Saving Kailua Beach

Geology and Geophysics (G&G) department chair Chip Fletcher and UH Sea Grant extension agent Dolan Eversole are working with groups from the Army Corps of Engineers, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, and the Department of Health to get needed permits and clearances to allow sand from Kaelepulu Stream to replenish the rapidly disappearing Kailua Beach, which has seen an acceleration of sand erosion over the last three years.

Read more about it in Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Image courtesy of Jamm Aquino, HSB; click on it to see the full version and to launch a slide show of other images.

Tiny diamonds implicate comet or meteor in mass extinctions

In a recent article in the journal Science, a team of scientists link the well-documented sudden global cooling almost 13,000 years ago with one or more comets or meteors they propose exploded over North America, causing changes in climate patterns that drove dozens of mammal species into extinction. “They have a hypothesis that explains several things that hard to explain any other way,” said HIGP researcher Gary Huss, an early reviewer of the paper. “Diamonds are less convincing by themselves, but they strengthen their case considerably.”

Read more about it at CNN.com, and in the New York Times and London Times Online. Image courtesy of the University of Oregon.

Looking for extraterrestrial life in all the right places

Associate professor Eric Gaidos of the department of Geology and Geophysics (G&G) is part of a team exploring the possibility of finding water on “super-Earths“ in orbit around distant stars. The planets they are investigating — giant worlds made of rock and ice that astronomers have detected on the outskirts of faraway solar systems — are thought to be quite plentiful, and models indicate that some of them could have liquid water on or beneath the surface, making some form of life a possibility.

Read more about it at Space Daily. Image courtesy of Space Daily.

Lifecycles of real tropical cyclones successfully predicted

A team of scientists at the International Pacific Research Center (IPRC), the Japan-Agency for Marine Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), and the University of Tokyo analyzed initial results from the Nonhydrostatic ICosahedral Atmospheric Model (NICAM), the first global model that simulates individual cloud systems. Starting with the atmospheric conditions 1-2 weeks before two previously observed cyclones formed, the model was successful in accurately modeling their formation and subsequent evolution. Published in Geophysical Research Letters, the study was selected by the journal editors as a research highlight.

Read more about it in Science Daily, UH Manoa News, and the IPRC press release (PDF). Image courtesy of NASA.

Three Top-Ten Rankings for SOEST Programs

Three SOEST programs: Oceanography, Physical Sciences (2nd), Marine Science (4th), and Geophysics (7th) continue in good company in the Academic Analytics FSP Index for Top Performing Individual Programs 2006-2007.

Read More about it in the UH Press Release.

For more news, visit our News and Awards & Honors pages, and read the weekly SOEST Bulletin.

SOEST Quicklinks

Environmental Conditions

• Hawai‘i Beach Hazard Forecast Site
• Hawaii Ocean Observing System
• Meteorology Weather Server
• Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System
• University of Hawai’i Sea Level Center

SOEST Emergency Information

• Info about emergency situations on or around the UH Mānoa campus.

Marine Operations

• Ocean Technology Group (OTG)
• University of Hawai‘i Marine Center

SOEST on Facebook

• Visit our new social news site on Facebook. (And congratulations to the Salty Dawgs!)

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The Dean’s Overview of the School

• Dean Brian Taylor’s message from the new SOEST brochure, describing the school’s mission.