Latest University of Hawaii Stories

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online Hawaii could experience a two-to-three fold increase in the number of tropical cyclones by the year 2100, according to new research published Sunday in the online edition of Nature Climate Change. Only two hurricanes have made landfall in the island state over the past three decades, but that is likely to change during the last quarter of this century, computer simulations developed by scientists at the University of Hawaii at...

As part of the company’s Earth Week activities, Intelesense Technologies profiles its relationship with one of Hawaii’s most well known environmental research organizations -- the Center for Conservation Research and Training with the Pacific Biosciences Research Center at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Honolulu, HI (PRWEB) April 26, 2013 As part of the company’s Earth Week activities, Intelesense Technologies, a visionary manufacturer of sensors and sensor management devices,...

University of Hawaii - SOEST Projections of rainfall changes from global warming have been very uncertain because scientists could not determine how two different mechanisms will impact rainfall. The two mechanisms turn out to complement each other and together shape the spatial distribution of seasonal rainfall in the tropics, according to the study of a group of Chinese and Hawaii scientists that is published in the April 14, 2013, online issue of Nature Geoscience. The one mechanism,...

University of Hawaii ‑ SOEST Natural swings in the climate have significantly intensified Northern Hemisphere monsoon rainfall, showing that these swings must be taken into account for climate predictions in the coming decades. The findings are published in the March 18 online publication of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Monsoon rainfall in the Northern Hemisphere impacts about 60% of the World population in Southeast Asia, West Africa and North America. Given...

Institute for Astronomy - University of Hawaii The cancellation of earmarks by the U.S. Congress in 2011 left Pan-STARRS, one of the University of Hawaii’s flagship programs, $10M short of the funds needed to complete the historic 2-telescope system—and on the verge of folding. Thanks to an anonymous $3M gift made through the University of Hawaii Foundation, Pan-STARRS will survive the cuts and continue astronomy research of global import. The Pan-STARRS project is an innovative...

The amount of rainfall and number of tropical storms during the summer monsoon season greatly impact the agriculture, economy, and people in Asia. Though meteorologists and climate scientists have worked for years to develop helpful prediction systems, seasonal predictions of these two types of weather phenomena are still poor. Scientists working at the International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa, have now made a promising breakthrough for predicting in spring both...

University of Hawaii ‑ SOEST The Walker circulation determines much of the tropical Indo-Pacific climate and has a global impact as seen in the floods and droughts spawned by the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. Meteorological observations over the last 60 years show this atmospheric circulation has slowed: the trade winds have weakened and rainfall has shifted eastward toward the central Pacific. The immediate cause of this slowdown has puzzled climate scientists. They could not...

University of Hawaii ‑ SOEST Marine zoning in the Pacific Ocean, in combination with other measures, could significantly improve numbers of heavily overfished bigeye tuna and improve local economies, a fish modelling study has found. Scientists working at the University of Hawaii at Manoa (Honolulu, HI), the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC, Noumea, New Caledonia) and Collecte Localisation Satellites (CLS, Toulouse, France), have found that a network of marine zones in the...

University of Hawaii ‑ SOEST Scientists from the University of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM) published a study today in Nature Climate Change showing that besides marine inundation (flooding), low-lying coastal areas may also be vulnerable to "groundwater inundation," a factor largely unrecognized in earlier predictions on the effects of sea level rise (SLR). Previous research has predicted that by the end of the century, sea level may rise 1 meter. Kolja Rotzoll, Postdoctoral Researcher at the...

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online Two different competing climatic effects -- increasing temperatures and changes in atmospheric water transport -- will determine how much (or how little) rainfall the South Pacific islands will receive in the future, claims a new study published in Sunday's online issue of the journal Nature Climate Change. According to the study, which was written by Matthew Widlansky and Axel Timmermann of the International Pacific Research...