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Hurricane Lane on August 23 as a Cat 3 storm. Credit: NOAA |
Hurricane Lane Passes Hawaiʻi
The State of Hawaiʻi experienced a very close encounter with Hurricane Lane, which reached maximum sustained winds of 160mph on August 21. Aside from Hurricane John (1994), Lane is the only Category 5 hurricane to pass within 350 miles of the Hawaiian Islands. Thanks to strong wind shear near the islands, Lane weakened as it moved northward and downgraded from a Category 5 hurricane to tropical storm conditions within four days. While the favorable path spared the islands from major wind impacts, Lane was Hawaiʻi's wettest recorded tropical system, causing up to 40-50" of rainfall over the 4-day period in some parts of the state.
PacIOOS' wave buoys recorded dangerous ocean conditions, with open ocean wave heights reaching 16ft in Hilo (Aug 24), and 8-12ft at windward and south-facing locations. Other observations, including nearshore water quality measurements, will be evaluated over the coming weeks. Lane was a stark reminder of the importance to be prepared throughout the entire hurricane season, which runs from June 1 through November 30, in the Central Pacific. Follow the Central Pacific Hurricane Center on social media to find interesting facts related to #Lane.
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All IOOS Regional Networks Now NOAA-certified
The U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) along with its eleven regional associations (RAs) reached an important milestone this month: All regional observing systems are now certified by NOAA for their data management and infrastructure practices. Certification demonstrates that the data served by the RAs, like PacIOOS, are of the same high quality and trusted standards as those served by the federal government. The regional structure of IOOS promotes collaboration at the regional level and helps to provide tailored approaches to address specific needs of local users and stakeholders. Certification allows RAs to create regional impacts while maintaining national data management consistency upon which users can rely. PacIOOS was the first entity nationwide to be certified in 2015. Find out more about certification.
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Conference participants from around the world gather for PRiMO. Credit: NOAA OCM |
Technology and Disaster Reduction
Approximately 240 participants gathered for the 16th annual Pacific Risk Management ʻOhana (PRiMO) conference in Honolulu. The conference programming was divided into three tracks: the Power of Partnership; Reducing the Social, Economic, and Cultural Risks of Disaster; and Information Technology for Building Resilience. Within the latter track, PacIOOS presented on its current efforts to develop a wave run-up forecast for West Maui to help increase preparedness. Representatives from Puerto Rico shared lessons learned as recovery efforts are still ongoing from the devastating impacts caused by Hurricanes Maria and Irma. Many partners from the insular Pacific attended the conference, providing a great opportunity for PacIOOS to catch up with existing partners and meet new stakeholders.
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Assaf Azouri and Volker Roeber at ICCE. |
Coastal Processes in Depth
PacIOOS presented at the biennial 36th International Conference on Coastal Engineering (ICCE) in Baltimore, Maryland. The goal of the conference is to promote academic and technical exchange of coastal related studies, including coastal waves, nearshore currents, sediment transport, coastal morphology, and beach nourishment. PacIOOS researchers presented on "The Response of Harbor Environments Protected by Reef Systems to Gravity Wave Forcing." The talk included information gained and lessons learned through comparisons of three phase-resolved numerical models, which is also part of PacIOOS' efforts to develop a high-resolution wave run-up forecast for West Maui, with the support of NOAA's Regional Coastal Resilience Grant.
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Healthy reef in Palau. Credit: Yen-Yi Lee |
Interventions to Increase the Resilience of Coral Reefs
The National Academies of Sciences has formed a committee to review the science and assess potential risks and benefits of ecological and genetic interventions to enhance coral reef persistence and recovery. Due to rapidly deteriorating environmental conditions including warmer waters, impaired water quality, and disease threats, coral reefs are at risk. The committee will consider interventions to address near-future (5-20 years) and long-term environmental scenarios as part of an overall risk assessment. A workshop was held with international representation at the East-West Center in Honolulu to discuss opportunities and challenges, and to evaluate risks and benefits of implementing novel approaches for improving coral reef resilience.
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Credit: Ole Jacobsen |
Exploring Ocean Dynamics Locally and Globally
Tobias Friedrich recently joined the PacIOOS team as a Scientific Ocean Modeler under the supervision of Brian Powell, Professor at the Department of Oceanography, School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), and PacIOOS co-investigator. Tobias will implement a regional ecosystem model to study physical, geochemical, and biological processes around the Main Hawaiian Islands. The results will provide new insights into connections between the reef and oceanic scales in island archipelagos. Tobias will also maintain PacIOOS' daily predictions of the physical ocean state for various grids in the Pacific Islands through the Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS).
Tobias received his Ph.D. in Physical Oceanography at the GEOMAR Institute, Kiel, Germany. Over the past ten years, Tobias' research in Hawaiʻi has focused on interactions of ocean physics and marine biogeochemistry; long-term climate change during ice ages; and future projections of global warming and ocean acidification. With a passion for fostering the next generation of scientists, Tobias is also serving as an undergraduate instructor for oceanography at Kapiʻolani Community College. He enjoys sparking students' interest in the natural sciences by jointly exploring ocean phenomena that affect all of us on a local and global scale. In his spare time, he likes to either go bouldering or catch a wave in his favorite element, the ocean.
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