Pacific climate phases occasionally "lock" into phase

Like waves on an ocean, different climate cycles will occasionally synchronize—but two Pacific cycles not only briefly synchronize but then “lock” into phase.

This locking synchronization was described in the September issue of Physical Review Letters by Karl Stein, a University of Hawai`i at Mānoa PhD student, and Axel Timmermann and Niklas Schneider, professors at the UH Mānoa International Pacific Research Center and the Department of Oceanography.

Two of the known cycles in the equatorial Pacific are the seasonal variation in temperatures and the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, which operates on a cycle ranging from 2 to 7 years in length.

The scientists identified patterns in which these difference cycles occasionally fall into synchronization and seem to lock there for a period of time, while at other times, they simply cross paths and fail to synchronize.

It suggests that in Niño and in the tropical Eastern Pacific annual cycle, there is some feedback going on, such that once they coincide, they somehow remain in synch for a period of time, rather than continuing on their own cycles.

The next question is why that happens and what it means.

“The newly discovered sporadic phase-locking behavior of El Niño and the annual cycle will have significant impacts on current understanding of the seasonal predictability of large El Niño events. The scientists are eager to test how well state-of-the art climate models reproduce the nonlinear interaction between these two dominant modes of climate variability,” the authors said in a press release.

They said this kind of phase locking was first described in 1673 by the Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens. It is the kind of thing that infrequently happens, for example, when an applauding audience suddenly starts to clap in unison and continues doing so for a period of time.

Citation: Karl Stein, Axel Timmermann, and Niklas Schneider, 2011: Phase Synchronization of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation with the Annual Cycle, Phys. Rev. Lett., 107, issue 12.

The research was supported by the Office of Science (BER) of the U.S. Department of Energy, and by NASA, NOAA, and the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology which sponsor research at the International Pacific Research Center.

© Jan TenBruggencate 2011

Russian ship finds UHawai`i-projected tsunami debris field

It’s cool when your computer-based model runs into real world testing, and ends up right.

And a new University of Hawai`i program tracking the debris from this year’s Japan tsunami has experienced that kind of cool. http://manoa.hawaii.edu/news/article.php?aId=4733

(Image: The Russian sail training ship STS Pallada. Credit: Pallada.)

At the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa’s International Pacific Research Center, senior researcher Nikolai Maximenko and scientific computer programmer Jan Hafner have been using computers to track the likely route of the massive pulse of debris from the March 11 tsunami, as it travels on the morth Pacific currents.

They sent the results of their computer modeling to the Russian sail training ship Pallada, which was crossing from Honolulu to Vladivostok. The sailors kept an eye out, and sure enough, when they sailed a distance past Midway, heading northwest, they came across a complex field of tsunami-caused debris.

Pallada information and education mate Natalia Borodina reported on Sept. 27 that stuff that matches what they would have expected to find. They tested for radiation from the damaged Japanese nuclear plant, but did not identify raised levels of radiation.

“We keep sighting everyday things like wooden boards, plastic bottles, buoys from fishing nets (small and big ones), an object resembling wash basin, drums, boots, other wastes. All these objects are floating by the ship,” she emailed.

They even came across a Japanese fishing boat, a 20-footer whose wheelhouse bears inscriptions indicating it came from Fukushima Prefecture, which suffered severe damage from the tsunami. The boat was brought on board the Pallada.

(Image: Adrift Japanese fishing boat hoisted aboard STS Pallada. Credit: Pallada)

The debris was within the debris field predicted by the models of Maximenko and Hafner.

The researchers project that the debris may hit Midway and other parts of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands this winter, and could reach the main Hawaiian Islands later.

© Jan TenBruggencate 2011

Two major new climate research efforts at UHawai`i

Hawai’i is increasingly active in the science of the Pacific, with island-based researchers contributing to global research efforts.

Two new federally funded research efforts have just landed in Hawai`i.

Recently, the University of Hawai`i announced that NOAA has committed up to $95 million for a five-year program to study coastal and marine resources in connection with changes to the environment.

It will run through UH’s Joint Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research (JIMAR), to be headed by oceanographer Mark Merrifield. It will be one of 18 such cooperative institutes across the country.

Among the specific projects: “assessment of local fish stocks, monitoring and ecosystem-based management policies for coral reef ecosystems including the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, development of remediation strategies for endangered Monk Seal populations, monitoring of global sea level rise and local sea level impacts, modeling of volcanic smoke and haze (VOG), improved forecasts of hurricane intensities, projections of ENSO variability and impacts on Pacific island states, and provision of water level observations for tsunami warning.”

Meanwhile, the Interior Department announced that it will fund the development at UH of the Pacific Islands Climate Science Center, one ofseveral such climate centers across the U.S. This one will be a joint project of University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, the University of Hawai'i at Hilo, and the University of Guam.

Again, its goal will be to help our nation cope with climate change and “other landscape-style stressors impacting the nation’s natural and cultural resources.”

“The new climate center will serve as a resource for federal agencies and other stakeholders in providing the necessary science input into policy decisions. It will also support research and graduate student training on a variety of environmental concerns with a primary scientific focus on understanding the effects of climate change and variability on island ecosystems,” said Kevin Hamilton, the director of the UH’s International Pacific Research Center, who iwill head the new Pacific Islands Climate Center.

The university expects initial funding to be in the neighborhood of $3 million over 5 years, and anticipates the Department of Interior will station several federal scientists in Hawai`i to work with the project.

© Jan TenBruggencate 2011

Energy and just getting along

No single energy technology will solve the world’s issues with renewable energy.

That’s a key message of the Asia Pacific Clean Energy Summit and Expo, which was held Sept. 13-15 at the Honolulu Convention Center.

It’s not a new message, certainly, but it’s apparently one a lot of folks still need to learn.

“We need technology-agnostic approaches...There is no one-size-fits-all,” said Chris Myers, vice president for international business development and energy markets for Lockheed Martin.

And yet, the rifts were obvious. Wind versus geothermal. Ocean thermal versus solar.

And there were even battles within sectors. This wind generator versus that one. Utility-scale photovoltaic versus distributed rooftop photovoltaic.

Lt. Gov. Brian Schatz said the state’s initiative to reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels requires those divisions be set aside.

“We have the most aggressive public policy in clean energy in the nation,” he said. And then he added: “If we’re going to get to 70 percent clean energy, we need everything and everyone.”

Sempra Generation’s Mitch Dmohowski, whose firm plans large-scale solar, said cost should be one deciding factor.

“At the end of the day, renewables have to make sense from a cost basis,” he said.

Technological capability is another key determinant of what works, said T.J. Glauthier , former deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy. There may be lots of interesting energy technologies, but the ones that will make a difference are the ones that can be taken to scale, he said.

And ultimately, one message of the sessions was that it’s not just about supply. There’s efficiency. And conservation. Michael Trovato of Johnson Controls said energy retrofits can yield major savings.

Specific programs can help get people to invest, even when they lack the resources to do so independently. The Tennessee Valley Authority’s Energy Right program helps people put in heat pumps by guaranteeing bank loans, which can be paid off through the electric bill. Here’s how the city of Aloca, Tennessee, does it.

And a big issue is simply managing energy more appropriately. On this point, a smarter grid is key, said Glauthier. He argued that a smart grid is long overdue: “It is the last major part of our economy to be computerized.”

© Jan TenBruggencate 2011

Rising seas top threat to Northwestern Hawaiian Islands

When researchers looked into the most significant threats to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, the top threat was a slam dunk: rising seas.

That’s because most of the islands of the northwestern end of the Hawaiian archipelago are low, sand and coral islands. A foot of sea level rise could erase entirely much of the dry land.

(Image: A map ranking human impacts in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. From

http://www.hawaii.edu/himb/nwhi)

And with that, the stunning repercussions for wildlife: Something like 90 percent of all the Hawaiian green sea turtles nest on the sandbars of French Frigate Shoals; entire species of seabirds and a few land birds rely on these specks of land for nesting habitat; Hawaiian monk seals, already threatened, would lose their haulouts and pupping places.

This threat research is documented at a new website, which documents research being done in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Those islands, which lie beyond Kaua`i and Ni`ihau, are managed as the Papahānaumokuākea National Marine Monument.

“Those interested in the exciting and dynamic research coming out of HIMB now have an easy to use forum and site to access information,” said Robert Toonen, principal investigator for the HIMB Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Research Partnership.

The website has gone “live” this week.

Just one of the pieces of research on it involves the mapping of cumulative impacts of human activity. The team talked to 25 experts about the various threats, and ranked them.

We used a novel index of ‘ecological vulnerability’ that accounts for five ways a human activity can adversely impact a coral reef: the area and frequency of impact, the number of species impacted, the biomass lost and the recovery time following the impact,” the site says.

From the biggest threat to the least problematic, here’s how the ranking went:

Sea level rise, sea temperature rise, marine debris, alien species establishment, increasing ultraviolet radiation, ghost fishing, sea water acidification, ship groundings, coastal engineering, land-based runoff, ship waste input, pelagic long-lining and net fishing, anchor damage, lobster trap fishery, research wildlife sacrifice, sport fishing, trampling damage, vessel strikes, diver impacts, research manipulations, bottom fishing, indigenous fishing, aquarium collecting, and non-fishing non-diving recreation.

The report said that while the islands are protected from many direct human impacts, global threats put them at serious risk.

© Jan TenBruggencate 2011