Evidence of “monster tsunami” found on Kaua‘i

A mass of marine debris discovered in a giant sinkhole on the island of Kauai‘i provides evidence that at least one mammoth tsunami, larger than any in Hawai‘i’s recorded history, has struck the islands, and that a similar disaster could happen again. Hawai‘i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP) director Rhett Butler is the lead author of a paper reporting that a wall of water up to nine meters (30 feet) high surged onto Hawaiian shores about 500 years ago. It was triggered by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake off the coast of the Aleutian Islands and left behind up to nine shipping containers worth of ocean sediment in the Makauwahi sinkhole. Gerard Fryer, Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) geophysicist and HIGP affiliate faculty, notes that the state is updating tsunami evacuation plans as a result of these findings.

Read more about it in the Washington Post, EarthSky and NBC News, PhysOrg, UH System News, and the AGU press release.

Effects of military munitions continue to be investigated

SOEST began the final phase of an Army-funded research effort on 21 October 2014 to further investigate sea-disposed military munitions off the coast of O‘ahu. This research will take place south of Pearl Harbor at an area designated by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) as the Hawai‘i-05 (HI-05) site. It is a continuation of the Hawai’i Undersea Military Munitions Assessment (HUMMA), which used towed sidescan sonars, Hawai‘i Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL) submersibles, and remotely operated vehicles — including Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI)’s Jason. “HUMMA has dramatically increased our understanding of what is happening at historical sea disposal sites,” stated Hawai‘i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP) researcher and principal investigator Margo Edwards.

Read more about it and watch the videos at KHON2 and KITV4 (autoplays); read more about in the Washington Post, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser (subscription required), UH System News, PhysOrg, ABC News, West Hawaii Today, and Ka Leo.

HI-SEAS begins longest U.S. space simulation

On 15 October 2014, six astronaut-like crew members of the third Hawai‘i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) mission began the longest space simulation on U.S. soil. Prior to entering their dome habitat, participants shopped for dental floss, an ukulele, and slippers, among other things. During the eight-month isolation, the goal is to examine how well a small group of people, isolated from civilization, can get along and work together. “Right now, the psychological risks are still not completely understood and not completely corrected for,” said Kim Binsted, associate professor at UH and the principal investigator for the project. “NASA is not going to go (to Mars) until we solve this.”

Read more about it in the New York Times, The Guardian, the Washington Post, and Sci-News.com; read more about it and watch the video at The Weather Channel. Image courtesy of T. Swarmer.

Scientists rethink ecological role of jellyfish blooms

New evidence shows deep-sea animals dine on jellyfish more than scientists previously suspected, reducing concerns that jellyfish blooms may be harmful to the ocean’s ecosystem, according to a study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences. “It’s a good thing”, said Oceanography professor Craig Smith, who published the study with researchers from Norway and the United Kingdom. “… marine ecosystems may be more resilient to the effects of jellyfish blooms than we originally thought.” He said evidence shows jellyfish blooms, or population explosions, are increasing, especially along coastal areas because of climate change and nutrients entering the sea from agriculture and other sources.

Read more about it and watch the video at Honolulu Star-Advertiser (subscription required), Kaunānā, West Hawaii Today, and UH System News. Image courtesy of A. Sweetman, C. Smith, and D. Jones.

UH ranked among top universities for excellence in scientific publications

On 10 October 2014, the National Taiwan University Ranking (NTU Ranking) team released the results of its 2014 Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities. The ranking lists the University of Hawai‘i as 203rd Overall, and 80th in the United States, out of the top 500 world universities. “This is a welcome recognition of the importance of the scientific research done by our faculty and students,” said Brian Taylor, Dean of SOEST and UH Mānoa Vice Chancellor for Research. “We are particularly pleased to be ranked in the top 20 world universities for our work in the geosciences (earth, ocean, atmospheric, and planetary sciences).”

Read more about it, including the five subject areas and/or fields where UH was identified as a leader, in Kaunānā and the UH Mānoa News.

G&G PhD graduate finalist in National Geographic competition

Geology & Geophysics (G&G) alumna Carolyn Parcheta’s hopes of getting $50,000 from National Geographic for her science project came to an end with a second-place finish recently. Currently at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), she plans to map Kilauea volcanic vents with a wall climbing robot, but is now looking for another funding source. “I’m working with a robotics team that specializes in rock climbing robots,” Parcheta said. In May, Parcheta tested her robot on Hawai‘i Island. After some reworking, “[i]t moves like we want it to move, and it can take better data.” G&G professor Mike Garcia said that thermal images from infrared cameras on such a robot can help volcanologists better understand the dynamics of lava flows.

Read more about it in the Ka Leo O Hawai‘i.

Scientists see severe coral bleaching near O‘ahu

While people in Hawai‘i have been sweating out a lack of trade winds, corals in shallow water around the islands are also suffering. Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) researcher Ruth Gates said that the warm water and intense UV rays prompt algae inside coral polyps to leave, which starves the animals and turns the coral white. It’s the same phenomenon causing mass bleaching that was detected about 1,600 kilometers northwest of Honolulu. The bleaching found along O‘ahu’s windward coast is especially severe, according to officials at Hawai‘i’s Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR): about 75 percent of the corals surveyed in Lanikai, Waimānalo, Kāne‘ohe, and Hanauma were dead or dying.

Read more about it and watch the video at Hawaii News Now and KITV4; read more about it at The Garden Isle, USA Today, and the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

UH Sea Grant helps Kaua‘i prepare for climate change

The island of Kaua‘i, the oldest of the main Hawaiian islands at approximately six million years of age, is one of the most remote islands in the world. This remoteness, coupled with an increasing vulnerability to coastal hazards due to climate change and sea-level rise, prompted the Kaua‘i County Planning Department to take a visionary step in its efforts to help the community prepare. It commissioned Ruby Pap, a UH Sea Grant coastal land use extension agent based on Kaua‘i, to coordinate a technical study, the Kaua‘i Climate Change and Coastal Hazards Assessment, synthesizing all of the relevant coastal hazard science and providing a suite of policy and planning options.

Read more about it in the Garden Isle News, Ka Leo O Hawai‘i, and the UH System News. Image courtesy of UH Sea Grant; click on it to go to the UHSG publications page to download the PDF.

Hot. Humid. Rainy. No relief coming.

An unusual set of conditions over the past few months has made Hawai‘i hotter and muggier than is usual, and the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center is forecasting the above average temperatures to continue through January. Normally, a summertime ridge of high pressure is situated well north of Hawai‘i, resulting in a steady supply of cooling tradewinds blowing our way, said Gary Barnes, professor and department chair of Atmospheric Sciences. Recently, however, that ridge has been hovering on or near the state and has kept the tradewinds blowing elsewhere. It has also steered storm clouds well to the north, leaving the Islands with a lot of sunny days, light winds, and higher air and ocean temperatures.

Read more about it in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser (subscription required).

Scientists see bleached coral in northwest Hawai‘i

Warm ocean temperatures have caused large expanses of coral to bleach in the pristine reefs northwest of Hawai‘i’s main islands, scientists said recently. Mass bleaching has occurred at Lisianski atoll, about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) northwest of Honolulu, said Courtney Couch, a post-doctoral researcher at the Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB). Coral also bleached at Midway, Pearl and Hermes atolls, but not as severely. Couch called the situation “dire,” particularly for Lisianski. In one shallow part of the reef, 90 percent of the coral was bleached, she said; an average of 35 percent of the coral sites observed at the atoll had bleached.

Read more about it and watch the videos at KHON2 and KITV4 (video autoplays); read more about it in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser (subscription required), at ABC News, AP’s The Big Story, and at PhysOrg.