Three members of the Hawai‘i Executive Collaborative, Climate Coalition, SOEST interim Dean Chip Fletcher, Chris Benjamin and Jeff Mikulina, wrote an article for the Honolulu Star-Advertiser Island Voices column, Build Resilience Hubs to strengthen Hawaii’s communities.

The full article is posted below.

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Lahaina was an unmitigated tragedy. Lives lost, buildings destroyed, and an entire town devastated.

But the community of people, the relationships and the culture of deep aloha arose from the danger and quickly built a network of care and safety for one another.

Noble and compassionate acts of community support were widespread.

Beach parks became landing zones for boats bringing critical supplies from other locations.

Families opened their homes to become distribution centers, emergency shelters and medical hubs, creating a network of rest and refuge.

In the days that followed, institutional and government assistance were critical. But within the very first hours, the hours that matter the most, it was locals of all types who showed resilience and made the life-saving difference with water, food, medical care, and most importantly, aloha.

With the accelerating impacts of climate change, resilience is a critical priority. We will not be able to stop future disasters, but we can better prepare and more quickly recover if we learn the lessons from past tragic events.

Let’s learn from the Lahaina experience to build more resilient communities across Hawai’i.

One approach is to envision a network of “Resilience Hubs” throughout the islands. Resilience Hubs are community-serving facilities designed to: 1) support residents and 2) coordinate resource distribution and services before, during, and after a disaster.

Resilience Hubs are promoted by the Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN) and are part of the City and County of Honolulu’s Resilience Strategy.

Imagine a network of durable, wind-resistant, energy-independent facilities strategically placed on the outskirts of every community, with the food, water, waste handling and sleeping capacity to handle the most vulnerable in the community for at least one week. Basic medicines and medical equipment, hardened cooling and communication technology, and emergency equipment would all be at the ready.

After the first week, as government resources pour in, a Resilience Hub provides space for classrooms, staging construction materials, temporary housing, and much more.

When not called upon for emergencies, a Resilience Hub serves as a neighborhood center for community-building activities. It could contribute to distributed clean energy production and energy storage, further strengthening our power systems. Wherever possible, the surrounding land would produce food, collect water and reconnect the community with place.

Resilience Hubs don’t necessarily have to be new, expensive buildings. The lobby of a large building, the storeroom of the local market, a school gym, the local community center, and other spaces can all be outfitted to serve as Resilience Hubs.

When designed well, these hubs are a smart local investment that combine climate adaptation and mitigation with social equity to reduce the burden on local emergency response teams, improve access to health improvement initiatives, foster community cohesion, and increase community- centered institutions and programs.

Resilience Hubs provide a focal point to build neighborhood unity and offer the resources residents need to enhance their own individual capacity. Instead of being led by local government, they are intended to be supported by local government and other partners, but led and managed by community members and community-based organizations.

Resilience Hubs should be defined by each neighborhood or local community for their own needs and reflect local values. However they are conceived, the planning process should begin soon. Climate change is increasingly being felt on these islands, and nature isn’t going to wait until we are ready for the next disaster.

Resilience Hubs can help our communities thrive during ordinary times and survive extraordinary crises.

A team of researchers, led by a University of Hawai‘i (UH) at Mānoa planetary scientist, discovered that high energy electrons in Earth’s plasma sheet are contributing to weathering processes on the Moon’s surface and, importantly, the electrons may have aided the formation of water on the lunar surface. The study was published today in Nature Astronomy. 

Understanding the concentrations and distributions of water on the Moon is critical to understanding its formation and evolution, and to providing water resources for future human exploration. The new discovery may also help explain the origin of the water ice previously discovered in the lunar permanently shaded regions. 

Due to Earth’s magnetism, there is a force field surrounding the planet, referred to as the magnetosphere, that protects Earth from space weathering and damaging radiation from the Sun. Solar wind pushes the magnetosphere and reshapes it, making a long tail on the night side. The plasma sheet within this magnetotail is a region consisting of high energy electrons and ions that may be sourced from Earth and the solar wind.

Previously, scientists mostly focused on the role of high energy ions on the space weathering of the Moon and other airless bodies. Solar wind, which is composed of high energy particles such as protons, bombards the lunar surface and is thought to be one of the primary ways in which water has been formed on the Moon. 

Building on his previous work that showed oxygen in Earth’s magnetotail is rusting iron in the Moon’s polar regions, Shuai Li, assistant researcher in the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), was interested in investigating the changes in surface weathering as the Moon passes through Earth’s magnetotail, an area that almost completely shields the Moon from solar wind but not the Sun’s light photons.

“This provides a natural laboratory for studying the formation processes of lunar surface water,” said Li. “When the Moon is outside of the magnetotail, the lunar surface is bombarded with solar wind. Inside the magnetotail, there are almost no solar wind protons and water formation was expected to drop to nearly zero.” 

Li and co-authors analyzed the remote sensing data that were collected by the Moon Mineralogy Mapper instrument onboard India’s Chandrayaan 1 mission between 2008 and 2009. Specifically they assessed the changes in water formation as the Moon traversed through Earth’s magnetotail, which includes the plasma sheet.

“To my surprise, the remote sensing observations showed that the water formation in Earth’s magnetotail is almost identical to the time when the Moon was outside of the Earth’s magnetotail,” said Li. “This indicates that, in the magnetotail, there may be additional formation processes or new sources of water not directly associated with the implantation of solar wind protons. In particular, radiation by high energy electrons exhibits similar effects as the solar wind protons.”

“Altogether, this finding and my previous findings of rusty lunar poles indicate that the mother Earth is strongly tied with its Moon in many unrecognized aspects,” said Li. 

In future research, Li aims to work on a lunar mission through NASA’s Artemis programs to monitor the plasma environment and water content on the lunar polar surface when the Moon is at different phases during the traverse of the Earth’s magnetotail. 

Read more at Discover Magazine, Space.com, Newsweek, The Debrief, UH News, Eurekalert, Phys.org, Science Daily, and Earth.com.

The 2023 SOEST Open House will be held on Saturday, October 21 from 10 am – 2 pm!

This one-day event will showcase research, education, and service programs conducted by SOEST faculty, students, and staff. We’ll have a diverse array of entertaining and educational hands-on activities, demonstrations, poster and video displays, lab tours, and just-for-fun activities.

Students, families, and community members of all ages are welcome to come and learn about volcanoes, tsunamis, El Niño, planetary exploration, hurricanes, coastal erosion, marine ecosystems, and so much more. You will visit state-of-the-art laboratories and hear about cutting-edge research from the scientists who are making the new discoveries!

For more details and the latest updates, visit the SOEST Open House webpage.

The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa is leading a team of higher-education institutions across the Pacific with a $5-million grant that aims to support Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders pursue degrees in marine and environmental sciences. These groups are highly underrepresented in STEM disciplines. Over the five-year grant period, institutions expect to help approximately 250 scholars and culturally connected students, allowing them to serve their local communities.

The grant was awarded from the U.S. National Science Foundation to a consortium of Pacific Island institutions of higher education. The grant will buoy students attending UH Mānoa, Palau Community College (PCC), American Samoa Community College, the College of Micronesia – FSM, the College of the Marshall Islands and Northern Marianas College.

“The project addresses a primary cause of low enrollment of island-based students in STEM: financial challenges and the associated need to work while also attending classes,” said Bob Richmond, director of the UH Mānoa Kewalo Marine Laboratory (KML) in the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. “Removing this barrier is a way to support the recruitment and retention of talented students with bright minds, cultural connections and passion into these fields who might otherwise not have access to higher education opportunities.”

The program will be led by Richmond; Lauren Wetzell, education specialist and doctoral student at KML; Noelani Puniwai, associate professor at the UH Mānoa Hawaiʻinuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge; Kaho Tisthammer, research associate at KML; Patrick Tellei, president of PCC; and Vernice Yuji, chair of PCC’s Science Department.

Throughout the Pacific, there is a need for well-educated scientists who are prepared with the skills and knowledge necessary to address a multitude of challenges including sustainability, ecosystem conservation, climate change adaptation, food security, and natural hazard preparedness. 

“Scholarships dedicated toward Pacific Islanders in STEM creates a cohort of scholars with similar cultural foundations and aspirations, building a workforce that ensures Pacific Islanders are at the center of future STEM research and careers,” said Puniwai. 

Major step forward

This new project builds on existing, successful partnerships between these institutions that supported the strengthening of their marine and environmental science associate degree programs over the past 18 years.  The new scholarship program is seen as a major step forward in building on past successes in regional capacity development for indigenous students.

“It will address the fact that there aren’t many Pacific Islander and Native Hawaiian students in these fields even though we’re people of the ocean and we’re out here in the Pacific,” said Alexi Meltel, a Palauan PhD student at KML. “So hopefully with this grant we’ll be able to get more students into those fields and into long careers.”

To support students who are the first in their families to attend college, the project will provide guidance in critical activities like navigating challenging degree programs, understanding STEM career paths, developing key skills for academic success, and addressing barriers to achievement. 

Educational research led by Wetzell will further the team’s understanding of how to scale up mentorship practices in culturally meaningful ways such as implementing a dual mentorship model. This research design differs from other mentorship studies in that it concerns the experiences of STEM students who have been historically underrepresented in higher education. 

With training in marine and environmental sciences, students can become skilled professionals who can address national and regional needs in critical STEM areas including ocean health, natural resource assessment, protection, restoration, and resilience in the face of climate change and other challenges to environmental and natural resource sustainability.

Read also on Hawai’i Public Radio, The Garden Island, UH News and Big Island Now.

Haunani Kane, assistant professor in the SOEST Department of Earth Sciences, was honored as a leader in climate and justice by being recognized as a Grist 50 “Fixer”, an individual who is driving fresh solutions to the climate crisis and helping to pave the way for a greener, more just future. 

Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization, selected leaders who have found a unique way to apply their strengths, creativity, and time to tackling the biggest problem our planet faces. Referred to as “fixers”, these are “dynamic doers who aren’t afraid to challenge the status quo and dive headlong into building and championing better alternatives.”

In 2018, Kane became the first Native Hawaiian woman to earn a PhD in geology at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and now, she is studying sea level rise and island resiliency in Hawai‘i and other Pacific Islands in an effort to protect land, communities, and culture. Her research combines coastal geology, reconstructions of past climate conditions, and the perspectives of a native islander to investigate how islands, reefs, and island people are impacted by changes in climate.

Growing up as a surfer and voyager on the windward side of O‘ahu, Kane saw firsthand how climate impacts like erosion threatened the places she loved. “It led me to have a lot of questions about what is going on, what is happening to my home,” she said.

That curiosity led her to pursue those questions in an academic setting. Kane’s dissertation focused on how islands in Micronesia and Samoa were influenced by a period of sea-level rise 3,000 to 5,000 years ago, which could offer lessons for present-day adaptations.

“I think right now is a really exciting time for many of us island people — because for many of us, we are the first islanders in our field,” Kane says. “We not only have the Western teachings of, say, how our climate systems work, but we also come into these spaces with the values of the places that we come from — the perspectives that have been shared over multiple generations.”

When she was a university student, none of her teachers were Hawaiian. She became a faculty member at the University of Hawai‘i in part because she wanted to teach other young people like herself.

Among other offerings, Kane teaches an online, asynchronous course, reaching students who may not be able to work within a conventional classroom setting and schedule. She’s also a lead scientist at the MEGA Lab, a Hawaiian nonprofit that aims to engage underserved communities in science and ocean conservation.

“As the world continues to rapidly change in the near future we will need to be creative in developing equitable solutions.  I believe the way to do that is by including communities, and their students into the process and allowing them to determine the solutions and vulnerabilities of their home. As scientists I see ourselves as resources to help facilitate this process.”

Read also on UH News.

At the nexus of ecosystem conservation and climate mitigation, two groundbreaking research projects led by University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa oceanographers received funding totaling nearly $4 million from the National Oceanographic Partnership Program (NOPP). The pioneering research is poised to transform the understanding of ocean alkalinity enhancement, a potential ocean-based tool to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The projects are among 17 funded through the recent NOPP investment to better understand marine carbon dioxide removal for mitigating climate change and ocean acidification. Led by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NOPP facilitates partnerships between federal agencies, academia, and industry to advance ocean science research and education.

Effects of ocean alkalinity enhancement on corals

Led by Melissa Meléndez, oceanography researcher in the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, a team of diverse oceanographers from UH Mānoa, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, and NOAA’s Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, will assess how coral and crustose coralline algae respond to the innovative approach to removing carbon dioxide from the ocean. The technique, referred to as ocean alkalinity enhancement, involves the addition of substances like quicklime to seawater to enhance the ocean’s capacity to buffer ocean acidification and potentially increase the ocean’s ability to absorb more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. 

Supported by nearly $2 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management, the effort seeks to unravel the potential benefits and intricacies of leveraging ocean alkalinity enhancement as a potent tool.

“Our project aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the potential benefits and limitations of ocean alkalinity enhancement, particularly in the context of safeguarding the health of corals,” said Meléndez. “Understanding the intricate balance between alkalinity additions and coral response will contribute to developing effective and informed strategies for mitigating the impacts of climate change and ocean acidification.”

During the three-year project, the team of experts will be studying the response of Pacific tropical and subtropical corals and crustose coralline algae to changes in water chemistry in controlled experiments using various alkalinity enhancement agents, including calcium oxide (quicklime), silicate minerals (olivine), and sodium hydroxide, to simulate different ocean alkalinity enhancement scenarios at the Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) in SOEST. 

“We stand at the forefront of comprehending the potential success and consequences of marine carbon dioxide removal on coral reefs,” added Keisha Bahr, lead investigator at TAMU-CC. “Our interdisciplinary team enables us to delve into critical questions surrounding alkalinity enhancement methodologies and their implications for both corals and coralline algae.” 

As part of its mission to foster broader engagement, the research team will provide training opportunities for underrepresented individuals, community members, and early-career researchers. This dedication to inclusivity aligns with the project’s broader goal of promoting equity within the marine carbon dioxide removal field.

Testing the possibility of mitigating climate change

Assessing the efficacy and efficiency of ocean alkalinity enhancement are essential steps to ensuring that this method of carbon dioxide removal can contribute to mitigating climate change and ocean acidification. The second project, led by oceanography professor David Ho, aims to do just that. 

With the $1.9 million award from NOAA and ClimateWorks Foundation, Ho and collaborators from [C]Worthy, Ebb Carbon, UCLA, and American University will partner with the East Bay Municipal Utility District — which operates a wastewater treatment plant that discharges into San Francisco Bay — to conduct an experiment that adds alkalinity and tracers to ocean water to test its effect on removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. 

Researchers will first use a computer modeling framework to design the experiment, including the release strategy and a sampling plan that will track effects in the environment. Following the experiment, the team will conduct an analysis that estimates the efficacy of the alkalinity release in removing carbon from the atmosphere. 

“This project represents the first time an alkalinity release will be conducted along with the dual tracer technique and allows us the opportunity to determine the movement of CO₂ between the ocean and atmosphere and track the evolution of an ocean alkalinity enhancement,” said Ho. “Also delivered through this effort is a demonstration of how we develop tools for monitoring, reporting, and verification of ocean carbon dioxide removal.” 

The technical work will be accompanied by public engagement to introduce local community members, including tribes, non-governmental organizations, and community organizations, to the project. Engagement will explore how the project aligns with their views and priorities, and what associated risks and co-benefits these groups perceive. 

“The projects that are part of this initiative not only hold promise for the advancement of coral reef restoration and conservation but also address the urgent need for sustainable solutions to combat climate change and its impact on marine ecosystems,” said Meléndez. “As the project unfolds, it is expected to provide valuable insights that contribute to shaping the future of marine carbon removal and ocean acidification mitigation strategies.”

Read also on UH News.