Hawaiian Islands weather details & Aloha paragraphs / March 9-10, 2011

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

Lihue, Kauai –                   80
Honolulu airport, Oahu –     79
Kaneohe, Oahu –               76
Molokai airport –                78
Kahului airport, Maui –        83
Kona airport –                     84
Hilo airport, Hawaii –          81

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

Barking Sands, Kauai – 80F
Kaneohe, Oahu – 74

Haleakala Crater –     missing (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 34 (under 14,000 feet on the Big Island)

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

2.42    Kilohana, Kauai
4.39    Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
0.01    Molokai
0.00    Lanai
0.23    Kahoolawe
0.07    Oheo Gulch, Maui
1.86    Honaunau, Big Island

Marine Winds – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing trade wind producing high pressure systems to the northeast and northwest. At the same time we have a weak frontal boundary to our north. Our trade winds will remain locally strong and gusty both Thursday and Friday.

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

Trade winds prevail, passing windward
showers, some locally heavy into Thursday…
with even a few along our leeward sides
Photo Credit: Don Jusko

 
 

The trade winds will increase a notch Thursday into Friday…then softening slightly into the weekend and beyond. According to this weather map, we see high pressure systems positioned to the northeast and northwest of Hawaii Wednesday night. The trades will strengthen Wednesday night for a few days…and then ease back down into the moderately strong category Saturday and Sunday into early next week. The NWS has a small craft wind advisory active across many of our coastal and channel waters.       

Blustery trade winds…the following numbers represent the strongest gusts, along with directions early Wednesday evening:

32 mph        Port Allen, Kauai – NE
24              Kahukui, Oahu – NE
24              Molokai – NNE
27              Kahoolawe – ESE
27              Kahului, Maui – NE
16              Lanai Airport – SW
29              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 Wednesday night. This large University of Washington satellite image shows lots of high and middle level clouds over and around the Hawaiian Islands…although the Big Island remains to the south of these clouds at the moment. Looking at this NOAA satellite picture, we see scattered lower level clouds around the state, in addition to high and middle level clouds in the area from Kauai down to Maui County. We can use this looping satellite image to see an area of cirrus clouds moving over the state, with lower level clouds being carried our way on the northeast breezes. Checking out this looping radar image, shows that most of the showers are falling over the island of Oahu…with a few elsewhere at the time of this writing.

The expectations are for windy and showery weather to be a part of our weather picture through Friday.  For the moment we’re seeing fairly typical trade wind weather pattern, with windward biased showers…extending over into the leeward sides on some of the islands, particularly on Oahu. We find a weak cold front to our north, which will provide moisture for an increase in shower activity over the next few days. At the same time we’ll find an increase in trade wind speeds. This episode of blustery weather with additional passing showers will last into Friday. As we move into the weekend, these conditions will shift into slightly lighter trade winds and drier weather…with pleasant conditions gracing the islands into early next week.

As noted above, we'll find this surge in trade wind speeds, and increase in windward biased showers Thursday and Friday. These conditions will be most noticeable along our north and east facing sides of the islands, the windward sides. This is because of the incoming northeast winds that are blowing now. An area of cold air aloft will be over our area tonight into Thursday, which will enhance these incoming showers. There is even the chance that we could see heavy showers, or even a few thunderstorms in the mix as well. This wetter reality may not influence the entire state, although many areas will have windier and wet conditions. The good news about all this is that by weekend, our weather will take a turn for the better. The incoming air will be dry and much more stable and dry…so that after this work week, we should be in good shape. I'll be back early Thursday morning with your next new weather narrative, I hope you have a great Wednesday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting: A new study proves that elephants understand how sometimes two is better than one. Working with Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) at the Thai Elephant Conservation Center, researchers reconstructed a classic cooperation test that was originally developed for chimpanzees. Subjects must pull on a rope to receive a reward, such as food, however—and here's the crux—the treat is only released if two subjects cooperate by pulling on two different ropes simultaneously.

The paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that elephants w ere as capable of cooperation as chimpanzees. "Elephants are widely assumed to be among the most cognitively advanced animals, even though systematic evidence is lacking. This void in knowledge is mainly due to the danger and difficulty of submitting the largest land animal to behavioral experiments," the paper's authors write.

However, working with elephants linked to mahouts allowed the researchers to reproduce the experiment in a controlled setting. Once researchers found that elephants were capable of learning to cooperate to receive a award, they complicated the experiment. One elephant from the pair would be released into the experiment later than the other.

According to the study, the elephant released first quickly learned to wait for their partner before pulling on the rope. "The success of the elephants in longer delay trials increased significantly after the first test day, suggesting they quickly learned the waiting contingency of the task regardless of the length of waiting time," the authors write. The researchers, however, caution that it is still difficult to ascertain just how well the elephants understood the need for cooperation to retrieve the award, rather than simply learning the rules to the experiment.

Interesting2: Many farmers in developing nations can double food production within a decade by shifting to ecological agriculture from use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, a U.N. report showed on Tuesday. Insect-trapping plants in Kenya and Bangladesh's use of ducks to eat weeds in rice paddies are among examples of steps taken to increase food for a world population that the United Nations says will be 7 billion this year and 9 billion by 2050.

"Agriculture is at a crossroads," according to the study by Olivier de Schutter, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the right to food, in a drive to depress record food prices and avoid the costly oil-dependent model of industrial farming. "Agroecology" could also make farms more resilient to the projected impact of climate change including floods, droughts and a rise in sea levels that the report said was already making fresh water near some coasts too salty for use in irrigation.

So far, eco-farming projects in 57 nations had shown average crop yield gains of 80 percent by tapping natural methods for enhancing soil and protecting against pests, it said. Recent projects in 20 African countries had resulted in a doubling of crop yields within three to 10 years. Those lessons could be widely mimicked elsewhere, it said.

"Sound ecological farming can significantly boost production and in the long term be more effective than conventional farming," De Schutter told Reuters of steps such as more use of natural compost or high-canopy trees to shade coffee groves. Benefits would be greatest in "regions where too few efforts have been put in to agriculture, particularly sub-Saharan Africa," he said.

"There are also a number of very promising experiences in parts of Latin America and parts of Asia." "Agriculture is at a crossroads," according to the study by Olivier de Schutter, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the right to food, in a drive to depress record food prices and avoid the costly oil-dependent model of industrial farming. "Agroecology" could also make farms more resilient to the projected impact of climate change including floods, droughts and a rise in sea levels that the report said was already making fresh water near some coasts too salty for use in irrigation.

So far, eco-farming projects in 57 nations had shown average crop yield gains of 80 percent by tapping natural methods for enhancing soil and protecting against pests, it said. Recent projects in 20 African countries had resulted in a doubling of crop yields within three to 10 years. Those lessons could be widely mimicked elsewhere, it said.

"Sound ecological farming can significantly boost production and in the long term be more effective than conventional farming," De Schutter told Reuters of steps such as more use of natural compost or high-canopy trees to shade coffee groves. Benefits would be greatest in "regions where too few efforts have been put in to agriculture, particularly sub-Saharan Africa," he said. "There are also a number of very promising experiences in parts of Latin America and parts of Asia."

Interesting3: Iceland’s largest energy company is considering construction of the world’s longest underwater electric cable so the nation can sell its vast geothermal and volcanic energy to the European market. By the end of the year, state-owned energy company, Landsvirkjun, will complete a study of building a sub-sea cable that could deliver as much as five terawatt-hours (5 billion kilowatt-hours) annually to Europe, enough electricity to power 1.25 million homes. Geothermal energy is thermal energy generated and stored in the Earth.

Thermal energy is energy that determines the temperature of matter. Earth's geothermal energy originates from the original formation of the planet, from radioactive decay of minerals, from volcanic activity, and from solar energy absorbed at the surface. The geothermal gradient, which is the difference in temperature between the core of the planet and its surface, drives a continuous conduction of thermal energy in the form of heat from the core to the surface.

From hot springs, geothermal energy has been used for bathing since Paleolithic times and for space heating since ancient Roman times, but it is now better known for electricity generation. Worldwide, about 10,715 megawatts of geothermal power is online in 24 countries. An additional 28 gigawatts of direct geothermal heating capacity is installed for district heating, space heating, spas, industrial processes, desalination and agricultural applications.

Geothermal power is cost effective, reliable, sustainable, and environmentally friendly, but has historically been limited to areas near tectonic plate boundaries. Recent technological advances have dramatically expanded the range and size of viable resources, especially for applications such as home heating, opening a potential for widespread exploitation.

Geothermal wells release greenhouse gases trapped deep within the earth, but these emissions are much lower per energy unit than those of fossil fuels. As a result, geothermal power has the potential to help mitigate global warming if widely deployed in place of fossil fuels. The proposed Icelandic cable would be as long as 1,180 miles, depending on its destination; company officials are considering linking the cable to Britain, Norway, Holland, and Germany.

At present, Landsvirkjun produces about 75 percent of Iceland’s electricity by tapping into the nation’s huge stores of geothermal power. In 2010, the United States led the world in geothermal electricity production with 3,086 MW of installed capacity from 77 power plants. The largest group of geothermal power plants in the world is located at The Geysers, a geothermal field in California. The Philippines is the second highest producer, with 1,904 MW of capacity online.

Interesting4: Researchers have made a remarkable new discovery regarding humpback whale wintering grounds. In the thick of whale season, researchers from Hawai'i Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shed new light on the wintering grounds of the humpback whale.

The primary breeding ground for the North Pacific was always thought to be the main Hawaiian Islands (MHI). However, a new study has shown that these grounds extend all the way throughout the Hawaiian Archipelago and into the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI), also known as Papah?naumoku?kea Marine National Monument (PMNM).

Humpback whales, an endangered species, were once on the brink of extinction due to commercial whaling practices of the last century. Today, thanks to international protection, their numbers have dramatically increased, resulting in a greater presence of these singing mammals during the winter months. Song is produced by male humpback whales during the winter breeding season.

All males on a wintering ground sing roughly the same song any given year, but the song changes from year to year. No one is exactly sure why the whales sing but some researchers believe it could be a display to other males. Between 8,500 and 10,000 whales migrate to Hawai'i each winter; while the rest of the population can be found in places like Taiwan, the Philippines, the Mariana Islands, Baja California, Mexico, amongst other Pacific locations (Calambokidis et al. 2008).

Over the past three decades, population recovery has resulted in a steady increase in the number of whales and a geographic expansion of their distribution in the MHI. Until recently, however, no empirical evidence existed that this expansion included the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

This changed recently when scientists from HIMB and NOAA published their findings in the current issue of the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series, detailing the presence of humpback whale song in the Northwestern Hawaiian Archipelago. These researchers deployed instruments known as Ecological Acoustic Recorders (EARs) in both the NWHI and MHI to record the occurrence of humpback whale song, as an indicator of winter breeding activity.

Humpback whale song was found to be prevalent throughout the NWHI and demonstrated trends very similar to those observed in the MHI. Dr. Marc Lammers, a researcher at HIMB and the lead scientist of the project explains "these findings are exciting because they force us to re-evaluate what we know about humpback whale migration and the importance of the NWHI to the population."

The results are also of particular relevance in light of recent suggestions that an undocumented wintering area for humpback whales exists somewhere in the central North Pacific. Dr. Lammers and his colleagues believe that the NWHI could be that area.

Interesting5: For people, being touched can initiate many different reactions from comfort to discomfort, from intimacy to aggression. But how might people react if they were touched by a robot? Would they recoil, or would they take it in stride? In an initial study, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology found people generally had a positive response toward being touched by a robotic nurse, but that their perception of the robot's intent made a significant difference.

The research is being presented March 9 at the Human-Robot Interaction conference in Lausanne, Switzerland. "What we found was that how people perceived the intent of the robot was really important to how they responded.

So, even though the robot touched people in the same way, if people thought the robot was doing that to clean them, versus doing that to comfort them, it made a significant difference in the way they responded and whether they found that contact favorable or not," said Charlie Kemp, assistant professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University.

In the study, researchers looked at how people responded when a robotic nurse, known as Cody, touched and wiped a person's forearm. Although Cody touched the subjects in exactly the same way, they reacted more positively when they believed Cody intended to clean their arm versus when they believed Cody intended to comfort them. These results echo similar studies done with nurses.

"There have been studies of nurses and they've looked at how people respond to physical contact with nurses," said Kemp, who is also an adjunct professor in Georgia Tech's College of Computing. "And they found that, in general, if people interpreted the touch of the nurse as being instrumental, as being important to the task, then people were OK with it.

But if people interpreted the touch as being to provide comfort … people were not so comfortable with that." In addition, Kemp and his research team tested whether people responded more favorably when the robot verbally indicated that it was about to touch them versus touching them without saying anything. "The results suggest that people preferred when the robot did not actually give them the warning," said Tiffany Chen, doctoral student at Georgia Tech.

"We think this might be because they were startled when the robot started speaking, but the results are generally inconclusive." Since many useful tasks require that a robot touch a person, the team believes that future research should investigate ways to make robot touch more acceptable to people, especially in healthcare.

Many important healthcare tasks, such as wound dressing and assisting with hygiene, would require a robotic nurse to touch the patient's body, "If we want robots to be successful in healthcare, we're going to need to think about how do we make those robots communicate their intention and how do people interpret the intentions of the robot," added Kemp.

"And I think people haven't been as focused on that until now. Primarily people have been focused on how can we make the robot safe, how can we make it do its task effectively. But that's not going to be enough if we actually want these robots out there helping people in the real world."

Interesting6: The environmentally friendly Danish model fish farms are to be expanded from the current freshwater farms to also include saltwater fish farms. This requires new technological solutions, which in itself could become something of an export bonanza. Fish farming is currently one of the world's fastest growing food industries.

Denmark has a long tradition of fish farming and today is among the world leaders in equipment for green production, thanks to the development of so-called model fish farms. The high-tech and environmentally friendly model fish farms use water from boreholes, rather than from rivers, and are based on water recirculation technology.

This means that the fish farm recycles as much as 95 percent of the water instead of merely letting it drain away into the countryside. Now DTU Aqua and several of the key players in the industry are joining forces to take Danish fish farming a stage further.

In order to put large rainbow trout and salmon on the menu as well, the so-called model fish farms are to be expanded to include the breeding of saltwater fish as well as freshwater fish — and it is to take place inland. The project is being supported by the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries' Green Development and Demonstration Programme (GUDP).

"The global salmon market is huge. The production of fish in the aquaculture industry is increasing in several countries, but so far Denmark has not increased production significantly, mainly because of environmental restrictions,. But why should the Norwegians produce our salmon if we can do it just as well — and without compromising the environment?" asks technical project manager Per Bovbjerg Pedersen, from DTU Aqua in Hirtshals.

More fish, less pollution In order to increase production in a sustainable and profitable manner, we need cross-disciplinary collaboration on new technological solutions for breeding fish in salt water to complement those solutions that DTU Aqua has already helped to develop within the field of freshwater fish breeding. "The goal is to produce more fish, but with the same or even lower emissions of nitrogen out into the environment.

This will be done partly through applying a known technique in freshwater farming, whereby bio-filters are used to convert the ammonia excreted by the fish into nitrate. Now the goal is to develop the technology to do the same with salt water, in order to convert this nitrate into nitrogen which can be released as a harmless gas. In this way the nitrogen is removed safely from the water," explains Per Bovbjerg Pedersen.

In a four-year project supported by the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries' Green Development and Demonstration Program (GUDP), DTU Aqua, in collaboration with key industry players, is to develop technology to enable large rainbow trout to be farmed inland in salt water.

After two years, the project will be expanded to test the feasibility of farming Atlantic salmon in inland saltwater fish farms. DTU Aqua is responsible for the professional management of the project, in particular the environmental impact, water quality parameters and the development and optimization of cleaning technologies.

The work is being carried out at the North Sea Science Park in Hirtshals in collaboration with representatives from all relevant parts of industry including the leading Danish food producer Biomar and the largest breeding, processing and sales company AquaPri.

The goal in the long term is not only to create a basis for the Danish production and export of sustainably produced saltwater fish: the actual technology itself will have equally strong export potential, Per Bovbjerg believes.

"Denmark is already a world leader in water recirculation technology and model fish farms, thanks to our unique composition of components drawn from our experience in water recirculation techniques. The aim is to further exploit and expand the Danish position in the field of water recirculation by combining it with breeding techniques, equipment and complete plant solutions for saltwater fish farming," says the technical project manager from DTU Aqua.

What is a model fish farm? The high-tech and environmentally friendly model fish farms for breeding fish use water from boreholes and are based on water recirculation technology. This means that a farm recycles as much as 95 percent of its water. A comprehensive measurement and documentation project to monitor the environmental impact of model fish farms was started in 2005.

The project was based among other things on DTU Aqua's know-how about fish farming systems, including water recirculation technology. Today, model fish farms are located in large concrete plants on the traditional fish farms sites.

But as the model fish farms do not need the water from the streams, the streams are now free of obstacles such as dams and barriers. This also provides free passage for the wild fish on their way to and from spawning grounds and the sea, which is beneficial for wild fish stocks. Today the aquaculture industry — both inland and sea-based fish farms — is the world's fastest growing food industry.