Hawaii Travel

Archive for June, 2009

New sea level science suggests the oceans will rise faster this century than previous predictions have suggested.

The suggested rise puts most beach parks under water, along with coastal roads, and, of course, Waikiki.

(Image: An Hawaiian coastline.)

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggested oceans could rise a couple of feet, give or take, by 2100. But that estimate entirely excluded the impact of two immense reservoirs of frozen water—Greenland and Antarctica.

It left them out because the science of determining how they might melt and impact ocean levels was not clear.

Science is now slowly gaining clarity, and for coastal places like Hawai’i, things don’t look good.

A recent study by scientists from the University of Alaska Fairbanks found that the Greenland ice sheet is contributing a quarter of all sea level rise over the past 13 years, and that sea levels are rising 50 percent faster than the average of the last century. This scientific paper by Sebastian H. Mernild, Glen E. Liston, Christopher A. Hiemstra, Konrad Steffen, Edward Hanna, and Jens H. Christensen, in the journal Hydrological Processes, is entitled “Greenland Ice Sheet surface mass-balance modelling and freshwater flux for 2007, and in a 1995-2007 perspective.”

Researchers are predicting that the East Coast of the United States could face by 2100 sea level rise of six feet. Presumably Hawai’i will have levels somewhere close to that. But how to respond?

“Recognition of the need for an adaptive approach necessarily counsels governments to implement initial adaptation measures that will be beneficial to coastal communities regardless of how far the oceans encroach and how fast they do so,” wrote Florida State’s Robin Kundis Craig in a paper in the Widener Law Review. The abstract is available here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1119563#.

Craig said coastal areas need special planning approaches.

There are two problems, Craig says. One, we don’t have planning systems capable of responding to a crisis that builds over multiple decades and centuries. And two, the science may tell us it’s coming, but it can’t yet be clear about how high the sea will rise when.

If planners can’t bring themselves to actually do land use planning in response to the threat, at least they could do some public health planning, she argues.

“Taking a public health approach to sea-level rise can provide governments and planners with immediately implementable and no regrets adaptation measures that will be beneficial to coastal communities regardless of the eventual actual impacts of sea-level rise in particular areas of the country,” Craig wrote.

She cites three examples: to ensure drinking water supplies will be protected in a rising sea level environment; protecting medical infrastructure to address disease exposure problems; the potential that ocean water will be contaminated by toxic materials from the nearshore land.

A Hawai’i example is University of Hawai’i coastal geologist Chip Fletcher’s assertion that during high tides in a high sea level environment, coastal sewer lines could be compromised.

It’s just another caution.

© Jan TenBruggencate 2009

Go to Source

The eye-popping bright colors and high winds make Hawaii a paragliding paradise. Witness this footage shot in 2008 over Koko Crater (in Honolulu near Waikiki) on Oahu. It’s enough to make you up your deductible. Gravity Hawaii has the paragliding goods on this on Oahu. Call them up, strap

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Go to Source

Wish she would post more often. Monthly is not enough as the reviews are better than most and often off-beat. Check out this piece on the nouveau Indian cuisine of the Halekulani Hotel’s Vikram Garg.

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Go to Source

Hawai’i's population of bufos is in big trouble, and that unfortunately is good for termites.

This is purely an anecdotal observation, but there’s lots of anecdotal data.

(Image: The death of this particular bufo is no mystery. It was run over by a car.)

For some years, longtime Hawai’i residents have commented there seem to be fewer dead bufos on the road. And that you see fewer bufos sitting out on the road on rainy nights.

My own unscientific addition to this body of evidence derives from the annual termite swarms of early summer. On calm, hot nights of late May and early June, termite alates swarm out of their colonies before sunset, and go looking for new sources of cellulose on which to gorge. They do it, probably, by the tens of tens of millions.

They are attracted to lights. That means you’ll see a living halo of flying insects around every street light. And if your lights are on in the house, they’ll soon be inside, dropping their wings and slipping behind molding and into furniture, looking for the right environmental conditions to launch new colonies.

Like many Hawai’i residents, I’ll reduce house lights to a minimum and fire up a lantern and set it out in the yard. The termites soon swarm to the lantern light.

And this attracts bufos, which proceed to gorge on termites. Sometimes they fill up so completely they can barely hop.

Several years ago, I counted 17 bufos one night, circling the lantern, all of them feasting.

Last week, one night when the termites swarmed, only three bufos appeared. Last night, just one bufo.

What this means in the larger picture, I don’t know. But around here, clearly there are fewer bufos this year than just a few years ago. Lots fewer.

Bufo marinus, the giant neotropical toad or cane toad, was brought to Hawai’i to control insects, and it does. It is an invasive critter, and in some parts of the world (Australia, for instance) it is a real problem because it primarily eats native creatures. Here, it’s mainly eating aliens.

The bufo will eat rats, mice, cockroaches, termites and ultimately, almost “any terrestrial animal” it can fit down its gullet, according to the Global Invasive Species Database (http://www.issg.org/database/species/ecology.asp?fr=1&si=113.)

It’s best not to handle the bufos, or to let your dog or kids play with them, as they exude a powerful toxin through their skin. (My dog Socrates died in convulsions after chewing on a bufo.)

But it appears to be suffering from the mysterious decline that is affecting frogs and toads globally—all of them, except the coqui frog in Hawai’i, it seems.

In Australia, an epidemic disease has been identified as a culprit killing rain forest frogs of multiple species. But in most cases, the causes are not clearly understood. Amphibians are being lost around the world, with more than 100 species extinct in recent decades (http://amphibiaweb.org/declines/declines.html.)

Among the suspects in the decline are habitat loss, an unpronounceable fungal disease called chytridiomycosis, climate change, chemicals, and ultraviolet radiation from the sun.

In many cases, frogs and toads are being found with bizarre deformities. Extra legs. Extra eyes.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is looking into the possibility that it might be some kind of contaminant (http://www.fws.gov/contaminants/Issues/Amphibians.cfm.)

I’m not aware that anyone has identified a factor in the Hawai’i bufo decline, but it seems clear there are fewer of them.

Which is good, unfortunately, for termites.

© Jan TenBruggencate 2009

Go to Source

holy julia fullerton-batten! you go girl.

oh ya, my blog. i can’t keep up aaaaaaa. too much work this week but i’ll be back soon. got some good stuff for you if i can just sit down for a few hours and get it up. soooon.
Go to Source

I’ve been on the Pua Po’o Tube Hike in HAVO several times and just love the peace and fragility of these places. There are many paid tours but none are as good as the ranger-guided tours at the park, which are free (if you pay park admission of like

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Go to Source

Fyndhawaii.com is something we contemplated for a while. At first I was doing this as a Hawaii-centric search engine but had troubled tuning it the way I wanted. Then along came Twitter. I wanted to figure out a way to create a real-time stream of deals / things to

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Go to Source

Trouble is coming.

Or, at least, in the careful terminology of government agencies, there is a slightly increased chance of unusual storm activity and low rainfall as the result a shift in the cyclical El Niño Southern Oscillation pattern.

We haven’t had a strong El Niño event since 1998, when 13 named storms and nine full hurricanes launched themselves in the Eastern Pacific. Only three named storms were in the Central Pacific that year, and only one of those a hurricane. It was a low year.

But that’s not the standard. The standard is more hurricanes than normal in El Niño years, when waters south of Hawai’i and east toward Central America are warmer than normal. Warm water feeds tropical cyclones. (Here’s a nice primer on what’s involved in an El Niño: http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7z.html.)

Since 1998, the Pacific has had a succession of La Nina (cooler than normal waters) and weak El Niño events. Storm activity for us in Hawai’i has been below normal for a decade now.

Let’s do the math.

1999: Nine named storms in the Pacific, a low number. Hurricane Dora slipped by south of Hawai’i.

2000: Twenty-one named storms, but few significant ones. Tropical storm Upana went past well to the south and Hurricane Daniel cruised by, skirting the Islands to the north as it weakened.

2001: Nineteen named storms, almost all of them remaining in the eastern Pacific. Narda came in our direction but died hundreds of miles away. Tropical Depression 2C made a brief appearance far to our south.

2002: Nineteen named storms again. Tropical Storm Alika passed south but didn’t pose a significant threat. Hurricane Ele formed south of us, drove west to the International Date Line, and then skittered north, well out of Hawaiian waters. Late in the season, Huko followed a vaguely similar pattern.

2003: Seventeen named storms, none threatening Hawai’i. One tropical depression formed briefly far south. A couple of storms slipped into the Central Pacific from the east but quickly dissipated.

2004: Seventeen named storms, none posed a risk to the Islands.

2005: Seventeen again, with only Kenneth threatening the islands—and only as a dissipating system.

2006: Nineteen named storms. Hawai’i was never at risk, but powerful Ioke pounded Johnston Atoll and then went on to flood and severely damage facilities on Wake Island. Daniel looked like it might cause trouble, but didn’t. And Fabio brought some rain.

2007: Only 15 named storms in 2007. Cosme passed south. Flossie barely skirted South Point, but then weakened and turned southwest.

2008: Nineteen named storms. A July hurricane named Elida was briefly forecast to reach Hawai’i, but never did. A month later, Genevieve slithered in from the east, but had little more than rain showers when it finally reached the Islands.

So, a decade of largely quiet hurricane seasons for the Islands.

Why believe things might change? They might not, but after two years of La Nina conditions, we’re entering another El Niño. The folks at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center on Thursday announced that there’s a better than even chance that we’re moving into it this summer.

Here’s how they put it: “Conditions are favorable for a transition from ENSO-neutral to El Niño conditions during June − August 2009.”

These climate folks have an array of tools for prediction. They caution that some of their tools say it may simply be a neutral year—neither El Niño nor La Nina. But a pile of tools, which they call their “dynamical models” are leaning strongly toward El Niño. Read their summary at http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.pdf.

In an average year, we get three or four named storms in the Central Pacific. (Named storms are simply the term for tropical systems strong enough to be given a name.)

In an El Niño year, there’s on average about one more named storm, but shoot, that’s nearly a 30 percent increase.

So, there could be trouble. Probably not. But it pays to check the front of your phone book and be sure you have your hurricane kit up to date, and you know what you’re going to do if the wind blows heavy.

© Jan TenBruggencate 2009

Go to Source

it seemed like only a few months ago that daniel said to me “christa, i think i want to try to get the old mall cafe license” … wait, that’s because it was.
jesus, talk about a major transformation in pretty much no time at all. not sure how many of you have walked by, but [...]
Go to Source

Among the primary concerns about wind energy: the appearance of giant towers with massive spinning blades; and the risk that those blades kill birds and bats.

Traditional spinning rotor windmills work. They’re well understood. Big companies use them to produce utility-scale power, and sailboat owners use them to charge their batteries. But they’re hardly the only players in the wind space.

(Images, top to bottom:

Cleanfield Energy Turbine http://www.cleanfieldenergy.com/;

Quiet Revolution eggbeater design http://www.quietrevolution.co.uk/;

A Windspire turbine http://www.windspire.info/;

Helix Wind’s curved shape http://www.helixwind.com;

Windation’s rooftop box http://www.windation.com/;

Leviathan’s Wind Lotus http://www.leviathanenergyinc.com/wind-lotus.html)

In part because of the bird strike concerns, a great deal of research is going into alternative wind generators that don’t have really high speed propellor tips.

A traditional windmill has what’s called a horizontal axis—meaning the shaft that is spun by the props lies parallel to the ground. An alternative is a vertical axis unit, in which the spinning shaft sticks up in the air like a flagpole.

And there are absolutely dozens of these vertical axis designs: ones that

look like egg beaters, ones that look like a geneticist’s double helix, ones that look like oil barrels with the sides ripped open.

The American Wind Energy Association (http://www.awea.org/faq/vawt.html) says there are two basic kinds—lift-based and drag-based.

The little wind-speed devices with three spinning cups are drag-based. The cups never move faster than the wind speed, and generally move slower. The old Savonius Rotor system is another drag-based unit. These generally don’t work real well to generate electricity.

There are lots of lift-based designs. They look, as mentioned above, like egg beaters. They can have vertical blades spinning around a vertical shaft. And there are those intriguing helix designs.

Many of them are unlikely to cause bird strikes, largely because they appear from a distance like a solid object.

The longer our energy crisis goes on, the more options present themselves.

If there are companies out there with different designs, send up an image and some background and we’ll be pleased to post it. The email is hawaiiwriter@gmail.com.

© Jan TenBruggencate 2009

Go to Source