July 11-12, 2010


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

Lihue, Kauai –  85
Honolulu, Oahu –  86
Kaneohe, Oahu –  85
Kaunakakai, Molokai – 84
Kahului, Maui – 88
Hilo, Hawaii –   82
Kailua-kona –   82

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

Barking Sands, Kauai – 86
Hilo, Hawaii – 74

Haleakala Crater –    55 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 48 (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 Sunday afternoon: 

0.23 Mount Waialeale, Kauai  
0.09 Luluku, Oahu
0.02 Molokai 
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.43 Puu Kukui, Maui
0.51 Kawainui Stream, Big Island

Marine Winds – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a 1033 millibar high pressure cell to the north-northeast…which will keep moderately strong trade winds blowing…gradually becoming lighter.

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 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. Of course, as we know, our hurricane season won’t begin again until June 1st here in the central Pacific.

 Aloha Paragraphs

  http://www.kamanu.com/Images/boatpalm1.jpg
Sailing in Hawaiian waters
 

 

 

The trade winds are being supported by a high pressure system to the north-northeast Sunday night. The trade winds will begin to come down in strength Monday, and then more so Tuesday. This weather map shows the location of a moderately strong 1033 millibar high pressure system, the source of our local trade winds. This lighter variety of winds will be present between Monday and Wednesday. It looks like we’ll continue to see light trade winds, rather than no trade winds at all. This will shift us into a modified convective weather pattern.

These types of weather patterns aren’t typical for the summer season, as usually the trade winds blow in the moderately strong category during our summer season. We will move into a period of clear nights, and slightly cooler than normal early morning temperatures. The daytime heating, with light winds blowing, will allow moisture to travel up the slopes of the mountains, where it will condense into clouds especially on the leeward sides. The models have been telling us that there wouldn’t be very much moisture for these clouds to work with though, thus those afternoon cumulus clouds won’t provide much rainfall. 

As the trade winds rebound some after mid-week, whatever showers that are around then…will migrate back over to the windward sides of the islands. Here’s a IR satellite image, showing quite a bit of cloudiness. For a wider view of the central and eastern Pacific, we can check out this satellite picture, showing just the usual thunderstorm cells far to our south and southeast…in the deep tropics. Some high cirrus cloudiness is being whisked from the tops of those thunderstorms, although none is taking aim on our islands at the moment. This looping radar image shows just a few showers passing through the islands Sunday night…at least at the time of this writing.

It’s Sunday evening as I begin writing this last section of today’s narrative update.  As noted above, our winds will continue, and then relax for a few days. Rainfall will be off and on, falling here and there…mostly during the nights and early mornings, along the windward sides tonight. Then, staring later Monday or Tuesday, some showers will break out over the interior slopes during the afternoons locally too. All things considered, conditions should be pretty nice though, with no organized rainmakers heading our way at the moment.

~~~ Friday evening after work I went to see a new film, called The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010), starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner…among others. These young folks return for their third installment of the blockbuster supernatural romance saga. This film is quite a big deal, especially for the younger set, and I was perhaps the oldest person in the theatre! That didn’t stop me from enjoying the film however, as who can’t relate to romance, and of course there was lots of special effects. This was essentially a fight between lots of vampires, and then there were these huge werewolves too. The main love interest was between Kristen, who is a human, and Robert, who is a vampire…and Taylor, who is a big werewolf. They are both jealous of each other, but want to keep Kristen alive, so join forces in order to have that happen. I know that sounds a bit weird, but hey whatever, as the current saying goes now. Here’s the trailer, just in case you happen to be curious about all this strangeness.

~~~ This evening it’s partly cloudy in general, although quite dry in most areas. We’ll still see some showers arriving along our windward sides tonight, although less so over the next several nights, until Wednesday or so, when the showers that begin concentrating over the leeward sides during the afternoon hours. As the trade winds pick up again around mid-week…those showers will begin to come back over to the windward sides then. The weather will begin to feel somewhat muggy during the days, especially right down near the coasts. ~~~ I stayed home all day today, never got anywhere near starting my car, which I need on at least one of the weekend days. Monday will start off the new work week, so that I’ll be doing quite a bit of driving soon enough. Today I did quite a bit of work around my place, which was good, as I had plenty of energy to do these chores. I made a big pot of organic soup this morning, which I’ll eat for dinner tonight through Thursday night. I have some good crackers, and some organic Colby cheese to have with this soup. I’ll catch up with you again early Monday morning, when I’ll have your next new weather narrative ready for your perusal. I hope you have a great Sunday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting: California’s San Andreas fault is notorious for repeatedly generating major earthquakes and for being on the brink of producing the next "big one" in a heavily populated area. But the famously violent fault also has quieter sections, where rocks easily slide against each other without giving rise to damaging quakes.

The relatively smooth movement, called creep, happens because the fault creates its own lubricants — slippery clays that form ultra-thin coatings on rock fragments, geologist Ben van der Pluijm and colleagues at the University of Michigan and Germany’s Ernst-Moritz-Arndt Universität Institut für Geographie und Geologie report in the July issue of Geology.

The question of why some fault zones creep slowly and steadily while others lock for a time and then shift suddenly and violently, spawning earthquakes, has long puzzled scientists. Some have speculated that fluids facilitate slippage, while others have focused on serpentine — a greenish material that can alter to slippery talc.

But when van der Pluijm and colleagues analyzed samples of rock from an actively creeping segment that was brought up from a depth of two miles below the surface as part of the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth (SAFOD) project, they found very little talc. Instead, they found that fractured rock surfaces were coated with a thin layer of smectitic clay, less than 100 nanometers thick, that acts something like grease on ball bearings.

"For a long time, people thought you needed a lot of lubricant for creep to occur," said van der Pluijm, who is the Bruce R. Clark Collegiate Professor of Geology and Professor of the Environment. "What we can show is that you don’t really need a lot; it just needs to be in the right place. It’s a bit like real estate: location, location, location."

The nanocoatings occur on the interfaces of broken-up bits of rock in exactly the places where they affect the fault’s "weakness" — how easily it moves. The technique of argon dating provided key evidence, when the researchers determined that these clays, found only in fault rock, formed relatively recently. "The clays are growing in the fault zone, and the fault is coating its own pieces of fragmented rock," van der Pluijm said.

"At some point there’s enough coating that it begins to drive the behavior of the fault, and creeping kicks in." If the fault is greasing itself, then why do earthquakes still occur? "The problem is that the fault doesn’t always move at strands where the coating sits," van der Pluijm said. The San Andreas fault is actually a network of faults, with new strands being added all the time.

Because it takes some time for the slick nanocoatings to develop in a new strand, the unlubricated, new strand "gets stuck" for a time and then shifts in a violent spasm. Although the samples obtained through SAFOD are from a depth of only about two miles, van der Pluijm and colleagues think it’s likely the clay nanocoatings also are forming and driving fault behavior at greater depths.

What’s more, analyses of older, inactive strands suggest that the coatings have been facilitating creep for the millions of years of fault activity. The SAFOD project, which is establishing the world’s first underground earthquake observatory, is a major research component of EarthScope, an ambitious, $197-million federal program to investigate the forces that shaped the North American continent and the processes controlling earthquakes, volcanoes and other geological activity.

Interesting2: A provocative new study suggests that mice raised in spacious cages with lots of toys and companions are more resistant to cancer than mice living in standard cages. The work, which finds that exercise alone doesn’t explain the anticancer effect, is drawing both excitement and skepticism.

The study builds on research dating back to the 1960s, which has found that raising mice in an "enriched environment" spurs neural growth and learning. Recent research even suggests that a stimulating cage environment late in life can help restore memory in animals with neurodegenerative disease.

Neuroscientists Matthew During and Lei Cao, both of Ohio State University and Cornell University, wondered whether these profound effects on the brain could influence how the body responds to cancer.

During’s team studied the course of cancer in two sets of young male mice—groups of five animals housed in a standard cage (roughly the size of a bread box) with food but nothing else, and groups of 18 to 20 mice raised in a bigger cage (about the size of a portable crib) with food, toys, a maze, running wheels, and places to hide. After the mice spent 3 to 6 weeks in their cages, the researchers injected them under the skin with melanoma cancer cells and waited for tumors to develop.

The results were a surprise, During says. Mice that spent 3 weeks in the enriched cage developed tumors that were 43% smaller in volume than those raised in normal cages. The difference in tumor mass was 77% when the mice spent 6 weeks in the special cages. And unlike mice raised in standard cages, a few of those in the enriched cages developed no tumors at all. The researchers saw similar results for two types of mice prone to colon cancer.

Exercise alone didn’t explain the effect. Mice raised in a typical cage connected to a running wheel developed tumors just as massive as those that did no cardio.

The anticancer effects seem related to metabolic changes, During says. Mice raised in the enriched environment had much lower blood levels of leptin, a hormone linked to obesity and cancer; they also had higher levels of corticosterone, a stress hormone. In addition, the hypothalamuses of the enhanced cage mice had higher levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a growth factor that the researchers suggest sends signals to fat cells to produce less leptin. When the team turned BDNF off or ramped it up in the brains of the mice, they saw corresponding changes in leptin levels and in tumor size, they report in tomorrow’s issue of Cell.

Interesting3: No polar bears have been more closely studied than Canada’s western Hudson Bay population. In recent decades, biologists such as Andrew E. Derocher of the University of Alberta have compiled an impressive store of data on everything from the weight of females at denning, to the body mass of bears of all sexes, to the length of time the bears spend annually on the shores of Hudson Bay, to the decline of sea ice in the bay itself.

Now, Derocher, working with Peter K. Molnar and other colleagues from the University of Alberta, has marshaled that data to forecast how long it will be before western Hudson Bay’s polar bears disappear. The calculation is not overly complex, since the health of polar bears is directly tied to the amount of time they spend on sea ice hunting seals.

The basic facts are as follows: The region’s polar bears have been forced to spend an extra week per decade onshore; the bears have been losing, on average, more than 20 pounds per decade; the body mass of the bears has been steadily declining; females have lost 10 percent of their body length; and the population has dropped from 1,200 to 900 in three decades, with much of the decline coming in the last 10 years.

Looking at projected sea ice declines, Derocher and his colleagues estimated in a recent paper in Biological Conservation that western Hudson Bay’s polar bear population could well die out in 25 to 30 years. Indeed, in an interview with Yale Environment 360 senior editor Fen Montaigne, Derocher said that the population — one of 19 in the Arctic — could be gone within a decade.

All it would take is several straight years of low sea ice conditions — such as the current year — which could force the bears onshore for more than five months a year, leading to a sharp decline in the bears’ physical condition and the inability of females to gestate cubs. "One of the things we found was that the changes in this population could happen very dramatically," says Derocher. "And a lot of the change could come within a single year if you just ended up with an earlier melt of sea ice."

Yale Environment 360: You predict that the western Hudson Bay polar bear population, which is one of the most southerly, could reach a point within three decades where there are too few animals to sustain a breeding population. Could you summarize for our readers how you reached that conclusion?

Andrew Derocher: Sure. If you look at polar bears in the global context we’ve actually got 19 different subpopulations. Now, they’re reasonably distinct, but the interesting thing about the western Hudson Bay population is that it’s actually one of the most accessible and it’s certainly by far the most studied population that we have. So that’s one of the reasons that we’re focusing our attention on the western Hudson Bay population.

But more importantly, we have a lot of the background information on the workings of this population. So we understand very well things like how fat a bear has to be to produce a certain number of cubs, we know a lot about how much energy these bears are burning during the period of time over the summer that they’re forced ashore when the sea ice melts.

We also have a very good understanding of how the sea ice has changed in this part of the world. So really, what this is is kind of a model system that’s giving us some early indications about what one of the more southern populations is doing relative to the issue of climate change.