Hawaiian Islands weather details & Aloha paragraphs / March 15-16, 2011

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

Lihue, Kauai –                   80
Honolulu airport, Oahu –     83
Kaneohe, Oahu –               78
Molokai airport –                80
Kahului airport, Maui –        82
Kona airport –                     85
Hilo airport, Hawaii –         82

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

Honolulu, Oahu – 82F
Kaneohe, Oahu – 77

Haleakala Crater –     missing (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 41 (under 14,000 feet on the Big Island)

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

0.32    Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.00    Oahu
0.00    Molokai
0.00    Lanai
0.00    Kahoolawe
0.00    Maui
0.50    Kawainui Stream, Big Island

Marine Winds – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a 1027 millibar trade wind maintaining high pressure system to the east-northeast of Hawaii. New high pressure systems have moved into the area north and northwest as well. Our trade winds will be strengthening Wednesday into Thursday.

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 ended November 30th here in the central Pacific…and begins again June 1st.

 Aloha Paragraphs

Windy trade wind weather on tap
 
 

 

The trade winds will be increasing through the rest of the week…continuing on into next week.  According to this weather map, we find a 1027 millibar high pressure to our east-northeast…with more high pressure systems to the northwest of the islands Tuesday night. Our trade winds will be on the increase now, beginning an extended period of blustery trades. The outlook continues to show the trade winds picking up further into Friday, remaining blustery through the weekend. The longer range forecast shows the strong and gusty trade winds continuing on into next week.      

Increasingly strong trade winds on the horizon…the following numbers represent the strongest gusts, along with directions early Tuesday evening:

30 mph       Port Allen, Kauai – NE
23              Waianae, Oahu – NE
29              Molokai – NE 
36              Kahoolawe – E
33              Kahului, Maui – NE
17              Lanai Airport – NE
37                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 Tuesday night. This large University of Washington satellite image shows a long streak of clouds being carried along in the prevailing westerly wind flow to our north….bringing lots of cloudiness and moisture to the west coast of North America. Looking at this NOAA satellite picture, we see patches of low level clouds offshore from the state, although most of the islands remain quite clear to partly cloudy. The bulk of this cloudiness seems to be headed towards the Big Island’s windward sides at the time of this writing. We can use this looping satellite image to see low clouds are moving westward in the trade wind flow, although seem to be dissipating as they arrive here in the Aloha state. Checking out this looping radar image, shows that there are just a few showers in the trade wind flow, falling lightly along the windward sides of the islands at times…especially the Big Island.

As the trade winds increase Wednesday, which are expected to remain quite strong through most of the next 10 days…we'll see showers being brought in our direction at times. These will fall generally along the windward sides, although as the trade winds reach their strongest point, likely Thursday and Friday…we’ll see an area of showers being carried over into the leeward sides on the smaller islands. The computer models suggest that one particular area of showery clouds will be carried our way around Friday. These showers should gradually ease back as we move through the weekend. Otherwise, there are no organized showers expected, with just the normal passing moisture that will commonly fall along our north and east windward coasts and slopes.

As noted above, it’s going to get windy, with a NWS issued wind advisory over the islands now…meaning gusts to above 50 mph at times locally. The winds often get strong and gusty, so that there's nothing too unusual about that. Other than the wind and the lowering waves along our north and west shores, our local weather will remain fairly decent, albeit it windy. There will be lots of sunshine in many areas, and those areas outside of the wind and waves, should continue to be on the positive side.  I would recommend heading to the leeward sides, where the conditions will be quite pleasant for the most part. ~~~ Here in Kihei, Maui this evening skies are mostly clear, with just a few clouds around the edges. The winds hadn't come up very much here yet, although will be gusting up past 40 mph very likely across many areas of the state over the next few days. As a matter of fact, the current wind advisory forecasts winds of 20-30 mph beginning Wednesday morning, with top gusts up to 55 mph through Thursday, which will likely get extended. ~~~ I'm about ready to head back upcountry again, and will be back with your next new weather narrative from windy paradise early Wednesday morning. I hope you have a great Tuesday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Extra: very interesting youtube video…Frazil Ice in Yosemite National Park

Interesting: The warnings were stark and issued repeatedly as far back as 1972: If the cooling systems ever failed at a Mark 1 nuclear reactor, the primary containment vessel surrounding the reactor would probably burst as the fuel rods inside overheated. Dangerous radiation would spew into the environment. Now, with one Mark 1 containment vessel damaged at the embattled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant and other vessels there under severe strain, the weaknesses of the design — developed in the 1960s by General Electric — could be contributing to the unfolding catastrophe. When the ability to cool a reactor is compromised, the containment vessel is the last line of defense.

Typically made of steel and concrete, it is designed to prevent — for a time — melting fuel rods from spewing radiation into the environment if cooling efforts completely fail. In some reactors, known as pressurized water reactors, the system is sealed inside a thick, steel-and-cement tomb.

Most nuclear reactors around the world are of this type. But the type of containment vessel and pressure suppression system used in the failing reactors at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant — and in 23 American reactors at 16 plants — is physically less robust, and it has long been thought to be more susceptible to failure in an emergency than competing designs. G.E. began making the Mark 1 boiling water reactors in the 1960s, marketing them as cheaper and easier to build — in part because they used a comparatively smaller and less expensive containment structure.

American regulators began identifying weaknesses very early on. In 1972, Stephen H. Hanauer, then a safety official with the Atomic Energy Commission, recommended in a memo that the sort of “pressure-suppression” system used in G.E.’s Mark 1 plants presented unacceptable safety risks and that it should be discontinued.

Among his concerns were that the smaller containment design was more susceptible to explosion and rupture from a buildup in hydrogen — a situation that may have unfolded at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. “What are the safety advantages of pressure suppression, apart from the cost saving?” Mr. Hanauer asked in the 1972 memo. (The regulatory functions of the Atomic Energy Commission were later transferred to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.)

A written response came later that same year from Joseph Hendrie, who would later become chairman of the N.R.C. He called the idea of a ban on such systems “attractive” because alternative containment systems have the “notable advantage of brute simplicity in dealing with a primary blowdown.”

But he added that the technology had been so widely accepted by the industry and regulatory officials that “reversal of this hallowed policy, particularly at this time, could well be the end of nuclear power.” In an e-mail on Tuesday, David Lochbaum, director of the Nuclear Safety Program at the Union for Concerned Scientists, said those words seemed ironic now, given the potential global ripples on the nuclear industry from the Japanese accident.

“Not banning them might be the end of nuclear power,” said Mr. Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer who spent 17 years working in nuclear facilities, including three that used the G.E. design. Questions about the G.E. reactor design escalated in the mid-1980s, when Harold Denton, an official with the N.R.C., asserted that Mark 1 reactors had a 90 percent probability of bursting should the fuel rods overheat and melt in an accident.

A follow-up report from a study group convened by the commission concluded that “Mark 1 failure within the first few hours following core melt would appear rather likely.” In an extreme accident, that analysis held, the containment could fail in as little as 40 minutes. Industry officials disputed that assessment, saying the chance of failure was only about 10 percent.

Michael Tetuan, a spokesman for G.E.’s water and power division, staunchly defended the technology this week, calling it “the industry’s workhorse with a proven track record of safety and reliability for more than 40 years.” Mr. Tetuan said there are currently 32 Mark 1 boiling water reactors operating safely around the globe. “There has never been a breach of a Mark 1 containment system,” he said.

Interesting2: Dinosaurs squashed them with impunity. Thousands of species that lacked culinary appreciation have turned up their noses at them. And a study based on advanced DNA analysis has shown that this shameful indifference went on for 129 million years. Finally, however, one animal species came along that would learn to appreciate this particular fungus with almost a global reverence — homo sapiens.

Thus was born the human affection for the morel — for millions of people around the world, it's what you mean when you say "mushroom hunting." Spring is coming soon, and with it the timeless quest for morels. For some, it's almost a way of life. Nancy Weber, a researcher with the College of Forest Ecosystems and Society at Oregon State University, has had a lifelong love affair with the morel.

Her parents took her on her first mushroom hunt in the Michigan woods at the age of six months. Presumably they sat her down in front of a morel, wiped the drool from the corner of her mouth and said, "Now pay attention, Nancy. This is important. This is what you look for." "Morels probably became so prized because of their distinctive appearance, which almost anyone can learn to recognize," Weber said.

"That means you're not apt to pick a poison mushroom. But for a lot of people, mushroom hunting becomes part of your life, stories you tell around a campfire, a favorite picking spot whose location you hide like a great fishing hole." Weber was part of a research team that has published one of the most detailed genetic analyses ever done on morels, to help identify their ancestry, show how they evolved and what conservation policies may be needed to manage and protect this valuable resource.

Among other things, they concluded that morels have been around for a lot, lot, longer than people have — true morels split off from all other fungal species 129 million years ago, during the beginning of the Cretaceous Period. Back then, mammals were primitive little things, dinosaurs still ruled the world and morels were kind of an afterthought. Which pretty much proves that dinosaurs had small brains.

Or lacked culinary skills. Since then, morels have evolved into 177 related species, and western North America — particularly the Pacific Northwest — has been an evolutionary hot spot. Despite the varying species, in many ways morels have "remained remarkably static since the Cretaceous," the researchers said. The study was done by scientists from OSU, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Eastern Illinois University and private industry.

It was published in Fungal Genetics and Biology, a professional journal. "Oddly enough, most animal species aren't particularly attracted to morels," Weber said. "A few slugs and other things will eat them. But humans have probably been eating them for about as long as there have been humans."

The morel, which usually grows a few inches tall but can get larger, is a harbinger of spring and often gives people an excuse to get outdoors after winter is over, Weber said. They can last much of the summer into early fall and provide plenty of opportunity for hiking up and down hills, peeking under leaves, and trying to convince yourself you have a special technique and understanding about how to find this often-elusive mushroom.

"There are things you can know about how to find morels, but on another level they are wherever you find them," Weber said. "When I was a kid, we once drove all over the place, hiked everywhere, came up empty-handed and then went back home, found a bunch of them growing under our apple tree next to the house."

Morels are, in fact, a delicacy, although cooking them doesn't need to be fancy — a few morels sautéed in butter with a little salt and pepper is difficult to improve upon. They are the people's mushroom — clearly more sophisticated than the ubiquitous and bland button mushroom sold in bulk at the grocery store, but not so fancy as the chanterelle prized in French cuisine or the matsutake favored for Japanese dishes.

People who eat morels usually have mud on their boots and aren't afraid to work for their prize. Getting them can be as simple as a couple hours stomping around in the woods, or traveling hundreds of miles to compete in a mushroom hunting festival. Sometimes you get lucky and come home with a bag full. Often you don't.

"You can grow morels in confinement, but it's pretty tricky and unpredictable, and some people don't think they taste as good," Weber said. In the Pacific Northwest, finding morels has even evolved into a cottage industry. One species is fairly common after a forest fire, leading to the odd phenomenon of crowds of people sometimes showing up in the spring in an area that burned the previous summer.

Dried morels are now sometimes found in supermarkets or available on the Internet. Based on the new genetic analysis, scientists now know that morels are very old, but not at all the oldest of 1.5 million species of fungi. They are found widely around the world, probably traveled with the continents as they drifted apart, but still look pretty much the same way they did millions of years ago. There's one big difference now. At least one animal on Earth has finally come to appreciate them.

Interesting3: The rapid spread of lionfishes along the U.S. eastern seaboard, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean is the first documented case of a non-native marine fish establishing a self-sustaining population in the region, according to recent U.S. Geological Survey studies. "Nothing like this has been seen before in these waters," said Dr. Pam Schofield, a biologist with the USGS Southeast Ecological Science Center here.

"We've observed sightings of numerous non-native species, but the extent and speed with which lionfish have spread has been unprecedented; lionfishes pretty much blanketed the Caribbean in three short years."

More than 30 species of non-native marine fishes have been sighted off the coast of Florida alone, but until now none of these have demonstrated the ability to survive, reproduce, and spread successfully.

Although lionfishes originally came from the Indo-West Pacific Ocean, there are now self-sustaining populations spreading along the western Atlantic coast of the U.S. and throughout the Caribbean.

It is not yet clear exactly how the new invasive species will affect reefs in this part of the world. Foremost on the minds of scientists is the lionfishes' predatory behavior, which may negatively impact native species in the newly invaded ecosystems. They have already been observed preying on and competing with a wide range of native species.

Invasive lionfishes were first reported off Florida's Atlantic coast in the mid-1980s, but did not become numerous in the region until 2000. Since then, the lionfish population has rapidly spread north through the Atlantic Ocean and south throughout most of the Caribbean.

The spreading population is now working its way around the Gulf of Mexico. Schofield spent years compiling and verifying sightings of lionfishes, reaching out to local experts such as biologists, museum curators, natural resource managers, dive masters and citizens groups to collect detailed records of specimen collections and sightings throughout the region.

The records were compiled in the USGS Nonindigenous Aquatic Species database and used to map the fishes' spread. No one knows for sure exactly how the predecessors of the current population first made it into the Atlantic and Caribbean, but Schofield believes the invasion serves as a warning of the dangers posed by introductions of non-native fishes into an ecosystem.

"This invasion may constitute a harbinger of the emerging threat of non-native marine fishes to coastal systems," Schofield said. In the Florida Keys, Schofield and her team are working closely with partners from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration in Beaufort, North Carolina and Reef Environmental Education Foundation in Key Largo, Florida to analyze lionfish diets, an important first step in understanding their impact on reef ecosystems.

Eradication of lionfishes is probably not possible, admits Schofield. Yet, local control efforts may be able to keep the population tamped down, releasing pressure on the native ecosystem. Many Caribbean countries such as Bermuda and the Cayman Islands have begun lionfish control programs. In the U.S., REEF held a series of lionfish derbies in the Florida Keys that resulted in more than 600 lionfishes being removed from the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.

Interesting4: A new study involving the University of Colorado Boulder shows clear evidence of the continuous control of fire by Neanderthals in Europe dating back roughly 400,000 years, yet another indication that they weren't dimwitted brutes as often portrayed. The conclusion comes from the study of scores of ancient archaeological research sites in Europe that show convincing evidence of long-term fire control by Neanderthals, said Paola Villa, a curator at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History.

Villa co-authored a paper on the new study with Professor Wil Roebroeks of Leiden University in the Netherlands. "Until now, many scientists have thought Neanderthals had some fires but did not have continuous use of fire," said Villa. "We were not expecting to find a record of so many Neanderthal sites exhibiting such good evidence of the sustained use of fire over time."

A paper on the subject was published in the March 14 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Neanderthals are thought to have evolved in Europe roughly 400,000 to 500,000 years ago and went extinct about 30,000 years ago. Neanderthals ranged over much of Europe and stretched to Central Asia.

Neanderthals were stockier than anatomically modern humans and even shared the same terrain for a time, and there is evidence that contemporary humans carry a small amount of Neanderthal DNA. Modern humans began migrating out of Africa to Europe some 40,000 years ago.

Archaeologists consider the emergence of stone tool manufacturing and the control of fire as the two hallmark events in the technological evolution of early humans. While experts agree the origins of stone tools date back at least 2.5 million years in Africa, the origin of fire control has been a prolonged and heated debate.

Villa and Roebroeks, who together speak and read six languages, have visited or worked at dozens of the Neanderthal excavation sites in Europe. They also combed libraries throughout Europe and the United States for research papers on evidence for early fire use in Europe, contacting researchers involved in the excavations when possible for additional information and insight.

As part of the study they created a database of 141 potential fireplace sites in Europe dating from 1.2 million years ago to 35,000 years ago, assigning an index of confidence to each site. Evidence for the sustained use of fire includes the presence of charcoal, heated stone artifacts, burned bones, heated sediments, hearths and rough dates obtained from heated stone artifacts.

Sites with two or more of the characteristics were interpreted as solid evidence for the control of fire by the inhabitants. The second major finding in the PNAS study — perhaps even more surprising than the first — was that Neanderthal predecessors pushed into Europe's colder northern latitudes more than 800,000 years ago without the habitual control of fire, said Roebroecks.

Archaeologists have long believed the control of fire was necessary for migrating early humans as a way to reduce their energy loss during winters when temperatures plunged below freezing and resources became more scarce. "This confirms a suspicion we had that went against the opinions of most scientists, who believed it was impossible for humans to penetrate into cold, temperate regions without fire," Villa said.

Recent evidence from an 800,000-year-old site in England known as Happisburgh indicates hominids — likely Homo heidelbergenis, the forerunner of Neanderthals — adapted to chilly environments in the region without fire, Roebroeks said.

The simplest explanation is that there was no habitual use of fire by early humans prior to roughly 400,000 years ago, indicating that fire was not an essential component of the behavior of the first occupants of Europe's northern latitudes, said Roebroeks. "It is difficult to imagine these people occupying very cold climates without fire, yet this seems to be the case."

While the oldest traces of human presence in Europe date to more than 1 million years ago, the earliest evidence of habitual Neanderthal fire use comes from the Beeches Pit site in England dating to roughly 400,000 years ago, said Villa. The site contained scattered pieces of heated flint, evidence of burned bones at high temperatures, and individual pockets of previously heated sediments.

Neanderthals, like other early humans, created and used a unique potpourri of stone tools, evidence that they were the ancient inhabitants of particular sites in Europe. The sites catalogued by the team were dated by several methods, including electron spin resonance, paleomagnetism and thermoluminescence.

Some research teams also have used microscopic studies of sediment at sites to confirm the presence of ashes. While some of the best evidence for controlled use of fire in Europe comes from caves, there are many open-air sites with solid evidence of controlled fire, they said.

According to Villa, one of the most spectacular uses of fire by Neanderthals was in the production of a sticky liquid called pitch from the bark of birch trees that was used by Neanderthals to haft, or fit wooden shafts on, stone tools. Since the only way to create pitch from the trees is to burn bark peels in the absence of air, archaeologists surmise Neanderthals dug holes in the ground, inserted birch bark peels, lit them and covered the hole tightly with stones to block incoming air.

"This means Neanderthals were not only able to use naturally occurring adhesive gums as part of their daily lives, they were actually able to manufacture their own," Villa said. "For those who say Neanderthals did not have elevated mental capacities, I think this is good evidence to the contrary."

Many archaeologists believe Neanderthals and other early hominids struck pieces of flint with chunks of iron pyrite to create the sparks that made fire and may well have conserved and transported fire from site to site. Some anthropologists have proposed that Neanderthals became extinct because their cognitive abilities were inferior, including a lack of long-term planning, said Villa.

But the archaeological record shows Neanderthals drove herds of big game animals into dead-end ravines and ambushed them, as evidenced by repeatedly used kill sites — a sign of long-term planning and coordination among hunters, she said. Recent findings have even indicated Neanderthals were cooking, as evidenced by tiny bits of cooked plant material recovered from their teeth.

Interesting5: Connections between earthquakes and climate change exist, but they are few. The earthquake destruction seen recently in Japan and New Zealand cannot and should not be linked to climate change. But some scientific evidence suggests it is worth thinking about interactions between climate change and earthquakes.

Two principal components must be considered in looking at threats from earthquakes: the hazard itself – the earth shaking – and vulnerability to that hazard, revealed through deaths and damage. There are also two directions of action to ponder: Whether earthquakes influence climate change, and whether climate change influences earthquakes.

On the first point, there is little scientific support, and no connection should currently be made. But as for climate change affecting earthquakes, there are tentative hints of links. Changing ice caps and sea-level redistribute weight over fault lines, which could potentially have an influence on earthquake occurrences. No studies quantify the relationship to a high level of detail, so recent earthquakes should not be linked with climate change.

Additionally, shifting seas mean that climate change could lead to changes in the weight of water on undersea volcanoes. Such changes correlate with eruptions, many of which are linked with earthquakes – though the recent quakes were not. Volcano eruptions, and to some degree earthquakes associated with volcanoes, are well-known to affect weather and climate conditions in the short-term.

After the Tambora volcano erupted in Indonesia in 1815, many regions of the world experienced "the year without a summer". After Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines in 1991, a small cooling effect was seen in the global climate for a few years. Longer-term links between volcano eruptions and climate are more disputed. Now let’s turn to vulnerability.

Earthquake vulnerability and climate change vulnerability have some links. Climate change affects livelihoods and can cause local environmental knowledge to become outdated. That can contribute to decisions to move elsewhere. Yet migration decisions are infrequently only due to climate change. They usually involve many other factors, including economic conditions and livelihood possibilities, even if a specific climate-related disaster triggers a specific decision to migrate.

But if climate-influenced migrants, with limited resources and options, settle in a zone of higher earthquake activity or one with worse preparation for earthquakes, then their earthquake vulnerability could potentially increase. Many factors are involved, so the connection is tenuous. Settling in a new area with better plans for earthquake damage mitigation could actually reduce earthquake vulnerability, for instance.

In terms of earthquake vulnerability affecting climate change vulnerability, people who have been affected by an earthquake are often highly vulnerability to climate-related problems, including more extreme storms. Soon after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, devastating storms took a toll on earthquake survivors, many of whom continued to huddle in tents and other inadequate shelter. It is difficult to link any specific weather event to climate change.

And even without climate change, immense climate-related and earthquake-related vulnerability would still exist in Haiti and around the world. Overall, climate change tends to be a minor component of the disaster-related vulnerabilities that have existed for centuries. These vulnerabilities lead to the tragedies that make headlines. Our challenge is to reduce overall vulnerability, which will also contribute to dealing with climate change. Japan is a good example.

The city of Kobe was devastated by an earthquake in 1995. The deaths and damage were terrible in part because of building codes written mainly with an eye toward protecting structure from typhoons. Earthquakes were considered to be a secondary threat. Rather than trying to blame climate change for destruction from disasters around the world, it is time to look more closely at human decisions that create and perpetuate vulnerability over the long-term. Irrespective of climate change, we know how to reduce the number of people dying in earthquakes.