Latest news with #MaunaLoa
BBC News
27-05-2025
- Science
- BBC News
Kilauea spews lava as Hawaii volcano erupts again
One of the world's most active volcanoes has erupted again in from Kilauea on Hawaii's Big Island showed fountains of lava being sprayed 300 metres into the the 23rd time that activity has taken place on the volcano since it erupted in December last is one of six active volcanoes located in the Hawaiian Islands, which also include Mauna Loa, the largest volcano in the world. What's happened? Kilauea is the most active volcano on Hawaii's Big have been ongoing regular eruptions taking place there for the past forty to experts, activity at the summit - or top - of Kilauea has been coming and going since an eruption in December USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said the latest eruption began on Sunday, in the north vent of one of the craters of Kilauea, called Halema'uma'u. The agency added that fountains of lava were sprayed more than 300 metres into the air and that lava flows had covered the floor of the crater. Around an hour later, activity also started in the south vent - spewing smaller lava fountains around 70 metres in observatory told CBS News that lava flows remained within Kilauea's summit caldera, and did not affect any residential areas. Why are there volcanoes on Hawaii? Most volcanoes form at the boundaries of Earth's tectonic plates, huge slabs of Earth's crust and upper mantle, which fit together like pieces of a plates are not fixed but are constantly moving at a very slow Hawaii is slightly different, as it doesn't sit on a plate volcanoes have formed the long chain of islands because of the "Hawaiian hot spot".A hot spot is made up of super-heated material deep inside the earth, located in the middle of a magma - or molten rock - rises upwards through the planet's some of it pushes its way to the surface, a volcanic eruption takes place.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Kilauea volcano on Hawaii's Big Island has latest eruption
A volcano's latest eruption on Hawaii's Big Island fountained lava more than 1,000 ft. into the sky on May 25. The Kilauea volcano, on the island of Hawaii, had a plume reach about 5,000 ft. high, according to a Hawaiian Volcano Observatory status report. The eruption was in a closed area of Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, located about 200 miles and several islands southeast of Honolulu. The national park has Kilauea and Mauna Loa, the latter being the world's largest active volcano. Kilauea is one of the world's most active volcanoes, the U.S. Geological Survey said. With its summit at 4,091 ft., Kilauea has had lava fountaining from its Halemaumau crater since Dec. 23, the observatory, which is part of USGS, said in its May 25 report. This is the 23rd episode of the ongoing eruption from Halemaumau, which is part of Kilauea's larger caldera at its summit. The May 25 eruption occurred for about six hours in two vents of Halemaumau, with the north vent ending at 9:48 p.m. local time and the south vent at 10:25 p.m., according to USGS updates. Overnight, officials were primarily concerned with high levels of volcanic gas such as water vapor, carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide that can have far-reaching effects downwind. Sulfur dioxide reacts in the atmosphere to create visible haze of volcanic smog, called vog. In high concentrations, vog and sulfur dioxide can cause respiratory problems and other health concerns. Other concerns are what's called 'Pele's hair' and other volcanic fragments from lava fountains. Pele's hair is strands of volcanic glass that can cluster together and look like tumbleweeds. The volcanic fragments fall down within a few hundred yards from eruptive vents, though strong winds can launch the light particles downwind. On the ground, Pele's hair and other fragments can cause skin and eye irritation, and officials warn residents and visitors to minimize exposure to these particles. At Kilauea's summit, there are significant hazards with the crater's instability, ground cracking and rockfalls, especially after earthquakes. But, the area has been closed to the public since 2007. Most episodes of Halemaumau's lava fountaining last a day or less, officials said. They are separated by pauses in activity lasting several days, generally. The observatory planned to issue another update the morning of May 26 local time. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Hawaii's Big Island has latest volcanic eruption at Kilauea
New York Times
14-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Hawaii's Prized Kona Coffee Fields Have Become a Target for ICE
On the mist-wreathed slopes of Mauna Loa, where the earth is rich with volcanic memory and the Pacific glimmers in the distance, a coveted coffee — Kona — is coaxed from the soil. Nurtured by the Island of Hawaii's unique mingling of abundant sunshine, afternoon rain and lava-infused soil, Kona coffee retails for more than $30 for an eight-ounce bag. With a devoted following around the world, the distinct coffee has been a point of pride for the Big Island, and for the thousands of immigrants from Latin America who for decades have handpicked the beans in the Kona fields. Now the fate of many of those immigrant workers is uncertain, as is the future of the island's coffee industry. The Trump administration's immigration crackdown has reached this, a remote, rugged island, a 45-minute flight from Honolulu. Federal agents have flown in several times since February, most recently last week, often remaining for days as they search for undocumented immigrants among the 200,000 or so people who live on the island. Compared with widely publicized operations in big cities like Denver and Los Angeles, the actions on the island have been relatively small, with just a few dozen people known to have been taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But ICE enforcement actions have sent waves of fear across the rural island, and underscored how the immigration dragnet has expanded, sweeping in men and women with no criminal records, as well as children. 'Regardless of the number of people detained, the consequence of this is massive,' said Jeanne Kapela, a Democrat who represents the area in the State Legislature. Kona's coffee industry is composed of hundreds of family-owned orchards, usually three to five acres in size, and their immigrant workers often come from mixed-status families, with some members who may be naturalized citizens or green card holders and others who are undocumented. 'The futures of coffee farmers and these workers are tied together, whether we like it or not,' said Ms. Kapela, whose family grows coffee. The industry is vital to her constituents, she said. 'If it dies, I don't know how we come back.' The immigrant community has grown increasingly uneasy. In March, a widely shared video showed agents leading a woman and three children away from their home. The next month, a boy in first grade was pulled from class after his father was detained. Tricia McLaughlin, a Homeland Security spokeswoman, said in an email that agents had conducted 'a number of targeted enforcement actions' to arrest criminals on the Big Island. In addition, she said, 'non-targeted illegal aliens were encountered and detained.' She did not respond to a question about how many immigrants were taken into custody. Bruce Cornwell, 72, who grows and processes his coffee and that of other farmers for the U.S. and international markets, said: 'These are good, hard workers. They aren't gang members.' Unlike industrial farms, small-scale coffee growers cannot readily make use of the government's seasonal agricultural visa program, which is complex, costly and requires extensive paperwork. Mr. Cornwell said that workers should be offered pathways to immigrate legally, rather than be rounded up. 'If we don't have these immigrant workers, our coffee will be hurting,' he said, standing near his orchard, where coffee cherries were ripening. 'The government should make it easier for these people to come here and work.' Hawaii is the only U.S. state with significant commercial coffee production, led by the Big Island, where coffee cultivation began in the 1820s. In 1873, Henry Nicholas Greenwell, an English immigrant who settled on the island and whose descendants still grow coffee, took Kona to the World's Fair in Vienna and won an award there for excellence. In the early 1900s, Japanese workers escaping harsh conditions on Hawaii's sugar cane plantations began leasing small parcels of land to grow coffee. In the mid-1980s, the global embrace of specialty coffee catapulted Kona cultivation. Since then, thousands of Mexican and Central American workers have migrated to the Big Island, and some have become growers themselves. Among them are Mexican Americans like Armando Rodriguez, whose family crossed the border into the United States illegally when he was 8 years old. He obtained a green card through his father, whose status was legalized in 1986 under the most recent amnesty for undocumented immigrants, and later became a citizen. Today, his extended family grows and mills coffee on 13 acres. They ship their award-winning coffee, Aloha Star, across the country. Mr. Rodriguez is worried about the harvest, he said. Workers who he normally hires for the season have informed him and other growers that they will not return from the mainland United States, even though they are green card holders. 'They're afraid that they'll be detained at the airport, or their green card is going to be taken away,' Mr. Rodriguez said as he drove along the Mamalahoa Highway, a narrow, winding coastal road with turnoffs on either side that lead to dozens of coffee farms. On a recent morning, workers moved along a row of baby coffee plants on the three-acre farm of Don Davis, a retired Navy pilot who flew for Delta Air Lines. The workers are on their feet for 11 hours a day, said Mr. Davis, who pays them $30 an hour. He had just hung a 'no trespassing' sign on his gate in the hope of deterring ICE agents from entering his property. He said that he worried for his workers, even though they had legal status. 'There is nobody else who is going to pick this,' Mr. Davis said of his crop. During a lunch break, Salvador Cancino, 47, who has devoted his working life to coffee, said that he and others in his extended Mexican family were long-timers on the island. They have green cards and American citizen children, and own their homes. But he said that younger undocumented immigrants had been arriving in recent years to replace aging pickers. Many of the newcomers are Hondurans who grew coffee in their homeland, which for years has been plagued by one of the world's highest murder rates. Several of those workers unloaded 100-pound bags of coffee at a mill on a recent Sunday. 'There is a lot of work here, and you can make good money,' said Darwin, 26, who arrived in the country four years ago and who spoke on the condition that he be identified only by his first name because of his immigration status. He said he made $400 a day working the harvest, and had his wife join him in Hawaii. She gave birth to a newborn in March, and days later, when others who live in the same house were away, she noticed an S.U.V. approaching. She said she locked herself and the baby in the bedroom with the curtains drawn. Agents banged on the front door for a while, and then left when no one responded. Since then, the couple have been rethinking whether to stay. 'We've been happy here, but the immigration situation now has us extremely worried,' Darwin said. It was in March that Ms. Kapela, the state legislator, received frantic calls from schoolteachers and others about 'the chaos that had ensued' from enforcement actions, she recalled. Children had disappeared from classrooms, she said, and frightened families were in hiding or sleeping in their cars. 'No one knew what to do,' Ms. Kapela said. There are no immigration lawyers practicing on the island, and immigrants who have court hearings must fly to Honolulu, where immigration proceedings are held. Missing a hearing can result in a deportation order from a judge, making the immigrants targets for enforcement. In early April, ICE agents returned to Kona. John Redden, who grows certified organic coffee, left to run errands one day and did not close the gate behind him. When he returned, a neighbor informed him that federal agents had been on his property off the Mamalahoa Highway. No workers were on his land when the agents were at his farm, Mr. Redden said, but even so, he was irate. On April 5, he joined a protest, brandishing a sign that read, 'ICE invaded my farm.' A community meeting was held on April 29 at the elementary school where the first grader, who was from Honduras, was removed and deported. At the meeting, Mr. Rodriguez, the coffee farmer and founder of Aloha Latinos, a nonprofit, asked whether local police officers were assisting federal agents. The island's police chief, Benjamin Moszkowicz, responded that his department 'has not, does not and will not conduct immigration enforcement,' which he said is a federal matter. He received rousing applause. Gollita Reyes, who makes tamales for mini markets that cater to immigrants, said that orders for her tamales had plummeted with each enforcement action. 'People are missing work because they're afraid, and running out of money,' Ms. Reyes said. 'Others are gone.'
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Yahoo
Kokua Line: What lei can I bring on the plane?
Question : My family wants me to bring fresh lei for my nephew's mainland wedding. Will HNL allow this through ? I am seeing conflicting information even on florists' websites. Answer : It depends on the type of lei. The U.S. Department of Agriculture prohibits some common lei components from entering the continental United States to prevent the spread of plant disease. Before buying the lei, 'ask the seller to confirm that it does not include fresh botanical fruits, such as berries and pandanus fruit, or any of the following prohibited items : any citrus or citrus-related flowers, leaves, or other plant parts, as well as jade vine or Mauna Loa. Lei with these items cannot enter the U.S. mainland. Please be aware that citrus-related plant parts include mock orange flowers and leaves, which are sometimes used in making leis, ' the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service says at. Even lei that are allowed in outbound Hawaii passengers' checked or carry-on luggage must pass agricultural inspection at the airport first, and must be clean and free of berries, pests / insects and signs of disease to do so, according to APHIS. These are the lei for which florists may have differing shipping policies ; some ship to the mainland and some don't. None of the florists we checked were offering to ship lei made from prohibited flowers or plants. Learn more about what flowers and plants airline passengers from Hawaii can bring along at, where you can also find the phone numbers for APHIS offices here, should you need more information before your flight. Q : I recently moved to Oahu from the mainland. I have a Real ID driver's license from Arizona. When I apply for my Hawaii driver's license, will I automatically get a Hawaii Real ID driver's license ? Or will I have to provide the documentation again for the Real ID ? A : You will have to provide documentation. 'The City and County of Honolulu's driver licensing system is not connected to the network of any other state. Given this reality, staff at our driver licensing centers cannot retrieve from other states information required to complete transactions, including an applicant's proof of legal presence and principal residence. For this reason, someone who was issued a Real ID credential in another state would not automatically get a Hawai 'i Real ID credential from a driver licensing center in the City and County of Honolulu. That out-of-state applicant would have to provide the documentation again to be able to obtain a Hawai 'i Real ID driver's license or identification card, ' Harold Nedd, spokesperson for Honolulu's Department of Customer Services, said in an email. That means you'll need to bring original or certified copies of unexpired documents proving your legal name, date of birth, lawful U.S. presence and Hawaii principal residence. A U.S. passport, for example, would fulfill the first three requirements, plus you would need two documents proving you live in Hawaii, such as a current rental agreement and utility bill. Notarized copies or faxes are not acceptable, according to the Hawaii Department of Transportation website, which lists acceptable documents at. The DMV staff also will look up your Social Security number ; as of June 18, 2021, bringing in your Social Security card is optional. Mahalo This past Sunday night toward midnight at Safeway Beretania, I drove my car over a parking curb and got stuck. Despite the late hour and some slight rain, kind Brian came over to help. He offered sound advice with assurance, and patiently guided my stuck car back to the level roadway. Mahalo Brian. I had my car serviced on Wednesday and had the underside inspected for damage : only cosmetic scrapes noted !—Grateful senior------------Write to Kokua Line at Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 2-200, Honolulu, HI 96813 ; call 808-529-4773 ; or email.------------
WIRED
10-05-2025
- Science
- WIRED
Dismantling NOAA Threatens the World's Ability to Monitor Carbon Dioxide Levels
Eric Morgan Ralph Keeling May 10, 2025 7:00 AM The agency maintains the global backbone of measurements of CO 2 and other gases, but these are at risk of being curtailed if the foreshadowed cuts to NOAA are realized. Mauna Loa Observatory on Big Island, Hawaii. Photograph: Sebastian Noethlichs/Shutterstock This story originally appeared on the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. There are trillions upon trillions of numbers in the world. We use numbers to describe almost every conceivable thing in the universe. But there is one number that surpasses all others for the enormous impact it will have on every living thing on Earth over the next few thousand years. We consider it so important that we've dedicated our lives to acquiring and understanding it. Today that number happens to be: 427.6. This is a measure (known in scientific terms as the mole fraction) of atmospheric carbon dioxide at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, in parts per million. It's part of a continuous chain of observations stretching back across two generations, to 1958, when Dave Keeling recorded the first measurement of 313 parts per million. Dave Keeling maintained this record, known as the Keeling Curve, using a running hodgepodge of short-term grants until 2005, at which point geochemist Ralph Keeling, a professor at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography, coauthor of this piece and Dave's son, assumed its stewardship. But now, after 67 years of battling to keep the program funded and provide the data to other scientists around the world, the program faces its most dire threat ever. Why? Endeavors of this nature—highly precise measurements of a trace gas over many decades—require three basic inputs: knowledge, people, and money. It's the third one that's at risk, thanks to the current administration's attacks on NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA provides support for our program both through an annual grant and through invaluable 'in-kind' support, such as staffers taking samples for us, maintaining buildings in remote areas where sampling occurs, and running the Mauna Loa Observatory. Monthly average carbon dioxide concentration at Mauna Loa (top panel) and annual financial support for the Scripps CO 2 program (bottom panel), adjusted for inflation to US dollars in 2007. Photographer: Adapted from Sundquist and Keeling, 2009 The Trump administration has made clear it wishes to gut NOAA's research enterprise, which is at the center of climate research globally. Already, we've seen large-scale firings and rejections of research proposals. Recent guidance from the Office of Management and Budget shows the administration intends to assiduously follow the blueprint of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 and shutter the Ocean and Atmospheric Research Line Office. This is not just a little haircut for a large federal agency—it's grabbing the scissors and stabbing the agency through the heart. If successful, this loss will be a nightmare scenario for climate science, not just in the United States, but the world. It will also likely spell the end of our ability to continuously update the Keeling Curve. Against this ominous backdrop, a small group of scientists is scrambling to preserve the ability to know how much carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere. NOAA maintains a global backbone of measurements of carbon dioxide and other gases, not just at Mauna Loa, but at more than 50 stations around the world. In parallel, our program at Scripps maintains records at a dozen stations. Other countries also contribute, but their efforts are almost all focused regionally, leaving the big picture to just a few programs that are global in scope. Climate change, however, is a global problem, and global networks address the really important questions. Such networks provide critical information on how fast carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are building up in the air from fossil-fuel burning and other processes. They provide information on how much carbon dioxide is being removed from the atmosphere by the oceans and by land plants. They provide information critical to independently verify emissions, to negotiate international treaties, to make decisions now about how much carbon dioxide the world can emit. These observational networks are the factual basis upon which all efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change are based. NOAA and Scripps play another key role in the atmospheric measurement community. How does the world know that the value of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today is really 427.6 and not 427.7 parts per million? Such differences may seem small, but they are consequential in the realm of climate research, and they can be calculated only because a lot of work has gone into calibration. Hundreds of groups can measure carbon dioxide using various off-the-shelf analyzers, but these analyzers first need to be calibrated using compressed air that has a known amount of carbon dioxide in it. Scripps assumed the lead role for preparing tanks filled with known amounts of carbon dioxide and dispensing them to the community until 1995, at which point NOAA took over. The country and the world are now at risk of losing the only two programs that have played this central role. If the current administration has its way, the climate change research community could soon be fully adrift, unable to know with sufficient accuracy how quickly carbon dioxide levels are rising. Even in the best of times, long-term observations can be very fragile. It is difficult to convince funding agencies to put money into long-term observations because, by definition, they are continuations; they have been done before. Most funding entities, from science agencies to philanthropic organizations, want to be associated with exciting, groundbreaking work, and sustained observations are too routine to scratch that itch. (Dave Keeling records in his autobiography, Rewards and Penalties of Monitoring the Earth , that at one point a National Science Foundation program manager demanded that, to maintain funding, he generate two discoveries per year from his record of carbon dioxide levels.) Another vulnerability stems from the fact that the community of researchers making sustained measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide probably numbers less than 30. Graduate students interested in learning to conduct this arcane work are a rare commodity. Patience and attention to detail are required, and years may be needed to accumulate enough data to answer the key questions or make groundbreaking discoveries. Researchers have to be extremely diligent and exacting to ensure that measurements in 1958 are comparable to those today. Calibration is an endless chore. This scientific pursuit isn't for everyone. Perversely, while the Keeling Curve has attained iconic global importance, this actually can hinder, rather than help the funding situation. Environmental programs tend to be organized by geographic domain and discipline—the National Water Quality Program of the US Geological Survey, NSF's Arctic Observing Network, and the US Forest Service, for instance. Amid these focused efforts, the big picture can be lost. As the climate change field has evolved, we have found it increasingly difficult to find sponsors who accept responsibility for measuring vital signs of the Earth as a whole. The original Mauna Loa measurements were started during the International Geophysical Year in 1957/1958. This was a massive, remarkable effort, led by the United States and including 67 countries, with the goal (simply put) of measuring every physical attribute possible on the Earth in one year. It led to numerous, important scientific discoveries and the establishment of many measurement programs worldwide. It established the South Pole station, for instance, a home for vital climate research that is still going today. It was a time of enormous optimism, of international cooperation (even during the height of the Cold War), of vast dreams, of global cooperation. And the United States was proud to lead the way. This sense of endeavor continued into the 1970s, when then president Richard Nixon—a conservative Republican—established NOAA to better understand the world's oceans and atmosphere. By the 1980s, the NOAA grew in scope, alongside the Scripps effort, to become the beating heart of global climate science. Now, after just three short months of the Trump administration, we are contemplating the abdication of US leadership in oceanic and atmospheric science and the loss of the largest and most critical observing network for carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases and their calibration laboratories. Our colleagues at NOAA are living day to day, not sure if tomorrow will be their last on the job. We pray that common sense will prevail and that NOAA will be spared the worst. Whatever its fate, we will remain in the fight to preserve the world's ability to measure carbon dioxide levels with whatever support we can muster, a small bulwark against climate science's new dark age.
