El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is known to have a significant impact on climate across the Pacific, including Hawai‘i, and adjacent continents. However, new research led by University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa atmospheric scientists revealed that the Pacific Meridional Mode (PMM), another climate pattern that operates in the eastern Pacific Ocean, plays a major role in the variability of rainfall in Hawai‘i. Their study was published recently in the Journal of Climate. 

“Our study suggests that although El Niño emerges as the primary driver of winter rainfall variability in Hawai‘i, the Pacific Meridional Mode has a pivotal role in spring rainfall, particularly for Maui and the Island of Hawai‘i,” said Pao-Shin Chu, study co-author, professor of atmospheric sciences in the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, and Hawai‘i State Climatologist. 

“Importantly, our analysis disentangles the respective roles of ENSO and the PMM in driving rainfall variability across seasons and types of weather disturbance in Hawai‘i,” said lead author Bo-Yi Lu, who was an atmospheric sciences doctoral student in SOEST at the time of this research. “These findings not only deepen our understanding of regional climate dynamics but also offer valuable insights for water resource management and disaster preparedness in Hawai‘i and beyond.”

During what is termed the “positive state” of the PMM, weaker trade winds in the northeast Pacific Ocean between Hawai‘i and Baja California occur along with increased sea surface temperatures. During the “negative state”, stronger trade winds and cooler surface temperatures prevail. 

Chu and Lu performed diagnostic analyses using a combination of actual weather and sea surface observations, and weather model-generated data to determine how these patterns affect rainfall variation.  

They determined that in spring, a positive PMM state precipitates extensive rainfall across the state, specifically, greater rainfall throughout the islands occurs as cold fronts move through. Additionally, whether the positive state occurs in winter or spring, the result is that the leeward sides of the Hawaiian Islands experience an increase in extreme rainfall events, suggesting a heightened risk of floods. Their analysis also showed that a negative state of the PMM corresponded with reduced daily rainfall over windward sides of the islands, potentially exacerbating drought occurrences. 

As the state of Hawai‘i experiences population growth, the demand increases for water for drinking, food production, agriculture, recreation, construction, medical uses and more. 

“This uncertainty in interannual rainfall, together with the increasing demand for water, requires us to better understand the relationship between rainfall and climate variability,” said Chu. “We aim for our research to empower our communities with climate and weather information.” 

Liliane Burkhard, University of Hawai‘i (UH) at Mānoa research affiliate, was selected as one of two Artists in Residence for the European Geosciences Union (EGU) 2025 General Assembly in Vienna, Austria recently. In this week-long role, Burkhard created a large-scale installation that bridges science and art, specifically, transforming discarded conference posters into a floating cloud sculpture. 

“Science is how we explain the world, art is how we make sense of it,” said Burkhard, a planetary geologist in the Hawai‘i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology at the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST). “I am deeply honored to be selected as an Artist in Residence for EGU25, where I can merge my passions for science and art in a meaningful way.” 

The Artist in Residence program offers scientist-artists an opportunity to engage with scientific research in a dynamic setting and be inspired by the many new discoveries being presented at one of the largest international geoscience conferences.

“My installation served as a metaphor for how scientific ideas form and evolve, often starting as nebulous concepts that, over time, take shape and lead to something tangible,” Burkhard shared. “The act of reusing the physical posters to craft something new reflects the iterative process of research itself. In this, I hope to encourage viewers to consider how ideas, much like clouds, are always in flux: constantly forming and dissolving, yet impactful in the way they inspire both imagination and progress.”

With the installation, “Clouds of Insights”, Burkhard created a space for reflection and conversation, while also emphasizing sustainability by repurposing materials from the conference itself.

In addition to her work as a sculptural mixed media artist, Burkhard has conducted planetary science research previously as a graduate student in the SOEST Department of Earth Sciences and now as a HIGP research affiliate. Through her investigations, she has explored the geology and histories of icy moons in our solar system, including Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, and Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede. 

Sharing the science-art connection

Burkhard and Emily Costello, a postdoctoral researcher at HIGP, co-hosted a short course at the EGU conference, “Unlocking creativity through paper sculptures: Overcoming blocks in writing and idea generation”.  They offered over 60 attendees an opportunity to use the art of paper folding and sculpture to overcome creative blocks, spark fresh ideas, and explore the transformative connections between hands-on creativity and scientific innovation.  

“There was quite a lot of interest overall, which was very exciting!” said Burkhard. “The participants said they very much enjoyed doing something tactile and hands-on to help them with their work as scientists, connecting themselves to art and seeing things from a different perspective.”

Originally from Dingras, Ilocos Norte in the Philippines, Ken Husty Tungpalan’s family came to Honolulu, Hawai‘i for a better life and better opportunities. While at Waipahu High School, and now an University of Hawai‘i (UH) at Mānoa undergraduate student, Tungpalan has pursued and created opportunities to advance his knowledge and academic career.    

Tungpalan is majoring in Earth Sciences and minoring in Atmospheric Sciences at the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST). He was selected for the NOAA Hollings Preparation Program (HPP), a program that guided talented undergraduate freshmen through a research project, which prepared him to be successful in his application for the 2025-2027 NOAA Ernest F. Hollings Undergraduate Scholarship. For Tungpalan’s HPP project in the summer of 2024, he helped kickstart the NOAA Pacific Islands Climate Regional Team’s mission of compiling a digital inventory of Pacific Island climate-related stories. 

“Sea level rise, warming ocean temperatures, ocean acidification, and extreme weather threaten the destruction of properties and habitats across the Pacific region, including my island home of Oahu, Hawaiʻi,” said Tungpalan. “I still remember typhoons ravaging my family’s farmlands in my home country, the Philippines. After witnessing the damages caused by climate change, I felt compelled to advocate for climate solutions by sharing stories of the Pacific region.”

Through the summer project, Tungpalan gathered more than 700 stories and resources—such as articles, case studies, videos, and factsheets—that speak to the resilience of the people of the Pacific.

“This inventory of stories will be a resource for communities as examples of best practices and case studies that can be used to strengthen applications for climate-related funding opportunities,” Tungpalan said. “This project showed me how many climate-related resources are out there. But, we do need more public awareness about this so that citizens can utilize these resources to help battle climate change.”

After the summer, Tungpalan continued to work with Knapman on the project and created two stories of climate resiliency across the Pacific Islands, one on the American Samoa Sea Level Rise Viewer and the other on the world’s first youth-led lawsuit that addressed climate pollution from the transportation sector. The articles will be published in the U.S Climate Resilience ToolKit showcasing the resilience of the communities in Hawai‘i and the Pacific.

“This experience was important for me because these stories of innovation and resiliency can provide hope, knowledge, and resources throughout the region,” Tungpalan. “It feels amazing that I am contributing to help protect my community.”

Pursuing long-held curiosity

As a young child, Tungpalan was always fascinated by the world around him and he wondered how the planet formed and has transformed over time. 

“However, living in the rural areas of the Philippines, I didn’t have an opportunity to expand my knowledge due to the lack of resources,” he said. “After immigrating, I had the opportunity to follow this passion of mine.”

When Tungpalan was in middle school, the television series “How the Earth Was Made” sparked his curiosity for geology and the world of STEM, and in high school, he joined Science Olympiad, a state and national science competition, and competed in Earth science events. Before graduating as a valedictorian with honors, he participated in Waipahu High School’s Early College program where he earned numerous college credits while still in high school. 

“Geology is a very diverse major and every aspect of it fascinates me,” Tungpalan said. “That’s why I choose to continue expanding my love and knowledge of the Earth Sciences at the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.”

Connecting with Earth scientists near and far

Once he arrived at SOEST, Tungpalan established a chapter with Sigma Gamma Epsilon, a national honor society for Earth Science majors, to cultivate skills, partake in scientific research, and build professional networks. Tungpalan was one of the representatives who represented Hawai‘i and UH Mānoa at the biennial Sigma Gamma Epsilon National Convention in Illinois, April 11-13. 

Tungpalan has also participated in the SOEST Maile Mentoring Bridge program, which helps undergraduates from Hawaiʻi thrive through individualized mentoring and peer support.

“Maile Mentoring helped me learn the value of networking,” Tungpalan said. “I was able to expand my network and build connections with university faculty and staff, especially with my mentor Justin Higa, an NSF Earth Sciences Postdoctoral Fellow with the Department of Earth Science.”     

Tungpalan anticipates graduating in 2027 and hopes to pursue graduate school and research past climate and ecology of our planet, ultimately aiming to work for the United States Geological Survey or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as a research scientist. 

“I believe that learning about the past can teach us many things about the future, which can help us find solutions for modern problems including climate change,” he added.

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Earth Scientists from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, University of Maryland, and beyond finally connected the dots between one of the largest volcanic eruptions in Earth’s history and its source deep beneath the Pacific Ocean.

In a paper published in the journal Nature on April 30, 2025, the team revealed that the same underwater hotspot created both a chain of underwater volcanoes in the southern Pacific region and the massive Ontong-Java Plateau, the largest volcanic platform on Earth.

“Up until now, we’ve had this extremely disconnected picture of the Pacific and its volcanoes,” said the study’s corresponding author Val Finlayson, who was a graduate student in the Department of Earth Sciences at the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) when this study began.  “But for the first time, we’re able to make a clear connection between the younger southern and older western Pacific volcanic systems. It’s a discovery that gives us a more complete history of how the Pacific Ocean basin has evolved over millions of years to become what it is today.”

For years, scientists wondered whether the southern Pacific Ocean’s Louisville hotspot—an area where hot and chemically distinct material from deep inside the Earth rises to the surface to create volcanoes—formed both the underwater mountain chain bearing its name and the 120-million-year-old Ontong-Java Plateau, a submerged seafloor platform located what is now north of the Solomon Islands. Previous theories and models on how the Pacific seafloor moved attempted to explain the connection between the two major geological features but failed to provide a definitive answer.

“Much of the physical evidence for a connection between Louisville and Ontong-Java has disappeared because part of the Louisville hotspot track was subducted, or pushed, under tectonic plates in the Pacific region,” said Finlayson, who is now an assistant research scientist in the University of Maryland’s Department of Geology. “We had to sample deeply submerged volcanoes from a different long-lived hotspot track to find evidence from tens of millions of years ago that suggested our models for the Pacific plate needed revision.”

Finlayson and co-authors from UH Mānoa, Oregon State University, University of South Carolina, University of California Santa Barbara and Brown University, made their first breakthrough when they discovered a series of underwater mountains near Samoa that were much older than expected for volcanoes in the area. By analyzing the age and chemical makeup of ancient rock samples taken from the area, the researchers concluded that these mountains were part of a much older segment of the Louisville volcanic track, which Finlayson compared to a volcano’s “footprints.” As the Earth’s crust (tectonic plates) moves over hotspots, they form these volcanic tracks.

“We can track these ‘footprints’ across time and space,” Finlayson explained. “The footprints get progressively older as you move away from an active hot spot, similar to how your own footprints will fade away in the sand as you walk. But you can still tell that these prints belong to the same source. Thanks to this new evidence, we were able to revise current models of Pacific plate motion and gain a better understanding of how the seafloor has moved over millions of years.”

Finlayson’s team now plans to apply their improved models to better understand other ancient volcanic features scattered across the ocean floor and above its surface. As many Pacific island nations currently sit atop volcanic platforms and underwater volcanic chains, Finlayson hopes that her work furthers understanding of the very foundations of those countries. She also believes that her team’s discovery will help scientists develop a better understanding of volcanism and geological evolution, not just in the Pacific region, but around the world.

“We’ve solved one mystery, but there are countless more waiting to be unraveled. This finding offers us a more accurate history of the Pacific and its volcanic activity and helps us understand more about the dynamics and style of volcanism that occurs there,” Finlayson said. “Everything new we learn about the Earth’s tumultuous past helps us better understand the dynamic planet we live on today.”

The authors dedicated this publication to the memories of their first author, Jasper G. Konter, and co-author, Paul Wessel.

Content courtesy of University of Maryland.

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A 2025 Tsunami Preparedness Video has been produced by the University of Hawaiʻi Sea Grant College Program (Hawaiʻi Sea Grant) in collaboration with the Hawaiʻi State Department of Education and partners across the state. Hawaiʻi Gov. Josh Green proclaimed April as Tsunami Awareness Month in Hawaiʻi in 2024.

“The short video was designed to put in one place all the information families need to create scientifically based evacuation plans based on their evacuation zone, whether at home, work or school,” said Dennis Hwang, faculty at Hawaiʻi Sea Grant. “The video will also help families prepare for other hazards since it covers emergency communication apps with the emergency management agency for each county, the all-hazard outdoor warning siren system, and evacuation kits.”

This year marks 79 years since the deadly 1946 Aleutian Islands earthquake which generated tsunami waves that reached more than 50 feet in areas across the state. The tsunami caused widespread destruction, with 158 deaths, 163 injuries, 488 buildings demolished and 936 other structures damaged. Over time, 32 tsunamis have impacted the state of Hawaiʻi, resulting in 293 deaths and $625 million in damage.

“Tsunamis can occur anywhere, at any time, as there is no tsunami season. Residents must always be prepared to take action,” said Laura Kong, director of NOAA’s International Tsunami Information Center. “Locally, we might have only minutes. The 1975 Kalapana earthquake generated a local tsunami that quickly flooded the campground at Halapē, where a boy scout troop was camping, killing two.”

To prepare for future tsunamis, which can strike with very little warning and occur anywhere, anytime, the counties of Kauaʻi, Maui, Honolulu and Hawaiʻi Island are working with the Hawaiʻi Emergency Management Agency, NOAA’s Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and International Tsunami Information Center, Pacific Tsunami Museum, Hawaiʻi Sea Grant, and federal and state partners to safeguard lives and property through coordinated warnings and public messaging. The 2025 Hawaiʻi Tsunami Preparedness Video, which covers tsunami science, evacuation kits, emergency communications with county apps, and more, is a critical part of these messages.

“As we transition from the end of Tsunami Awareness Month to the beginning of hurricane season on June 1, I strongly encourage every resident of Hawaiʻi and every visitor to watch this free resource, which could potentially save their life or the life of a family member,” added Green. “Every resident should also sign up for their respective county’s applicable emergency notification app. I have asked all state department heads to highly encourage their employees to watch the video, and encourage all government and business leaders to do the same.”

The video is available on YouTube and can be accessed through Hawaiʻi Sea Grant’s YouTube Channel as well as organization websites that partnered on the production of the video.

For more information, visit this website.

More than 35 University of Hawaiʻi students from three campuses (UH Mānoa, UH Hilo and UH Maui College) gained hands-on experience tackling real-world challenges at the Aloha Data: AI Hackathon for Hawaiʻi’s Resilience, held April 4–6, at UH Mānoa.

Participants formed interdisciplinary teams to build data-driven solutions using Google Cloud AI tools, including Vertex AI. Five challenge topics pushed students to apply diverse skills toward local and statewide resilience efforts, such as climate data visualization, educational content generation, conversational AI and immersive technology for science communication.

The first-place team, Untrained Parameters, created the Hawaiʻi Climate Explorer—an interactive web app that visualizes temperature and rainfall data from the Hawaiʻi Climate Data Portal, a project led by UH experts. The team included PhD students Federica Chiti and Dhvanil Desai (Institute for Astronomy), Fahim Yasir (UH Cancer Center), Gerardo Rivera Tello (Department of Atmospheric Sciences), and master’s student Yada Ponpittayalert (College of Education).

“This was an incredible experience, highlighting the potential of large language models (a type of AI-trained model) for multimodal applications, even within a limited prototype developed in just three days,” said Rivera Tello.

BruhMode earned second place with GenEDU, an AI-powered educational content generator. Third place was awarded to Kani, developers of a climate-focused chatbot. TurtleyAwesome, won the Visualization Challenge with Sheldon the Turtle, a 3D AI-powered museum-style guide for climate data.

Prizes ranged from MacBook laptops and iPads to AR glasses and Google Cloud Platform credits.

Hosted by UH System Information Technology Services (ITS), Hawaiʻi Data Science Institute and Association for Computing Machinery Mānoa Student Chapter, the three-day event was led by the ITS Research Cyberinfrastructure team and supported by the National Science Foundation-sponsored Hawaiʻi EPSCoR Change Hawaiʻi project, UH Office of Innovation and Commercialization, Google Cloud and the Burwood Group, Inc.

Mentors from ITS, the Burwood Group, Water Resources Research Center and Hawaiʻi Mesonet and Change Hawaiʻi supported students throughout the hackathon, offering technical guidance and real-world insights.

“This hackathon gave students an incredible opportunity to apply cutting-edge AI tools to real-world challenges that directly impact Hawaiʻi,” said UH ITS Director of Research Cyberinfrastructure Sean Cleveland, who led the event and also served as a program mentor. “Their creativity, teamwork and passion for innovation were truly inspiring to witness.”

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