“No place on the planet” — not even Hawai‘i — to escape climate change, experts say

Rough surf hits O‘ahu's Waimea Bay near Hale‘iwa on Sunday 10 February 2019. (Photo: Cindy Ellen Russell, Honolulu Star-Advertiser via AP)

When it gets cold every winter, Hawai‘i becomes an increasingly popular retreat. But climate experts in the Aloha State told USA TODAY on Monday 11 February that tourists cannot escape climate change – not even on the islands, where 60-foot waves and wind gusts up to 191 mph were part of a fierce weekend storm that downed power lines and felled trees.

“There’s no place on the planet where (people) can expect to see conditions as they have been in the past,” said Chip Fletcher, an Earth Sciences professor, SOEST’s Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, and vice chair of the Honolulu Climate Change Commission.

This weekend’s damaging storm, Fletcher said, is a good example of an extreme weather event that is more likely to occur in a warmer world. Climate change set up the conditions for the extreme waves, as well as what officials said could be the lowest-elevation snowfall ever recorded in the state.

Watch the video and read more about it in USA TODAY. In a related article, read about Hawai‘i’s recent extreme weather in the Washington Post with a quote from Atmospheric Sciences professor Bin Wang regarding “substantial increase in the likelihood of tropical cyclone frequency [in Hawai‘i] … with a northwestward shifting of the tropical cyclone track.”