April 29-30, 2009
Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Wednesday afternoon:
Port Allen, Kauai – 79
Honolulu, Oahu – 78
Kaneohe, Oahu – 76
Kahului, Maui – 78
Hilo, Hawaii – 73
Kailua-kona – 80
Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountains…at 4 p.m. Wednesday afternoon:
Port Allen, Kauai – 81F
Hilo, Hawaii – 72
Haleakala Crater – 57 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 41 (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 Wednesday afternoon:
0.03 Moloaa Dairy, Kauai
0.06 Poamoho, Oahu
0.00 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.02 Kahakuloa, Maui
0.31 Kapapala Ranch, Big Island
Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map shows continued northeast breezes, gradually turning more easterly by Friday.
Satellite and Radar Images: To view the cloud conditions we have here in Hawaii, please use the following satellite links, starting off with the 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.
Aloha Paragraphs
Hawaiian Honeycreeper, Apapane…Polipoli, Maui
Photo Credit: Ron Lutz II
The slightly cool north to northeast breezes, at least for this late in the spring season…will stick around through the beginning of this dry period, along with warming air temperatures over the next couple of days. Winds from the northerly direction can get a bit gusty in places. It doesn’t look like the winds will be much of an issue this week however, remaining on the light side in general. The NE breezes will give way to very light southeast breezes as we move into the weekend. This will bring us sultry conditions, and a good chance of hazy skies returning. It wouldn’t be totally out of the question for a light shower to pop up, but that shouldn’t be anything to worry about.
It’s early Wednesday evening as I begin writing this last section of today’s weather narrative.
As noted above
, the computer models have done some shifting around since this morning’s narrative. They have done away withe the trade winds this weekend, now suggesting that we’ll see southeast winds instead. If this happens, we would see muggy conditions, along with dry weather prevailing…along with some volcanic haze too. We could see another change before the weekend arrives, but it looks very likely that we’ll see very few showers no matter which way they may turn now. ~~~ I’ll be back early Thursday morning with the latest word on just what those models are saying then. Looking out the window here in Kihei, before I take the drive back upcountry, it looks partly cloudy out there, as it often does this time of day. I hope you have a great Wednesday night, and that you can meet me back here again on Thursday. Aloha for now…Glenn.
Interesting: Sixty percent of Americans live in areas with unhealthy air pollution levels, despite a growing green movement and more stringent laws aimed at improving air quality, the American Lung Association said in a report released Wednesday, that also listed the healthiest and unhealthiest cities across the U.S. in terms of air quality. The public-health group ranked the pollution levels of U.S. cities and counties based on air quality measurements that state and local agencies reported to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency between 2005 and 2007.
Overall, the report found that air pollution at times reaches unhealthy levels in almost every major city and that 186.1 million people live in those areas. The number is much higher than last year’s figure of about 125 million people because recent changes to the federal ozone standard mean more counties recognize unhealthy levels of pollution.
Interesting2: A wide range of challenges are facing people in the Arctic regions as the climate warms up twice as fast as the global average. People in some communities in Northern Norway see wind patterns changing and fish moving towards the North. People in Tuktoyaktuk in Northern Canada, who have seen their coastlines eroding for a long time, may see erosion happen faster due to warming temperatures and stronger storms.
The International Polar Year research project «Community Adaptation and Vulnerability in the Arctic Regions» (CAVIAR) aims to compare case studies across all eight Arctic countries and expand knowledge about adaptation and vulnerability to climatic and other changes. “What makes this project unique is that it involves local stakeholders from the start and throughout the research project.
They are defining the research”, says project leader Grete K. Hovelsrud, a senior research fellow at CICERO Center for Climate and Environmental Research – Oslo. As an anthropologist, she and her colleagues present the project for communities, and if they are interested in joining, a dialogue between the researchers and the stakeholders begins.
“They tell us what the most important questions are in their communities, whether they are societal, political or environmental”, Hovelsrud explains. When the research questions are defined, other relevant scientific experts are contacted for the most recent results. In addition, downscaled climate scenarios are prepared for the localities.
“For example, if local stakeholders define precipitation patterns and temperature as important for their livelihoods, we bring them downscaled scenarios. Together we discuss which challenges these scenarios may bring and how these may be met”. Recently Norwegian and Candadian researchers traveled in the north of Norway to exchange knowledge and to meet some of the local stakeholders taking part in the project.
Mark Andrachuk, a resarcher from University of Guelph, says: “There is a tendency for researchers in the Canadian Arctic just to take information and not bring the research back to the community. One of the most important parts of this project is to bring the research results back to the community. Once communities have this information it makes them more able to make decisions in light of future risks”.
Interesting3: Protecting the earth’s nearly four billion hectares of remaining forests and replanting those already lost are both essential for restoring the earth’s health, an important foundation for the new economy. Reducing rainfall runoff and the associated flooding and soil erosion, recycling rainfall inland, and restoring aquifer recharge depend on simultaneously reducing pressure on forests and on reforestation There is a vast unrealized potential in all countries to lessen the demands that are shrinking the earth’s forest cover.
In industrial nations the greatest opportunity lies in reducing the quantity of wood used to make paper, and in developing countries it depends on reducing fuel wood use. The rates of paper recycling in the top 10 paper-producing countries range widely, from China and Finland on the low end, recycling 33 and 38 per cent of the paper they use, to South Korea and Germany on the high end, at 77 and 66 per cent. The United States, the world’s largest paper consumer, is far behind South Korea, but it has raised the share of paper recycled from roughly one fourth in the early 1980s to 50 per cent in 2005.
Interesting4: In 2008, a recycler in Tulsa, Okla. paid 85 cents per pound for aluminum cans, but the going rate for 2009 has dropped to less than half of that amount. According to Michael Patton, executive director of the Metropolitan Environmental Trust in Tulsa, the decrease is directly related to the economic recession. Patton says the "bottom has fallen out of the scrap metal industry."
The demand for metal has disappeared due to the decrease in construction, a drastic change from the metal scarcity in Tulsa just two years ago. "This is related to the economy and demand issues in the home construction industry.
An amazing amount of aluminum, steel and copper is used in home and commercial building construction," Patton tells Tulsa World. "But this construction isn’t happening in America." Over the past five months, the prices for aluminum have fluctuated.
In December, January and February, the price dropped to 15 cents per pound and is now steadying itself at approximately 25 cent per pound. But Patton says this price "rollercoaster" is not necessarily a bad thing.
It helps expand the use of material because entrepreneurs will have to think of news ways to use aluminum cans. On average, a recycled aluminum can is converted back into a usable beverage can in 60 days.
Interesting5: Fossilized corals from tropical Tahiti show that the behavior of ice sheets is much more volatile and dynamic than previously thought, a team led by Oxford University scientists has found. Analysis of the corals suggests that ice sheets can change rapidly over just hundreds of years – events associated with sea level rises of several meters over the same period.
It also shows that a natural warming mechanism thought to be responsible for ending ice ages does not fit the timing of the end of the penultimate ice age, around 137,000 years ago. A report of the research appears online in the journal Science on April 23.
"It’s amazing just how rapidly these ‘melting’ – or ‘deglaciation’ – events occurred and how enormous the volumes of ice involved were," said Dr Alex Thomas, from the Department of Earth Sciences at Oxford University, lead author of the paper.
"In the case of deglaciation after the penultimate ice age, before 137,000 years ago, we’re talking about ice sheets – that covered most of the USA and Canada and were up to five kilometers thick – simply vanishing." The tropical paradise of Tahiti is an ideal place to study the sea level rises associated with deglaciation.
This is because not only is it home to different species of corals that like to live at different depths but it is sinking at a constant rate which can be adjusted for when dating these corals, and it is far enough away from the ice sheets not to be affected by displacement or gravitational effects.
"Getting to these ancient fossilized corals without damaging the reef and local ocean life is far from easy," said Dr Thomas. "A robot submersible was sent to survey the ocean floor and placed a target which was used to guide down a drill from a shallow-draft drilling vessel with great precision and extract our cores.
We only left a tiny hole behind that soon disappeared – something that was only possible because of the expertise of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program." The fossilized coral within the cores showing sea level changes was then dated using a uranium dating technique.
The timing of these changes showed that a natural warming mechanism known as northern hemisphere summer insolation could not have caused the deglaciation that brought the penultimate ice age to an end.
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