land masses of the Arctic from the atmosphere and largely accumulates in permafrost, the frozen layer of soil underneath the land’s surface. Unlike active soils, permafrost does not decompose its carbon; thus, the carbon becomes trapped in the frozen soil.

Cold conditions at the surface have also slowed the rate of organic matter decomposition, McGuire says, allowing Arctic carbon accumulation to exceed its release. But recent warming trends could change this balance. Warmer temperatures can accelerate the rate of surface organic matter decomposition, releasing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Of greater concern, says McGuire, is that the permafrost has begun to thaw, exposing previously frozen soil to decomposition and erosion. These changes could reverse the historical role of the Arctic as a sink for carbon dioxide.

Interesting3:  The global economic crisis has caused a spike in world hunger that has left more than a billion undernourished, United Nations agencies said in a new report. "It is unacceptable in the 21st century that almost one in six of the world’s population is now going hungry," said Josette Sheeran, executive director of the World Food Programme. "At a time when there are more hungry people in the world than ever before, there is less food aid than we have seen in living memory."

The report by the WFP and the Food and Agriculture Organization was released Wednesday, ahead of World Food Day on Friday. Nearly all the world’s undernourished live in developing countries, according to the report. An estimated 642 million people are suffering from chronic hunger in Asia and the Pacific. An additional 265 million live in sub-Saharan Africa while 95 million come from Latin America, the Caribbean, the Near East and North Africa.

The final 15 million live in developed nations. Should developed economies be doing more to eradicate hunger, poverty? The number of hungry spiked as the global economic crisis took hold and governments pumped resources into stabilizing financial markets. The move meant smaller investments in agriculture and food distribution.

"World leaders have reacted forcefully to the financial and economic crisis, and succeeded in mobilizing billions of dollars in a short time period. The same strong action is needed now to combat hunger and poverty," said Jacques Diouf, director-general of the FAO. "The rising number of hungry people is intolerable."

The report calls for greater investment in agriculture to tackle long and short-term hunger by making farmers productive and more resilient to crises. "We know what is needed to meet urgent hunger needs — we just need the resources and the international commitment to do the job," Sheeran said.

Interesting4: Five giant invasive snake species — Burmese pythons, northern and southern African pythons, boa constrictors and anacondas — could endanger some of America’s most important parks and wilderness areas if they are allowed to multiply, according to a report released by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The reptiles, some of which grow to over 20 feet long and weigh over 200 pounds, threaten the health of native ecosystems in Florida and parts of the southern U.S. by decimating indigenous species of birds and animals.

The snakes have escaped or been released into the wild by people who purchased them as pets when they were small and manageable. The environment of south Florida has proven to be a favorable environment for the snakes to thrive and breed. It is estimated that tens of thousands or Burmese pythons now live throughout the Everglades, a wildlife refuge home to the Florida panther and other endangered species.

The snakes are competing with native alligators, crocodiles and other predators. The report cited as a cautionary tale the Pacific island of Guam, where the invasive brown treesnake has wiped out 10 of Guam’s 12 native bird species, one of its two bat species, and about half of its native lizards.

Large invasive snakes can become dangerous to more than just wildlife — the USGS report said that the snakes thrive in rural and suburban areas and could pose a threat to humans. Four other snakes — the reticulated python, green anaconda, Beni anaconda and Deschauensee’s anaconda, are considered "medium-risk" but are still potentially serious threats, the USGS report said.

Interesting5: Cutting greenhouse gases along the lines of a climate bill pending in Congress would modestly impact the US economy over the next few decades, the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said Wednesday in a report. "Reducing the risk of climate change would come at some cost to the economy," CBO director Douglas Elmendorf told a hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, two weeks before the Senate takes up the climate change bill.

"Over the next few decades the economic losses from policies to avert climate change would exceed the economic gains in terms of climate change," he added. The House of Representatives passed its own version of the climate bill in June. Elmendorf said the Cap and Trade initiative it includes would reduce US gross domestic product (GDP) by 0.25 percent to 0.75 percent in 2020 and by 3.5 percent in 2050. However, he added, CBO projects that inflation-adjusted GDP growth will be two-and-a-half times larger than today’s, "so those changes will be comparatively modest."