SOEST in the News: 2013

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Oct 08: Applications now accepted for Mauna Loa space mission

The Hawai‘i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) research program is looking for volunteers to act as crew members for a new series of space exploration studies scheduled to take place in an isolated research dome on Mauna Loa. The studies will test whether group cohesion over the short term predicts team performance over the long term. They will also examine how technical, social and task roles evolve over long-duration missions and establish base lines for a variety of cognitive, social and emotions factors over missions of different durations. Missions will range from four months to 12 months; the deadline to apply is 01 November 2013.

Read more about it in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Big Island Now, Hawaii Reporter, and Hawaii News Now. Image courtesy of A. Vermeulen / HI-SEAS.

Oct 01: Fifth IPCC Climate Assessment Report at UH

Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis of the Fifth IPCC Climate Assessment Report was released on Friday 30 September in Stockholm, Sweden. Axel Timmermann, professor of Oceanography and International Pacific Research Center (IPRC) researcher, and Mark Merrifield, professor of Oceanography and director of the UH Sea Level Center (UHSLC), presented the report's summary findings to a packed audience at the Daniel K. Inouye Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education (C-MORE) Hale. David Karl, professor of Oceanography and director of C-MORE, hosted and moderated the special event and provided background information on the report.

Read about in and watch the videos at KHON2 and Hawaii News Now; read more about it in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser (subscription required). You can also download PDFs of Timmermann’s and Merrifield’s presentations. Watch the HD video of the briefing here. Image courtesy SOEST; click on it to see the video.

Sep 30: TGIF SOEST mini-grant applications

Our profits from this year have allowed us the opportunity to offer mini-grants of up to $1000 that can provide financial assistance to schools which would otherwise not be able to access items or services that can give students a better appreciation of earth and ocean science. TGIF mini grants will fund hands on, interactive projects, scientific equipment, and educator workshops.

The deadline for the next grant application is 05 January 2014. Click here for more information.

Sep 27: UH Mānoa briefing on new IPCC climate report

Monday 30 September 30 • 10–11am
Daniel K. Inouye Center for Microbial Oceanography(C-MORE Hale) Conference Room

On Monday 30 September the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is releasing the first part of its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) evaluating the evidence for climate change and its cause. SOEST researchers Axel Timmermann and Mark Merrifield are among the lead authors of the AR5 Working Group I Report, which deals with the physical science basis of climate change. They will discuss their work on the AR5 report and the report's findings. Learn more about it here

Sep 27: PacIOOS website offers real-time surf report

Hawaii Business writer Catherine E. Toth describes how she uses the Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System (PacIOOS)’s “interactive and informative website that gives me all the real-time information I need” to plan an active day. “A lot of the data is very technical, but much of the site is useful for anyone who uses the ocean, from anglers scouting out fishing grounds to folks whose homes get inundated by high tides,” she notes. “PacIOOS users are extremely diverse,” says Melissa Iwamoto, PacIOOS outreach and program coordinator. “Basically, anyone who uses ocean information to inform their decision-making can benefit.”

Read more about it at Hawaii Business. Image courtesy of PacIOOS; click on it to visit www.pacioos.org.

Sep 24: “Path to Graduate School”

A new SOEST grad student blog article has been posted, continuing a theme in which we asked fellow students, “What was your path to graduate school?” Today’s article was written by Christine A. Waters from the Geology & Geophysics Department.

Sep 24: Award examines volcanic crises in the USA

SOEST has been awarded one of the first grants in a new large-scale research direction by the US National Science Foundation (NSF). The grant is one of several made this month seeking to mitigate disasters by creating broad, interdisciplinary, multi-institutional teams. Starting this month, Bruce Houghton, the Gordon Macdonald Professor of Volcanology in G&G, and a team of researchers will start work on an innovative project to improve our “working relationship” with potentially dangerous active volcanoes in the US. He is joined by Peter Mouginis-Mark, the outgoing Director of HIGP, and Karl Kim, Executive Director of the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center (NDPTC). This study will include team members from seven other institutions, led by UH Mānoa.

Read more about it in UH System News. Image courtesy of USGS.

Sep 20: Pilot projects bury carbon dioxide in basalt

Researchers at the US Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Richland, WA, began injections of carbon dioxide into the porous Columbia River Basalt formation in July 2013 in an effort find a permanent home for the CO2 generated by human activities. A single formation off the US west coast, with an estimated storage volume of 685 cubic kilometers, has the potential to hold all the CO2 emissions the US produces in a century. But none of this will be cheap, says Kevin Johnson, a geochemist in G&G who has worked on lab experiments with one of the teams. “It’s a question of social importance — and whether the climate situation gets dire enough to justify the cost.”

Read about in at Nature News. Image courtesy Kevin Schafer/Corbis.

Sep 19: Sea-level rise online available for Hawai‘i, Guam, CNMI

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in partnership with UH Sea Grant, has released a web-mapping tool aimed at visualizing potential impacts from sea-level rise in Hawai‘i, Guam, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI). The new Sea Level Rise and Coastal Flooding Impacts Viewer as a simple and easy to use but powerful resource for planners, public officials, coastal managers, and communities engaged in climate adaptation planning and coastal inundation preparedness. “With the amount of detail and options it provides, the Sea Level Rise Viewer is at the cutting edge of planning tools,” said map development partner Chip Fletcher, SOEST’s associate dean for academic affairs.

Read more about it at in Hawaii News Now’s Metro Oahu News and the San Francisco Chronicle. Image courtesy of NOAA; click on it to visit the sea level rise viewer site.

Sep 19: “All Things Marine”

Listen to the recording of Carlie Wiener, COSEE-IE program manager, and her guests on the Wednesday 10 September broadcast of “All Things Marine” on Hawaii’s Tomorrow. The topic was Highlighting the University of Hawaii Sea Grant.

Sep 16: State counting on nature to flush molasses

In response to the recent spill of 233,000-gallons of molasses into Honolulu Harbor, the state said there is no known technology to extract molasses from ocean water. Marine biologists are counting on tide changes, which are only about two feet in the harbor, to remove the material. “Without that fluctuation of the tides we’re not getting any new oxygenated water in,” said Heather Kerkering, director of the Pacific Island Ocean Observing System (PacIOOS). Oceanography professor Brian Powell said that because the dense molasses sinks, it would be very difficult to disperse. Researchers also said that in addition to thousands of fish and other marine life, all of the coral beds directly below the spill site and the harbor’s west end had died.

Read more about it and watch the video at Hawaii News Now; read about it in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser (subscription required), National Geographic, and LiveScience (added 09-24-13). Image courtesy of Hawaii News Now; click on it to see the rest of the slide show.

Sep 16: “Hi-SEAS Simulated Mission to Mars”

On Hawai‘i Public Radio’s “Bytemarks Cafe” Burt Lum and Ryan Ozawa talk to Hawai‘i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) investigator Kim Binsted (ICSD, UHNAI, and G&G), crew member Angelo Vermeulen, and Brian Shiro as they reflect on the project after their four-month simulated “mission to Mars” on the slopes of Mauna Kea (starts at about 20:01).

Sep 13: “Tales of Rock & Sand — A Mineral Physics Journey From Hades to Heaven”

Przemyslaw Dera

Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics & Planetology (HIGP)
Tuesday 24 September • 7:30 pm
NASA Pacific Regional Planetary Data Center (PRPDC), POST 544, UH Mānoa

This FREE lecture is open to the public. For more information, please see the flyer PDF.

Sep 09: Pupping guides tiger sharks’ Hawai‘i movements

About quarter of the mature female tiger sharks residing in the waters around the remote coral atolls of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands migrate to waters around the Main Hawaiian Islands in late Summer and into Fall, swimming as far as 2,500 kilometers (1,500 miles), according to a seven-year study by University of Florida and the University of Hawai‘i. Carl Meyer and Kim Holland of HIMB are two of the co-authors of the report scheduled for publication in the November 2013 issue Ecology (preprint here). Meyer said there’s no conclusive evidence showing these sharks are responsible for a seasonal rise in shark bites.

Read about in and watch the video at KHON2; read more about it at Science Codex, Honolulu Star-Advertiser (subscription required), West Hawaii Today, The Garden Isle, Maui News, Honolulu Civil Beat, and UPI. Image courtesy of HIMB.

Sep 09: “From a pre-Veterinarian, to Animal Behaviorist, to Adoptions Counselor, to Biological Oceanographer…”

A new SOEST grad student blog article has been posted, continuing a theme in which we asked fellow students, “What was your path to graduate school?” Today’s article was written by Michelle Jungbluth from the Oceanography Department.

Sep 05: Undersea canyons nourish isles’ deep-water life

Submarine canyons play an important role in maintaining high levels of biodiversity of small invertebrates in the seafloor sediments of the main and northwestern Hawaiian Islands, according to research recently published in the Deep Sea Research Part II. “Canyons may be particularly important in the Hawaiian islands, in part because they supply organic matter to the typically food-limited deep sea,” said lead author Oceanography PhD student Fabio C. De Leo. De Leo and colleagues, including professor Craig Smith, the study’s principal investigator, conducted 34 dives into six canyons and their nearby slopes using HURL’s Pisces submersibles.

Read more about it at in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser (subscription required), Science Codex, and the UH System News. Image courtesy of HURL.

Sep 02: Similar effects on rain by greenhouse gases, aerosols

Although greenhouse gases (such as CO2) and aerosols (such as airborne dust, soot, and other pollutants) have very distinct properties, their effects on spatial patterns of rainfall change with global warming are surprisingly similar, according to new research by Shang-Ping Xie of the International Pacific Research Center (IPRC), dept of Meteorology, and Scripps Institution of Oceanography; Bo Lu of China’s National Climate Center; and Baoqiang Xiang, a postdoc at IPRC. As greenhouse gases increase they will overwhelm the influence of aerosols, according to the study published in an online issue of Nature Geoscience.

Read more about it in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser (subscription required), Science Daily, French Tribune, and Nature World News. Image courtesy of IPRC.

Sep 02: Sea-level rise drives shoreline retreat in Hawai‘i

Sea level rise is a primary factor in the changing size and shape of Hawai‘i’s shorelines, but Maui is losing beaches to erosion far faster than O‘ahu. Examining 100 years of data for both islands, researchers found global warming is causing sea level to rise and shorelines to recede. In the next 25–30 years, Hawai‘i shores could move inland 100 feet, endangering infrastructure and property. Authors of the paper in Global and Planetary Change are Bradley Romine [lead author, UH Sea Grant and the state Dept of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR)] and Charles Fletcher, Matt Barbee, Tiffany Anderson, and Neil Frazer (all G&G).

Read about in and watch the video at Hawaii News Now and KITV4; read more about it at Science Daily, Honolulu Star-Advertiser (subscription required), RedOrbit, and UH System News. Image courtesy of Z. Norcross-Nuu.

Aug 30: Bone-, but not wood-, eating marine worms in Antarctic

Two new species of red-plumed “bone-eating worms” of the genus Osedax have been found in Antarctic waters, according to research recently published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The findings are the results of several years work by an international collaboration of researchers, including Oceanography professor Craig Smith. The results of the team’s unusual experiments —  examining whale bones and planks of wood left on the sea floor for over a year — also showed that wood-eating cousins, the Xylophagainae molluscs, were nowhere to be found, leading the scientists to believe that the larvae of the wood-eaters are not present, or are extremely rare, in Antarctic waters.

Read more about it at in Science Now, Nature News, and National Geographic. Image courtesy of A. Glover; click on it to go to the full version.

Aug 28: Mercury absorbed in deep sea; levels expected to rise

Levels of the toxic mercury in Pacific Ocean fish will likely rise in coming decades, much of it coming thousands of miles from Asia, researchers say. Scientists at the University of Michigan and the University of Hawai‘i said that as much as 80% of the toxic form of mercury, called methylmercury, found in the tissues of deep-feeding North Pacific Ocean fish is produced deep in the ocean, most likely by bacteria clinging to sinking bits of organic matter. Geology & Geophysics professor Brian Popp, Oceanography professor Jeff Drazen, and Oceanography graduate student Anela Choy are co-authors of the recent paper in Nature Geoscience, and the related 2009 paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Read more about it in UPI, Discovery News, PhysOrg, US News and World Report, and Christian Science Monitor, LA TImes, Honolulu Star-Bulletin (subscription required), and UH Mānoa News; read more about it and see the video at CBS News. Image courtesy of C. Anela Choy; click on it to see the full image.

Aug 28: Reykjanes Ridge 2013 North Atlantic Reorganization cruise

An international team of scientists and crew are spending over a month at sea studying the southern end of the Reykjanes Ridge aboard the Research Vessel (R/V) Marcus G. Langseth.

You can follow along on the journey from Reykjavík, Iceland, to the field area near the Bight Fracture Zone on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and back to port.

Aug 26: New method of estimating fish movements underwater

Sound travels remarkably well under water, so scientists often use acoustic telemetry to estimate the location of fish tagged with acoustic transmitters. Martin W. Pedersen, an Oceanography postdoctoral fellow, and Kevin C. Weng, manager of the Pelagic Fisheries Research Program (PFRP) and Oceanography graduate faculty member, have proposed a new state-space model for analyzing fish movement data collected by marine observation networks. Their new model, published in Methods in Ecology and Evolution, attempts to quantify the uncertainty associated with this imperfect locating system, and to improve its accuracy.

Read about in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser (subscription required), Singularity Hub (added 09-19-13), UH Mānoa News, and Science Codex. Image courtesy K. Weng; click on it to see the full version.

Aug 21: Rash of attacks prompts study of Maui waters

A state-funded study to look at tiger shark movements around Maui is scheduled to begin next month in the wake of an alarming jump in shark attacks, including the fatal injury of a visitor from Germany. “We’ve seen an unprecedented spike,” said William Aila, Jr., director of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR). The study will examine tiger shark movements and behavior around Maui. Carl Meyer, a Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) assistant researcher and leader of the study, said tiger sharks can travel up to 100 miles in a day, don’t stay in one area very long, and can swim in very shallow waters.

Read more about it and watch the video at KHON2 and the Honolulu Star-Advertiser (subscription required), and read about it in the Washington Post and The Garden Isle. Image courtesy of HIMB.

Aug 20: Global warming is drying up monsoon over India

International Pacific Research Center (IPRC) senior researcher H. Annamalai is the lead author of a report published in the Journal of Climate reporting on the changing monsoon rainfall over India. Annamalai notes, “Various observations have shown that the Indian monsoon has weakened by around 5–6% over the past few decades. Also, there has been an increase in the instances of rainfall over the west Pacific ocean. In fact, India has not observed any strong rainfall activity (e.g. 10% above its climatological seasonal mean rainfall) since the monsoon of 1994.”

Read about in The India Express. Image courtesy of IPRC.

Aug 15: HI-SEAS mission to “Mars” comes to end

In a dome on the northern slope of Hawai‘i Island’s Mauna Loa volcano, six researchers from around the world have been simulating what it’s like to live on Mars; they emerged from the habitat on Tuesday 13 August for the first time in four months without the mock space suits their experiment required. The NASA-funded collaboration between UH Mānoa and Cornell is researching how to keep astronauts happily fed on long space missions. Hawai‘i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) investigator Kim Binsted (ICSD, UHNAI, and G&G) hopes to present findings at the International Astronautical Congress this year.

Read more about it and see the videos at NBC News, KITV4, KHON2, and UH System News; read more about it at Hawaii Tribune Herald, Astrobiology Magazine, UH Mānoa News, the Washington Post, and the Honolulu Star-Advertiser (subscription required). Image courtesy of A. Vermeulen; click on it to see the full version.

Aug 14: Are you protected from cyber attacks?

Not only can hackers access your computer and its files, they can look at you through those built in cameras. Brian Chee, director of the Advanced Network Computing Lab (ANCL) teaches students about network security. He strongly advises using — and frequently changing — complex passwords with random letters and numbers on networked devices and routers, and keeping software up to date. Hackers can break through the out-of-date WEP in a couple of hours, but the new WPA2 is designed to keep even supercomputers out. Security can be low-tech, too, like putting a post-it over a computer camera lens not in use.

Read more about it and watch the video at KITV.com. Image courtesy of KITV.

Aug 12: “What was your path to graduate school?”

A new SOEST grad student blog article has been posted on Monday 12 August, kicking off a new theme for the next round of articles in which we asked fellow students: “What was your path to graduate school?” Check out the first article written by John Casey from the Oceanography Department.

Aug 07: Carbon emissions to impact climate far into future

In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Oceanography professor Richard Zeebe warns that future warming from fossil fuel burning could be more intense and longer-lasting than previously thought. Including insights from episodes of climate change in the geologic past to inform projections of human-made future climate change, he used past climate episodes as analogs for the future. This analysis suggests that so-called slow climate “feedbacks” can boost climate sensitivity and amplify warming, with effects felt “for tens of thousands of years, if not hundreds of thousands of years to come.”

Read about in Science News, UH System News (both added 08-09-13), the Honolulu Star-Advertiser (added 08-12-13; subscription required), and Science Daily. Image courtesy Perito Moreno.

Aug 06: Hawai‘i looks to sun, wind to help beat oil addiction

The ridges of Maui’s hills are punctuated by tall, white objects that rotate majestically in the gales blowing in from the sea. These are wind turbines, and their leisurely movements mask an electricity generating capacity of 50 megawatts, enough to meet 10–15 percent of the island’s demand and provide electricity to 20,000 households. According to Leon Roose from the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute (HNEI), Hawai‘i is at the global cutting edge when it comes to the practical application of natural energies. Roose says Hawai“i’s energy structure is currently undergoing a “paradigm shift.”

Read more about it in The Asahi Shimbun. Image courtesy of Ikuya Tanaka.

Aug 03: “All Things Marine”

Listen to the recording of Carlie Wiener, COSEE-IE program manager, and her guests on the Wednesday 07 August broadcast of “All Things Marine” on Hawaii’s Tomorrow. The topic was The Hot Marine Conservation Events of Summer!

Aug 02: New system provides wave forecasts in the Marianas

Mariners and ocean recreationalists in Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands now benefit from new high-resolution 7.5-day wave forecasts operated by the Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System (PacIOOS). Ocean waves are forecast twice daily for this region using models by Kwok Fai Cheung, professor of Ocean and Resources Engineering (ORE), Ning Li, post-doctoral research fellow, with Meteorology (MET) professor Yi-Leng Chen. PacIOOS director Heather Kerkering is excited about the potential for these forecasts to improve operations for harbors and ensure the safety of the public.

Read more about it in the Saipan Tribune and the Asian American Press (added 08-12-13). Image courtesy of PacIOOS Voyager.

Aug 02: LED nets reduce turtle bycatch

Illuminating fishing nets with LEDs could help reduce bycatch, such as sea turtles, say Joint Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research (JIMAR) fisheries researcher John Wang and colleagues, in a report in the journal Biology Letters. In an experiment in Baja, California, where there is a high density of sea turtles, they tested what happened when they illuminated gill nets with battery-powered UV LED lights — which sea turtles can see but certain target fish cannot — spaced at five-meter intervals. “We showed about a 40% decline in the number of turtles that interacted with the net,” says Wang, but no decline in target fish caught.

Read about in ABC Science. Image courtesy Ocean Discovery Institute.

Aug 01: Free preparedness book available to boaters

The Hawaii Boater’s Hurricane and Tsunami Safety Manual (PDF) is now available as a downloadable PDF (click on the title above or image at right), and provides valuable information in a comprehensive, easy-to-read format. It was developed as a public service by the UH Sea Grant College Program (UHSG) and Hawai‘i State Civil Defense (HSCD), in cooperation with the state’s Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation. The guidebook provides a summary of the actions boaters and other members of Hawai‘i’s marine community can take before, during, and after a hurricane or tsunami.

Read more about it in KNON2, Examiner.com, The Garden Isle, and The Republic; download the press release PDF. Also, watch the interview with Brad Romine on ‘Olelo discussing climate change and sea-level rise on O‘ahu. Image courtesy of UH Sea Grant; click on it to download the PDF of the boater’s safety manual.

Aug 01: James P. Cowen

We are extremely sad to announce that Jim Cowen, research professor in the Department of Oceanography, passed away late on the night of Friday 26 July 2013 after a long, fearless, and inspiring fight with cancer. Jim will long be remembered for his interdisciplinary cutting-edge research, his deep commitment to education, his warm collegiality, and his humor and smile. He will be deeply missed.

He is survived by his wife, Beverly, and their sons, Nathan and John.

Jul 30: Storms aplenty, but hurricanes rare in Hawai‘i

Though it may not seem like it to those living on the mainland, in the Hawaiian Islands, Pacific tropical storms are pretty common events, said Steve Businger, a professor of Meteorology. “There have been several in the 20 years I've lived here. They’re not so terribly rare,” Businger noted, commenting on the approach of tropical storm Flossie. Tropical storms have winds between 39 and 65 mph (63 to 105 kph). Only four hurricanes (Iniki, Iwa, Dot, and Nina) have made landfall in Hawaii in the past 60 years, though four or five tropical cyclones (the blanket term for tropical storms and hurricanes) form in the central Pacific every year.

Read more about it in LiveScience. Image courtesy of NASA.

Jul 29: “The One With the Peanut Butter M&Ms”

A new SOEST grad student blog post is up! “The One With the Peanut Butter M&Ms”; a story about one particularly special experience with the Hawaii Ocean Timeseries, by Shimi Rii.

Jul 28: Plastic. It’s what for dinner.

Large, predatory fishes from the offshore waters around Hawai‘i have been ingesting a surprisingly large amount of plastic and other marine debris, according to new research by SOEST scientists. These observations are the first of their kind in scope and in number, and they suggest that more attention should be given to marine debris in subsurface waters, as well as to the potential food web implications for human consumption. Oceanography graduate student Anela Choy is the lead author, with advsor Jeff Drazen, associate professor of Oceanography, of the paper published in Marine Ecology Progress Series (PDF).

Read about in West Hawaii Today and UH System News. Or see video clips of the news coverage on KITV, Hawaii News Now, and KHON. Update (08-05-13): Listen to the interview with Anela Choy on HPR’s The Conversation. Image courtesy Anela Choy.

Jul 19: White sharks feast on fat seals for long migrations

Using satellite data from tagged great white sharks, scientists determined that these large predators depend on built-up stores of high-energy fat to power them during their long journeys to the open ocean, some of which can stretch nearly 4,000 km. By analyzing how fast the sharks were able to dive along their travels, the scientists were able to estimate how the sharks lost fat, and therefore buoyancy, over time. It’s the first such study of how migrating sharks store energy and burn it along their journey. Oceanography graduate student Gen Del Raye is the lead author of the paper published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Read more about it in WIRED, Discovery News, and the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Image courtesy of Monterey Bay Aquarium/Randy Wilder.

Jul 18: Top national honor for paleontology research to Stanley

Steven M. Stanley, researcher in Geology and Geophysics (G&G), is the recipient of the 2013 Geological Society of America (GSA) Penrose Medal, the society’s highest honor. “A second renaissance in paleontology is under way. It entails our efforts to interpret the history of life in the context of past environmental change. My efforts in this area have for the most part focused on major climate change and on changes in seawater chemistry over the course of hundreds of millions of years,” said Stanley, who has also been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS).

Read more about it in the UH Manoa News. Image courtesy of the University of Hawai‘i.

Jul 18: “The Enigmatic Flows of Cerberus Fossae, Mars”

Peter Mouginis-Mark

HIGP
Tuesday 23 July • 7:30 pm
NASA Pacific Regional Planetary Data Center (PRPDC), POST 544, UH Mānoa

This FREE lecture in the Hawai‘i Space Lecture Series in celebration of SPACEWEEK 2013 is open to the public. For more information please see the flyer PDF.

Jul 17: “Reconstructing the wiring diagram of Earth’s biogeochemical cycles”

Paul G. Falkowski

Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Department of Geological Sciences, and
Bennett L. Smith Chair in Business and Natural Resources,
Rutgers University
Monday 22 July • 7:30 pm
Daniel K. Inouye C-MORE Hale, Moore Conference Center, UH Mānoa.

This FREE lecture in the SOEST Dean’s Distinguished Lecture Series is open to the public. Download the flyer PDF for more information.

Jul 08: “Million dollar microbes”

“Micro-organisms dominate this planet,” says Dave Karl, PI and director of C-MORE. ”Even though we don’t notice it, because we can’t see them, we can see their activities: They produce the oxygen in the atmosphere, they consume pollutants and organic matter, and they recycle nutrients, like nitrogen, phosphorus and carbon.” C-MORE — a poster child for the university’s ambitious Hawaii Innovation Initiative — has been a windfall for the research community at UH. Other successful research institutes at UH mentioned in the article include JIMAR, HIGP, HIMB, and HURL.

Read more about it in Hawaii Business Magazine. Image courtesy of C-MORE.

Jul 04: “All Things Marine”

On Wednesday 03 July, Carlie Wiener, COSEE-IE program manager, and her guests discussedMarine Science, Conservation and Art on her monthly radio show at Hawaii’s Tomorrow. Listen to the podcast here.

Jul 02: El Niño was unusually active in the late 20th century

The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) weather pattern that can bring drought to Australia and rain to South America was “unusually active” at the end of the 20th century, possibly due to climate change, a study by professors of Meteorology and researchers at the International Pacific Research Center (IPRC) Jinbao Li and Shang-Ping Xie and their colleagues found. Publishing in Nature Climate Change, they compiled and analyzed 2,222 tree-ring chronologies of the past seven centuries from both the tropics and mid-latitudes in both hemispheres, enabling the team to generate an archive of ENSO activity of unprecedented accuracy.

Read more about it in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin (subscription required), The Garden Isle, Businessweek, Summit County Citizens Voice, Canadian Underwriter, HNGN Headlines and Global News, and Science Recorder. Image courtesy of D. Christie / University of Hawai‘i.

Jul 01: The worst marine invasion ever

Christie Wilcox is the author of Discover magazine's Science Sushi blog and a Ph.D. candidate in cell and molecular biology working at the Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB), where she studies the protein toxins in venomous fish. Writing at Slate Magazine, Wilcox discusses the recent invasion of Indo-Pacific lionfish in the coastal Atlantic and the Caribbean, where they are devastating local ecosystem, eating so much that in some areas they are becoming obese. One proposed solution: tournaments to catch and cook as many lionfish as possible. (Although their venomous sting is painful, their meat appears to be safe… and delicious.)

Read more about it at Slate Magazine, and watch the video of lionfish dissection. Image courtesy of A. Klein/AFP/Getty Images.

Jun 27: Location of upwelling in mantle discovered to be stable

Publishing in the journal Nature, G&G associate professor Clinton Conrad and colleagues report that large-scale upwelling within Earth’s mantle mostly occurs in only two places: beneath Africa and the Central Pacific. More importantly, they revealed that these upwelling locations have remained remarkably stable over geologic time, despite dramatic reconfigurations of the surface by tectonic plate motion. “For example,” he said, “the Pangaea supercontinent formed and broke apart at the surface, but we think that the upwelling locations in the mantle have remained relatively constant despite this activity.”

Read more about it in Science News for Kids, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser (subscription required), NBC News, Discovery News, e! Science News, PhysOrg and UH Mānoa News. Image courtesy of C. Conrad; click on it to see the full-size version.

Jun 26: “OSIRIS-REx: NASA New Frontiers 3 Sample Return Mission to Asteroid Bennu”

Harold Connolly Jr.

City University of New York
Wednesday 03 July • 7:30 pm
NASA Pacific Regional Planetary Data Center (PRPDC), POST 544, UH Mānoa

This FREE lecture is in the Hawai‘i Space Lecture Series is open to the public. For more information please see the flyer PDF.

Jun 25: Canadian quake refines Pacific tsunami risk

A study of the magnitude-7.7 earthquake that shook the northern coast of British Columbia, Canada in October 2012 has solved a longstanding argument about the region’s geology. The finding suggests that even Pacific islands as far away as Hawai‘i might need to worry about tsunamis originating from strike-slip faults in the area (and elsewhere), which were previously thought by many researchers not to generate big tsunamis. Professor Kwok Fai Cheung and postdoctoral researcher Yoshiki Yamazaki of the Dept of Ocean and Resources Engineering (ORE) are co-authors of the paper in Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

Read more about it in Nature News. Image courtesy of T. Lay, et al.; click on it to go to the animation and caption.

Jun 24: Karl and DeLong awarded $4.2 million to pursue high risk research in marine microbial ecology

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation has awarded Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education (C-MORE) PI and director Dave Karl and Co-PI, Co-Director, and Research Coordinator Ed DeLong individual grants totaling $4.2M to support their marine research. These awards are part of the Moore Foundation’s national Marine Microbiology Initiative.

Read more about it in the UH Foundation news, Urban Oahu, and UH Mānoa News. Photo by Anthony Consillio.

Jun 14: Leakage of carbon from land to aquatic environments

Fred Mackenzie, emeritus professor of Oceanography, and colleagues from the Université Libre de Bruxelles, the University of Exeter, Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et l’Environnement, and ETH Zürich, recently published a study in Nature Geoscience. The study showed for the first time that increased leaching of carbon from soil, mainly due to deforestation, sewage inputs and increased weathering, has resulted in less carbon being stored on land and more stored in rivers, streams, lakes, reservoirs, estuaries, and coastal zones — environments that are together known as the “land-ocean aquatic continuum.”

Read more about it in Hawaii 24/7, UH Mānoa News, and Ka Leo. Image courtesy of P. Regnier, ESA 2003.

Jun 14: Puffer fish skin disease still a mystery

Red rice coral hit by blue-green algae off Kaua‘i’s North Shore has responded well to a treatment involving marine epoxy, according to state and federal scientists, but they’re still trying to find out what is causing skin problems in nearby Hawaii white-spotted toby fish (Canthigaster jactator) commonly referred to as puffer fish. “Something’s going on on that North Shore,” said Greta Aeby, assistant researcher at the Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB). Signs of the skin disease include discoloration, inflammation and ulceration, or rotting skin. The normal skin color is olive green or brown with small polka dots.

Read more about it in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser (subscription required) and at SF Gate. Image courtesy of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin; click on it to see the full version.

Jun 14: Congratulations, Yaprak Onat and Katie Smith!

The Hawai‘i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP) is pleased to announce the 2013–2014 awardees of the Denise B. Evans Fellowships in Oceanographic Research. They are (at left, left to right): Yaprak Onat (Dept of ORE) and Katie Smith (Dept of OCE). Read more about the fellowships here.

Jun 10: Research traces lineage of sea life to Hawai‘i waters

For more than 30 years, biologists have assumed that Hawai‘i was an evolutionary graveyard for marine fauna. Now new research is showing that Hawaiian marine animals are radiating back across the ocean, spreading their genes and adapting to new environments as part of a complementary process of biodiversity feedback. “What we’ve shown with genetics—by finding out who’s related to who across the Pacific—is that Hawai‘i can export biodiversity, and that it does contribute to the overall biodiversity of the Indo-Pacific,” said HIMB researcher Brian Bowen.

Read more about it in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser (subscription required), The Garden Isle, Hawaii 24/7, and UH Mānoa News. Image courtesy of K. Stender.

Jun 10: Karl appointed member of NAS national program advisory group

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Gulf of Mexico program has appointed an advisory group to create a strategic vision and guide the program’s development and implementation. C-MORE PI and director Dave Karl has been selected to serve on the 24-member group. The $500-million, 30-year NAS Gulf of Mexico program was established as part of the settlements of federal criminal complaints following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion — the largest oil spill in U.S. history. The program will focus on human health, environmental protection, and oil system safety in the affected areas, and will fund and carry out studies, projects and activities in research and development, education and training, and environmental monitoring.

Read more about it in UH Mānoa News and in the full text of the advisory group announcement.

Jun 10: Honolulu City Council recognizes UH Sea Grant Hanauma Bay Education Program volunteers

Jean Carr and Larry Winnik, two of the many dedicated long-term volunteers with the UH Sea Grant Hanauma Bay Education Program (HBEP), were recognized on Wednesday 06 June 2013 by the Honolulu City Council for their more than twenty years of volunteer service. Read more about it at UH News and in the press release (PDF). Click on the image to see the full version.

Jun 08: “All Things Marine”

On Tuesday 04 June, Carlie Wiener, COSEE-IE program manager, and her guests discussed Marine Invasive Species on her monthly radio show at Hawaii’s Tomorrow. Listen to the podcast here.

And join Carlie and her guests on Wednesday 03 July when the topic will be Marine Science, Conservation and Art!.

Jun 05: As tradewinds drop, islands get more vog but less rain

Since the early 1970s there has been a 28% drop in the number of northeast tradewind days at Honolulu Airport. The effects in the Islands range from the minor, such as muggy weather, to the more consequential, including a buildup of acidic volcanic haze called “vog.” Models also predict that if the trend persists there will be an overall decrease in precipitation with ”…an increased number of heavy rain events, but a decrease in the intensity with each event," said research assistant Chase Norton. State climatologist and Meteorology professor Pao-Shin Chu warns this decrease in intensity may negatively affect aquifers and exacerbate drought.

Read more about it in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, The Washington Post, Yahoo! News (including a slide show of related images), and Sci-Tech Today. Image courtesy of Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

Jun 04: Rep. Gabbard tours Kaua‘i’s diseased coral reef

As part of a busy Aloha Friday schedule on Kaua‘i, U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard went in the water to see Kauai’s diseased coral reefs for herself. “It was troubling to see what once was beautiful, vibrant coral reef decaying and withering away,” she said. Gabbard’s expert guides for the day included Greta Aeby, assistant researcher at the Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB), Hanalei biologist Terry Lilley, and Thierry Work, wildlife disease specialist for the USGS’s National Wildlife Health Center (NWHC) in Honolulu.

Read more about it in The Garden Isle, and see related links at the archived news item ”Scientists survey diseased reefs off Kaua‘i.” Image courtesy of Terry Lilley; click on it to see the full version.

Jun 03: Jeff Corwin tags sharks with Carl Meyer, HIMB

The seemingly indefatigable television host and conservationist, Jeff Corwin, was recently in Hawai‘i for a brief trip to film three episodes for the upcoming third season of “Ocean Mysteries with Jeff Corwin,” ABC’s Saturday morning family education program made in conjunction with the Georgia Aquarium. On Wednesday 29 May 29, Corwin worked with Carl Meyer, assistant researcher at the Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB), to satellite-tag large tiger, 6-gill, and sandbar sharks brought up to the surface from 1,000 feet below in waters off O‘ahu. The episodes are planned to air in the Fall (in Hawai‘i on KITV).

Read more about it in Honolulu Pulse. Image courtesy of J. Corwin; click on it to see the full version and caption.

May 29: New research could lead to improved El Niño forecasting

Why El Niño peaks in the Northern Hemisphere’s Winter, and why it ends quickly in February to April, has been a long-standing mystery. The answer, which may lead to improved El Niño forecasting, lies in an interaction between El Niño and the annual cycle, leading to an unusual wind pattern in the tropical Pacific with a 15-month period, according to a recent study by lead author and Meteorology PhD student Malte Stuecker, Oceanography professor Axel Timmermann, Meteorology professor Fei-Fei Jin, and colleagues (Timmermann and Stuecker are also at IPRC) published in an online issue of Nature Geoscience.

Read more about it in Science Daily, redOrbit, the Summit County Citizens Voice, the ANI News, the Hawaii Civil Beat, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser (subscription required), The Garden Isle, and the UH Mānoa News. Image courtesy of M. Stuecker; click on it to see the full version.

May 29: UH Sea Grant College Program receives award for excellence in hurricane preparedness

At the annual hurricane outlook news conference held by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Central Pacific Hurricane Center, the UH Sea Grant College Program was awarded the prestigious 2013
Dr. Arthur Chiu Award for Excellence in Hurricane Preparedness. UH Sea Grant was selected for its efforts to make Hawai‘i’s communities safer through its excellent work on the Homeowner’s Handbook to Prepare for Natural Hazards. The free handbook (available as a PDF or printed book) provides detailed information on how to prepare the home for a hurricane and other natural hazards, and outlines cost-effective steps that can significantly reduce the risks to lives and property.

Read more about it in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser (subscription required), the announcement PDF, and at UH Mānoa News.

May 28: Tropical upper atmosphere global warming “fingerprint”

The winds of the quasibiennial oscillation (QBO) in the tropical upper atmosphere have greatly weakened at some altitudes over the last six decades, according to a study by Meteorology professor and International Pacific Research Center (IPRC) director Kevin Hamilton and Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) researcher Yoshio Kawatani. The finding, published in the 23 May 2013, issue of Nature, is consistent with computer model projections of how the upper atmosphere responds to global warming induced by increased greenhouse gas concentrations.

Read more about it at Science Daily, the Environmental Research Web, the Summit County Citizens Voice, and in the JAMSTEC press release (in Japanese). Image courtesy of K. Hamilton/IPRC; click on it to see the full version and the caption.

May 24: Waikīkī shoreline holds up against pounding surf

It’s been called an epic southern storm and it generated some of the best surf seen on O‘ahu’s south shore in 30 years. Despite the pounding the beach has taken, Geology and Geophysics (G&G) professor and SOEST Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs Chip Fletcher said the beach at Waikīkī was doing very well. “We’ve been watching, monitoring the digital cameras. We’ve been down and visited the beach a couple of times. There is some erosion but it’s relatively minor,” referring to the Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System (PacIOOS) camera above the Sheraton Waikīkī.

Read more about it in and see the video at KHON2.com; also, visit visit the “Today’s Beach Photos” and “Wave Buoys” pages for the latest photos and data. Image of Waikīkī Beach courtesy of PacIOOS; click on it to visit the beach photos page.

May 24: “The Red Planet … Mission to Mars”

Karen Meech

Institute for Astronomy (IfA)

Tuesday 28 May • 7:30 pm
NASA Pacific Regional Planetary Data Center (PRPDC), POST 544, UH Mānoa

The allure of Mars for the possibility of life has intrigued the public imagination ever since we could see details on the surface in telescopic views. Dr Meech will review some of the most interesting Mars discoveries from past and current missions, and present some exciting images and science currently coming from the Mars Science Laboratory’s “Curiosity” rover. This FREE lecture in the Hawai‘i Space Lecture Series is open to the public.

Download the flyer PDF for more information.

May 23: Model predicts abundance, distribution of Hawaiian corals

Researchers at the Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) have developed species distribution models of the six dominant coral species around the main Hawaiian Islands, including two species currently under consideration as threatened or endangered. In general, coral cover was predicted to be highest in primarily wave-sheltered coastlines and embayments. “Average wave height and maximum wave height were the most influential variables explaining coral abundance in the Hawaiian Islands,” reported HIMB assistant researcher Erik Franklin, lead author of the study published in Marine Ecology Progress Series.

Read more about it in Science Daily, Hawaii 24/7, and UH Mānoa News. Image courtesy of K. Stender.

May 22: Sea level influenced tropical climate during last ice age

In a new study published online in the journal Nature Geoscience, SOEST Young Investigator Pedro DiNezio of the International Pacific Research Center (IPRC), and Jessica Tierney of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), report on their investigation of preserved geological clues (called “proxies”) of rainfall patterns during the last ice age, when the planet was dramatically colder than today. Comparing these patterns with computer model simulations, they found that the exposed Sunda Shelf between present-day Java, Sumatra, Borneo, and Thailand during the last ice age shifted rainfall and convection westward.

Read more about it at Science Daily, redOrbit, Space Daily, EurekAlert!, and UH News. Image courtesy of P. DiNezio / IPRC; click on it to see the full version, including the present-day coastlines.

May 17: HNEI energy research at Kawaikini School classroom

Students at Kawaikini New Century Public Charter School in Lihu‘e, Kaua‘i, have the unique opportunity to learn in new classrooms that are themselves research and learning platforms. Two 1,200-sq. foot, state-of-the-art structures created by California-based Project Frog, Inc have been installed at the school for energy research lead by the Hawai‘i Natural Energy Institute (HNEI), testing the effectiveness of innovative energy efficient buildings powered by renewable energy. “Kawaikini values hands-on experiences as well as academics in the Hawaiian language and cultural learning environments that we create here. This building is a living model of sustainable design.” said Kaleimakamae Ka‘auwai, Executive Director of the School.

Read more about it in the UH Mānoa News; see also the SOEST press release PDF. Image courtesy of Project Frog; click on it to see the full version.

May 16: Scientists survey diseased reefs off Kaua‘i

A coral disease continues to attack brown rice coral off the island of Kaua‘i’s northern coast. Commenting on recent work off Hanalei by a team lead by Bernardo Vargas-Angel, a NOAA coral ecologist, HIMB assistant researcher Greta Aeby said, “The disease levels have gotten much higher than they were. We were seeing two or three colonies on all of our transects and now you’re counting five, six, ten colonies.” Vargas-Angel noted that, “Because it’s a rapid tissue loss disease you can see it spreading.” His four-person team surveyed 36 sites and found the white coral disease in every site.

Read more about it and see the video at Hawaii News Now; see also the related archived new item from October 2012. Image courtesy of Terry Lilley; click on it to see the full version.

May 07: More Hurricanes for Hawai‘i?

Only two hurricanes have made landfall in Hawai‘i during the past three decades, but that is likely to change. A study by IPRC postdoctoral fellow Hiroyuki Murakami, Meteorology chair Bin Wang, and Akio Kitoh, director of the Climate Research Department at Japan’s Meteorological Research Institute (MRI-JMA), shows a two-to-threefold increase in tropical cyclones approaching Hawai‘i by the last quarter of this century. Even though fewer tropical cyclones will form in the eastern Pacific in this model, we can expect more of them to make their way to Hawai‘i. The study appears in the 05 May 2013 online issue of Nature Climate Change.

Read more about it and see the video at Hawaii News Now; read more about it in Science Daily, Discovery News, LiveScience, RedOrbit, Science 2.0, UPI.com, the Summit County Citizens Voice, and the Honolulu Civil Beat. Image courtesy of NASA.

May 05: Meteorite may help reveal early conditions on Mars

Publishing in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, HIGP researcher Jeff Taylor, Astrobiology post-doctoral fellow Lydia Hallis, and colleagues, report on a tennis ball-sized meteorite that formed on Mars more than a billion years ago. Lead author Julie Stopar (Arizona State University) is a former SOEST graduate student and earned her M.S. degree with Jeff Taylor. They report on chemical alteration in the Martian meteorite, and present criteria to distinguish between weathering that occurred on Mars from weathering that happened after the rock landed in Antarctica. Also on the paper are Michael Velbel (Michigan State University), Marc Norman (Australian National University), and Edward Vicenzi (Smithsonian Institution).

Read more about it in MSU Today. Image courtesy of Julie D. Stopar, et al; click on it to see the full version.

Apr 29: Congratulations, David Karl!

On Sunday 28 April, Oceanography professor and C-MORE director and PI, David Karl was awarded the National Academy of Science’s 2013 Alexander Agassiz Medal for “leadership in establishing multi-disciplinary ocean-observing systems, for detection of decadal regime shifts in pelagic ecosystems, and for paradigm-shifting insights on biogeochemical cycles in the ocean.” When it was announced in January, Oceanography chair Kelvin Richards noted that, “This very prestigious award made every three years … was established by Sir John Murray in honor of his friend Alexander Agassiz. Dave joins the ranks of illustrious past recipients who include Bjerknes, Bigelow, Sverdrup, Stommel, and our very own Klaus Wyrtki.”

Read more about it in UH System News and the Maui TV News.

Apr 29: Congratulations, Bin Wang!

Bin Wang, IPRC team leader and Meteorology professor and chair, has been awarded the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Regents’ Medal for Excellence in Research. “He … has pioneered our understanding of the dynamics and predictability of tropical climate and global monsoon in the Asian-Pacific region.” The ceremony was held on Tuesday 30 April; links to photos and video are here.

Apr 26: Congratulations: HIMB students win Tester Awards!

Matthew Iacchei, Jonathan Whitney, and Nyssa Silbiger won the Best Presentation, Keisha Rodriguez won Best Poster, and Jamie Sziklay won Best Rapid Fire Presentation at the 38th Annual Albert L. Tester Memorial Symposium on 19 April 2013.

Please see the flyer PDF for more information about the winners and their presentations.

Apr 25: Less rainfall expected for the Hawaiian Islands

Almost imperceptibly, rainfall over the Hawaiian Islands has been declining since 1978, and this trend is likely to continue with global warming through the end of this century, according to a team of scientists lead by International Pacific Research Center (IPRC) assistant researcher Oliver Elison Timm with colleagues at UH Mānoa and the University of Colorado at Boulder. The study says wetter areas like Windward O‘ahu would not be affected as much as drier areas; overall, around a third of the state will have a higher frequency of dry months. The study appeared in the online issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research.

Read more about it and see the video at KITV.com; read more about it in UH System News, Raising Islands (both added 05-0-13), Science Codex, PlanetSave, Science 2.0, Summit County Citizen’s Voice, UPI.com, and RedOrbit. Image courtesy of UH Mānoa; click on it to see the full version.

Apr 23: Investigating rainfall changes due to global warming

Projections of rainfall changes from global warming have been very uncertain because scientists could not determine how two different mechanisms — “wet-gets-wetter” and “warmer-gets-wetter” — will impact rainfall. According to Meteorology professor and IPRC researcher Shang-Ping Xie (on leave as the Roger Revelle Professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography) and colleagues at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing the two mechanisms complement each other, together shaping the spatial distribution of seasonal rainfall in the tropics. Their findings were published in an online issue of Nature Geoscience.

Read more about it in the UH System News, Asian Scientist, ClimateWire (PDF), PhysOrg, Science Daily, and the Summit County Citizen’s Voice. Image courtesy of P. Huang.

Apr 19: Occurrence of white sharks in Hawaiian waters

A study by Oceanography researcher Kevin Weng and Randy Honebrink of the Hawai‘i Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Aquatic Resources (DAR) sheds new light on the rare observance of white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) in the waters surrounding Hawai‘i. A relatively few animals travel from population centers off California and Mexico. Males tend to come between December and June, while females are seen throughout the year. The study also suggests a method to help distinguish between white sharks and closely related species such as makos; it was published in the Journal of Marine Biology.

Read more about it and see the video at KITV.com; read more about it in the UH System News, Hawaii 24/7 (including a map of sighting locations), Science Daily, Honolulu Civil Beat, The Garden Island, and UPI.com. Image courtesy of K. Weng.

Apr 18: “Volcanic asteroids: What we dd, and did not, learn from Vesta”

Lionel Wilson

Emeritus Professor, Lancaster University
Tuesday 12 April • 7:30 pm
NASA Pacific Regional Planetary Data Center (PRPDC) POST 544, UH Mānoa
This special FREE lecture was open to the public. See the flyer PDF for more information.

Apr 16: Vog forecast website in limbo after funding ends

When a vent opened at Kīlauea Volcano’s Halemaumau Crater on Hawai‘i Island in 2008, Steven Businger, professor of Meteorology, said he felt a need to start a public vog forecast model to provide information for the public including those with asthma or other respiratory problems. Initial funding was through the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) resulted in the development of the Vog Measurement and Prediction Project (VMAP), but

soon ended. Since then, the program has depended on volunteers, but Businger said the program just got support from the university to hire a graduate student for the next two years. However, without steady funding, he said the program could come to an end at any time.

Read more about it and watch the video at KITV.com; visit VMAP here. Read about the negative impact of vog on Hawai‘i Island air quality in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Image courtesy of Mila Zinkova.

Apr 15: HSFL plays vital role in Hawai‘i’s first space launch

The Hawai‘i Space Flight Laboratory (HSFL) is leading the way in a historic effort: the first ever space launch from the 50th state. When the Super Strypi missile is launched in October 2013, it will be the culmination of the efforts of faculty and students from UHM, Kaua‘i Community College (KCC) and Honolulu Community College (HCC). UH President M.R.C. Greenwood said, “The work on this mission is creating invaluable workforce development opportunities and training for students across the University of Hawai‘i System. In addition, UH is helping to develop Hawai‘i’s space science enterprise.”

Read more about it at Civil Beat, hawaiireporter.com, SFGate.com, UH System News, and Space.com; also, read more about it and watch the videos at KHON2.com and UH System. Image courtesy of UH News.

Apr 12: New study reconciles land and sea carbon records

Geology & Geophysics (G&G) professor Hope Jahren and University of Louisiana at Lafayette (UL Lafayette) assistant professor Brian Schubert have determined how to resolve an inconsistency in carbon cycling activity records. The geologic markers for historic disruptions in carbon cycling activity—recorded as carbon isotope excursions or CIE—tend to be much larger in terrestrial rocks than those recorded in marine rocks during the same time periods. They developed their model based on research conducted while Schubert was a postdoctoral fellow at UH Mānoa, and published their findings Nature Communications.

Read more about it in UH System News and at Raising Islands. Image courtesy of SOEST/G&G.

Apr 11: seaHarmony is live!

COSEE Island Earth is pleased to announce the public launch of seaHarmony, an online collaboration tool that matches ocean science researchers with educators, managers, and traditional practitioners in Hawaii based on compatibility and collaboration preferences. Scientist seeking a community partner? Educator looking to invite a scientist to your classroom? Traditional practitioner searching for a research collaborator? Resource managers wanting to connect with community organizations? All of the above? This site is for you!

Apr 10: Congratulations, Hawai‘i State Science and Engineering Fair winners!

SOEST, HIMB, and COSEE-IE presented awards to students with outstanding projects at the 56th Hawai‘i State Science and Engineering Fair on April 8-9. Please see the flyer PDF for a list of the winners and information about their presentations.

Apr 02: “The Island President” National Screening

Wednesday 17 April 2013 • 12:30–4:30 pm
UH Mānoa Campus, POST 723

This nationwide screening of “The Island President”, a movie focused around politics and climate change, was shown in celebration of Earth Week. SOEST Associate Dean and GG Professor Chip Fletcher provided an introduction entitled, “The ABCs of Sea Level Rise.” The film was followed by a national webinar discussion. Please see the press release for more information.

Apr 02: Monsoon intensification attributed to east Pacific cooling

An international team of scientists led by Meteorology Professor Bin Wang at the International Pacific Research Center (IPRC), found that most of the recent intensification in monsoon circulation during the past 30 years, is attributable to a cooling of the eastern Pacific that began in 1998. This cooling is the result of natural long-term swings in ocean surface temperatures, particularly swings in the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation or mega-El Niño-Southern Oscillation, which has lately been in a mega-La Niña or cool phase. Wang and colleagues published their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Read more about it in the New York Times Blog and the IPRC press release. Image courtesy of Owen Shieh/IPRC.

Apr 01: Dr. Klaus Wyrtki Symposium

A special symposium on the late University of Hawai‘i Professor of Oceanography, Dr. Wyrtki, will take place on Monday, April 8, opening with a reception from 5:00pm, and continue through April 9. The symposium will present a prestigious line-up of scholars and experts in the fields of Oceanography and Meteorology to honor Dr. Wyrtki and his scientific and educational legacy. For more information, visit the website.

Mar 21: Marlin J. Atkinson

Marlin Atkinson died in the evening of 18 February 2013 shortly after hosting one of his famous “cook-outs” for a number of visiting colleagues. He was a Professor in Oceanography. His colleagues have said of him, “Marlin had a number of talents, but his greatest gift by far was his ability to see through the complexity of natural systems and ‘get to the heart of the problem.’ One of the things he most often said, with a raised brow and slightly impish smile, was that ‘life is meant to be savoured.’” He was 61.

Mar 20: UHAA Distinguished Alumni Award

Congratulations to Patrick Sullivan, PhD (ORE MS ’81, ORE PhD ’85), Chairman & Founder, Oceanit!

The UHAA Distinguished Alumni Awards pay tribute to those alumni who have made outstanding contributions to their professions and community, committed themselves to advancing the values and goals of the University of Hawai‘i and ensuring improvement in the quality of life for future generations.

Mar 13: Hawai‘i Ocean Time-series Program reaches milestone

On March 9, 2013, the UH research vessel Kilo Moana returned from the 250th scientific expedition of the Hawaii Ocean Time-series (HOT) program after nearly 25 years of approximately monthly research cruises to observe and interpret habitat variability and to track climate impacts on Hawaii's marine ecosystem. "It is really satisfying to reach this milestone, and to see the growing importance of the HOT program accomplishment,." said David Karl, Oceanography Professor and Director of (C-MORE). "Each additional year of observations brings us closer to a fundamental understanding of how the ocean functions, and its relationships to climate."

Read more about it on KHON2.com or on the Press Release. Image courtesy of Paul Lethaby/ HOT.

Mar 12: CIMES: Helping meet the challenges of Arctic ice

A three-pound unmanned aircraft can help a 16,000-ton US Coast Guard icebreaker and a 1.5 million gallon-capacity oil tanker rescue an ice-locked Alaska town. In January 2012, researchers from the Center for Island, Maritime, and Extreme Environment Security (CIMES) helped the Coast Guard locate a safe spot for the Russian tanker Renda to anchor and run hoses across the expanse of shifting, jagged ice between the tanker and shore, providing much-needed heating oil, diesel fuel, and gasoline to the residents of Nome. Since then, CIMES and the Coast Guard have expanded their efforts related to the hazards of Arctic ice.

Read more about it in FirstResponder.gov; read about the team’s DHS S&T Impact Award. Image courtesy of US Coast Guard.

Mar 11: Pago Bay, Guam, data being kept, evaluated

Since July 2012, the University of Guam Sea Grant Program has been collaborating with the Pacific Island Ocean Observing System (PacIOOS) to monitor water quality conditions at Pago Bay. Because of a fish kill in the Fall of 2012, there was an increase in community concern about water quality of the bay. As the data continues to be collected, processed and interpreted, it will allow the community to better understand the cycles and changes of water conditions at Pago Bay, and to assess the effects of conservation and restoration actions that could be implemented to improve the health of the bay.

Read more about it in the Guam Pacific Daily News; also, visit the PacIOOS data archive for this sensor. Image courtesy of PacIOOS Voyager.

Mar 10: UH Marine Operations presents new website

For information on the UH research vessels — including the R/V Kilo Moana and the R/V Ka‘imikai-O-Kanaloa — facilities & operations, cruise planning, underwater vehicles, and links to marine research groups and projects, please visit the new UH Marine Operations web site.

Mar 08: Special Lecture: “What has the collisional history of the terrestrial planets to do with the origin and evolution of life?”

Prof. Dr. Dieter Stoeffler

Humboldt University of Berlin
Tuesday 12 March • 7:30 pm
NASA Pacific Regional Planetary Data Center (PRPDC) POST 544, UH Mānoa
This special FREE lecture was open to the public.

Mar 07: “Dealing With Climate Change: Are We Flying Blind?”

Dr. William Chameides

Dean, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University
Monday 11 March • 7:30 pm
Art Bldg Auditorium, UH Mānoa

The 2013 IPRC Public Lecture in Climate Science. This special FREE lecture was open to the public. For more information please download the flyer PDF.

Feb 29: Maui High team wins Aloha Bowl 2013

Congratulations to the Maui High School students who won the Aloha Bowl, the 11th annual regional competition for the National Ocean Sciences Bowl (NSOB), on Saturday 23 February! They will represent Hawai‘i in April at the 16th annual National Ocean Sciences Bowl in Milwaukee, WI. Members of the winning team include Steven Okada (team captain), Bryson Galapon, Gabriel Salazar, Christopher Kim, and Riley Camp. Ed Ginoza, retired science teacher, coached the team. This is Maui High’s sixth win in eleven years. Among 13 teams, O‘ahu’s Punahou School took second and Hawai‘i Island’s Waiakea High School Team B was awarded third.

Read more about it in the Honolulu Civil Beat, UH Mānoa News, and the Maui TV News. Listen to the interview with Steven Okada on HPR's "The Conversation" recorded on 4 March 2013. Image courtesy of SOEST; click on it to open a larger version.

Feb 28: Great white sharks in Hawai‘i? More likely than you think

Great white shark sightings have always been rare in Hawai‘i. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has confirmed only eight sightings in a period of 60 years. However, satellite tags installed by scientists on the backs of great white sharks to track their movements show some are regular visitors as they move between the West Coast of North America and the Hawaiian Islands. Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) researcher Kim Holland noted, “Even though, scientifically, we know white sharks do visit Hawaiian waters, they don’t typically put themselves in shallow waters where people see them.”

Read more about it in the Honolulu Magazine. Image courtesy of Thinkstock.

Feb 25: Four major UH facilities named to honor Inouye legacy

It's important to name buildings after the late Senator Daniel K. Inouye so people will remember who he was and what he means for the future, U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa said Friday as the University of Hawai‘i put the late senator's name on four buildings and programs. Inouye's name will go on the Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education (C-MORE) headquarters on the Mānoa campus, the College of Pharmacy at UH Hilo, a health center for dental hygiene and dental assistant programs at Maui College, and a Kauai Community College (KCC) electronics technology building.

Read more about it and watch the video at UH System News and on the UH Hilo Chancellor’s Blog; read more about it at UH System News, KHON2 and The Garden Isle. Image courtesy of the United States Senate.

Feb 22: Are shark attacks on the rise?

A spike in the number of unprovoked shark attacks in Hawai‘i in 2012 — nine, rather the usual three or four per year — was just by chance, considering the “millions and millions of hours” people spend in the water and the very low number of attacks, according to Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) assistant researcher Carl Meyer, who has studied tiger sharks for 20 years. Tiger sharks were thought to be territorial, but tagging data showed that they in fact quickly roam over very large areas. Because culling (hunting and killing sharks in the immediate area after an attack) is unlikely to catch the attacking animal, it was discontinued.

Watch the video at Time.com; read about it in The Garden Isle. Image courtesy of Time.

Feb 22: “Search for the Giant I Boat”

Terry Kirby

Operations Director and Chief Submersible Pilot, Hawai‘i Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL)
Thursday 28 February
Refreshments at 6:30 pm • Program at 7:00 pm
11 Arizona Memorial Drive, Honolulu, HI 96818

Attendees learned about how the Hawai‘i Undersea Research Lab discovered three out of the five Japanese submarines returned to Pearl Harbor after Japan's surrender.This FREE lecture was open to the public.

Feb 22: “Some Preliminary Results from Mars Science Lab Rover”

Scott Rowland

Geology & Geophysics (G&G)
Tuesday 26 February • 7:30 pm
NASA Pacific Regional Planetary Data Center (PRPDC), POST 544, UH Mānoa
This FREE lecture wass open to the public.

Feb 19: Infrasound study of 15 February 2013 Russian meteor

Milton Garces, Hawai‘i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP) associate researcher and director of the University of Hawai'i Infrasound Laboratory (ISLA), is posting emerging analyses of the 15 February 2013 meteor blast above the city of Chelyabinsk, Russia. The shock wave, resulting from the break-up of the meteor, smashed windows and collapsed roofs, injuring an estimated 1,200 people in this city of 1.1 million people. Although the low-frequency sound waves from the event cannot be heard with the human ear, 11 infrasound stations detected it. Follow Garces’ posts about the blast — one of the loudest, deepest exploding meteor sounds ever recorded — in Twitter under @isoundhunter and in the blog Infrasound Huntress.

Read more about it in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser (subscription required) and at HIGP, and see the video at KITV4. Image courtesy of Milton Garces; click on it to go to the posting.

Feb 19: Klaus Wyrtki • 1925–2013

SOEST Oceanography Professor Emeritus
Download the obituary PDF here.

Feb 15: Microbe may be elevated to symbol of Hawai‘i

Flavobacterium akiainvivens might join the list of Hawai‘i state symbols if a recommendation by the state House Committee on Veterans, Military, and International Affairs and Culture and the Arts becomes law. House Rep. James Kunane Tokioka, who represents southeastern Kaua‘i, introduced House Bill 293, which calls for establishing and designating the microbe, found only on ‘akia (a flowering shrub endemic to Hawai‘i) as the official state microbe — the first in the country. It was discovered and named by a 2012 Iolani School graduate, Iris Kuo, in collaboration with a team of UH scientists that included Stephanie Christensen from Oceanography.

Read more about it in The Maui News.

Feb 13: Congratulations, Shimi Rii and Alice Colman!

The Hawai‘i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP) is pleased to announce the awardees of the inaugural Denise B. Evans Fellowships in Oceanographic Research: Shimi Rii from C-MORE (left) and Alice Colman from G&G (right). Rii, a graduate student with Matthew Church, is researching the role of gradients in controlling plankton community structure. Coleman, a graduate student with John Sinton, is researching the effects of the rate of magma supply on mid-ocean ridge volcanic eruptions and magmatic systems. Congratulations!

Read more about it in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, on the HIGP home page and in the UH News, and see the award photo gallery. Photo courtesy UH Foundation; click on it to learn more about the Fellowships.

Feb 07: Ocean FEST and TECH — FREE event for middle, high school students

Are you a middle school or high school student interested in learning about careers in the ocean, earth and environmental sciences? C-MORE invites you and your family to attend a FREE hands-on Ocean FEST and TECH (PDF) event at the Mānoa Experience on Saturday 23 Feb.

For more information please see the flyer PDF. Space is limited, so please register soon!

Feb 05: Global warming: greenhouse gases vs solar heating

Examining global precipitation changes over the last millennium and projections to the end of the 21st century in computer climate simulations, a team of scientists led by Jian Liu (Chinese Academy of Sciences, CAS) and Bin Wang (IPRC researcher and Meteorology department chair), report in the journal Nature that global warming from greenhouse gases affects rainfall patterns differently from warming from solar heating. For example, global rainfall has increased less over the present-day warming period than it did during the Medieval Warm Period, even though temperatures are higher today.

Read more about in UH Mānoa News, EurekAlert!, RedOrbit, and AccuWeather; read the Nature abstract. Image courtesy of Shang-Ping Xie, SOEST.

Feb 05: Climate change discussion on PBS’ “INSIGHTS”

Charles “Chip” Fletcher, professor of Geology & Geophysics and SOEST’s Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, joined a discussion led by host Dan Boylan on PBS Hawaii’s INSIGHTS on Thursday 14 February at 8 pm to discuss the latest on climate change.

Feb 02: HIMB coral video wins NSF/Science award

Congratulations! The 2012 International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge Honorable Mention for Video goes to Christine Farrar, Zac Forsman, Ruth Gates, Jo-Ann Leong, and Robert Toonen, all at the Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB), for their video “Observing the coral symbiome using laser scanning confocal microscopy.” Without using dyes, images of the fluorescence by molecules in living corals and their symbiotic red algae under different wavelengths of light were captured by a confocal microscope and compiled into three-dimensional, time-lapse animations.

Read more about it at the NSF and Science news sites, and in the Guardian, NBC’s CosmicLog, UH Mānoa News, and Dive Professionals.org. Image courtesy of HIMB; click on it to go to our videos page.

Feb 01: Congratulations, Penny Chisholm!

Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education (C-MORE) Co-PI Sallie “Penny” Chisholm received the National Medal of Science at a ceremony on Friday 01 February 2013 at the White House (watch the video here; Penny is at 11:01).

Feb 01: First climate change textbook for college students

Charles “Chip” Fletcher, professor of Geology & Geophysics and SOEST’s Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, has released the first edition of Climate Change: What the Science Tells Us (published by J. Wiley and Sons, Hoboken, NJ). Fletcher offers the first real textbook to present the science surrounding climate change at the right level for an undergraduate student. “Our climate is changing NOW in rapid and dangerous ways. But by and large, we are not teaching the current generation of students about the reality of this phenomenon,” stated Fletcher. “Without this knowledge, our ability to manage the impacts of a changing climate is limited.”

Read more about it at EurekAlert! and UH Mānoa News. Image courtesy of J. Wiley and Sons, Hoboken, NJ.

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Jan 30: HI-SEAS on “The Conversation”

“The no longer lonely planet: mixing it up for the Mars menu” Kim Binsted, PhD student in the Geology & Geophysics and associate professor in Information and Computer Sciences, UH Manoa, is a member of the HI-SEAS Research Team. Listen to the interview with her on HPR’s “The Conversation” recorded on 29 January 2013. Read more about the Hi-SEAS recipe contest at UH Mānoa News.

Jan 28: Studying deep-sea nutrients with new instrumentation

The Hawaii Ocean Time-series (HOT) has been making near-monthly observations on ocean climate and biogeochemistry for nearly 25 years, and will soon celebrate its 250th cruise to its ocean outpost Station ALOHA, located approximately 100 km North of O‘ahu. This long-term effort has resulted in one of the world’s only, and most valuable, records for documenting climate-linked environmental change in the open ocean. Among the many findings are changes in ocean nutrient and carbon pools at episodic, seasonal, and sub-decadal time scales — changes closely linked to hydrographic variability, including climate-sensitive processes. Through its history, HOT has also been at the forefront of implementation, testing, and validation of new analytical methodologies and field and laboratory instrumentation.

Read more about at AZoSensors.com and at the HOT web site. Image courtesy of HOT/SOEST.

Jan 27: Hurricane sound waves could aid forecasting

Hurricanes generate sound waves detectable through the air thousands of miles away, which could be a good way to measure the wave conditions near these storms, a new study suggests. In principle, listening to these very low signals can help researchers continuously monitor ocean wave activity and track marine storms. “The strongest infrasound signals come from the storm center, which is the most dangerous portion of the hurricane,” said Ocean and Resources Engineering (ORE) PhD student Justin Stopa, lead author of the paper in JGR: Oceans, with co-authors Kwok Fai Cheung, Milton A. Garcés, and Nickles Badger.

Read more about it in Our Amazing Planet. Image courtesy of NASA/Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center.

Jan 25: Partnership awards $1 million in coastal hazard grants

One million dollars in coastal hazard research and education grant money is being awarded to coastal communities throughout the US-affiliated Pacific Islands region to help plan for, respond to, and recover from coastal hazards such as storms. This funding opportunity is made possible through a partnership between the UH Sea Grant College Program and the Coastal Storms Program (CSP) of the Coastal Services Center (CSC), a unit of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Read more about it in Hawaii Reporter and the UH Sea Grant NOAA CSP page. Image courtesy of Steven Businger.

Jan 24: Breakthrough predicting E. Asia summer monsoon rain

A team of scientists led by Bin Wang, International Pacific Research Center (IPRC) researcher and Department of Meteorology chair, has made a breakthrough for the spring prediction of both the summer monsoon rainfall over East Asia and the tropical storm activity near East Asian coastal areas. These two weather phenomena are controlled by fluctuations in the Western Pacific Subtropical High, a major atmospheric circulation system centered over the Philippine Sea. The study was published online on in the Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences.

Read more about it in the Hawaii Reporter, Environmental News Network, UPI.com, the UH Mānoa News, and in the IPRC press release (PDF). Image courtesy of UH Institute for Astronomy.

Jan 23: “The Sky Is Not The Limit”

This special supplement to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser showcases the new UH Innovation Initiative — HI2 — and highlights several units and programs of the School, including the Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education, the Hawai‘i Space Flight Laboratory, the Hawai‘i Institute for Geophysics and Planetology, the UH Sea Grant College Program, the Vog Measurement and Prediction project, sea level and climate change research, the Hawai‘i beach safety web site, the International Pacific Research Center, and more.

Jan 21: Fridge, other tsunami debris wash ashore in Hawai‘i

The Japanese government has estimated that the March 2011 tsunami, which was triggered by an underwater earthquake, swept about five million tons of wreckage out to sea. While 70 percent appears to have sunk offshore, the rest is floating in the Pacific Ocean. Wind acts on similar objects in similar ways, according to research by Nikolai Maximenko of the International Pacific Research Center (IPRC), so while all of the tsunami debris went into the ocean at the same time, some objects drift across the Pacific faster than others. That results in clusters of similar objects showing up in at the same time.

Read more about it in Live Science; see a KITV4 video and slide show (bottom of the page) of tsunami debris in the Huffington Post. Image courtesy of Nicholas Mallos, Ocean Conservancy.

Jan 17: Sylvia Earle and need for manned ocean exploration

“Legendary explorer and oceanographer Sylvia Earle is saying goodbye to the ocean floor, but are machines good enough to take her place?” Tony Dokoupil reports in Newsweek on Earle’s last dive with the Hawai‘i Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL) and its two manned submersibles: Pisces IV and Pisces V. The article joins Earle and the submersibles’ crews as they explore the unique environment of the deep sea floor around Hawai‘i. In video of the submersibles in action on their last dive on 15 December 2012, Earle passionately explains why we still need manned ocean exploration. Chris Kelly, HURL program biologist, is also highlighted.

Read more about it in Newsweek. Image courtesy of HURL.

Jan 17: “Early Solar System Processes”

Patricia Doyle

Hawai‘i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP)
Tuesday 22 January • 7:30 pm
NASA Pacific Regional Planetary Data Center (PRPDC), POST 544, UH Mānoa
This FREE lecture was open to the public.

Jan 14: “Hawai‘i’s Fish Ponds and the Science Behind Aquaponics”

Wednesday 16 January 2013 • 5–6 pm
Listen at 760 AM on your radio or streaming live at www.hawaiistomorrow.com
Please join Carlie Wiener, COSEE Island Earth program manager, as she hosts her talk radio show “Hawai‘i’s Tomorrow”. Read more about this month’s show on SOEST’s Facebook page.

Jan 08: Congratulations, Dave Karl!

C-MORE PI and director Dave Karl is the 2013 recipient of the National Academy of Science’s Alexander Agassiz Medal for his “acknowledged leadership in establishing multidisciplinary ocean-observing systems, for detection of decadal regime shifts in pelagic ecosystems, and for paradigm-shifting insights on biogeochemical cycles in the ocean.” (C-MORE Co-PI Penny Chisholm was the 2010 recipient.)

UH Oceanography chair Kelvin Richards notes that, “This a very prestigious award made every three years … established by Sir John Murray in honor of his friend Alexander Agassiz. Dave joins the ranks of illustrious past recipients who include Bjerknes, Bigelow, Sverdrup, Stommel, and our very own Klaus Wyrtki.”

Jan 07: Anonymous gift funds chair in microbial oceanography

An inspired anonymous donor has made one of the largest gift commitments to the University of Hawai‘i by a private individual to benefit UH students and research. Included in the $9.2 million gift are funds for a chair in microbial oceanography. “This gift will be used by a team of scientists at UH and the Center for Microbial Oceanography Research and Education (C-MORE) to promote our research and education missions,” said C-MORE director and professor of oceanography David Karl. “In addition to doing pioneering, frontline research and microbial oceanography, our Center has developed innovative tools and techniques for educating the public at large.”

Read more about it in the UH News and in the UH Foundation press release. Image courtesy of C-MORE.

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