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Hawaiian Wet Dreams Count for Greening
Close to the center of the Island of Kauai stands a lone crater. Most volcanoes spew steam, lava, or the occasional group of gawking mountaineers, but due to Mt. Waialeale’s age, height, girth, and fortunate placement in the middle of our planet’s biggest ocean, a dense raincloud wafts up from the mesa. As dependable as chimney smoke in Quebec on Valentine’s Day, the cloud drops nearly 40 feet of rain per year. About a dozen miles west (as the coot flies) near the mouth of the Waimea River, the parched earth gets about 40 times less rain.
If a microclimate is defined as a place that differs from a nearby place by providing more or less water, light, heat, wind, or soil fertility, it’s hard to imagine a better example than the juxtaposition of the mountain’s crackly, dry toe and her dark, mossy haunches. Long ago, natives knew the nature-made mile-high rain machine as the home of Kane, the soul of all living creatures, god of freshwater, spirit of sunlight, and keeper of forests. Their faith also taught that the top of Waialeale was the wettest tract of earth on Earth, and science now proves them right.
Need an easy way to get some gradual greening done today? Why not spend 10 minutes considering the microclimates on YOUR property? Where are the altars of life on YOUR land, and might they be altered?
2 comments:
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Howdy Nate,
This isn't exactly the same problem we face in Santa Fe, but, thinking ahead to your St. John's microclimate talk in April, I'm wondering how climate change affects microclimates.
I think of climate change as gradual... incremental, but I have a feeling that's only how it operates from a global perspective. Are microclimates susceptible to more radical change? Are certain microclimates better insulated from global trends? How do we know what to expect?
Matt "spring is sprung?" Johnston
The microclimates of Hawaii are fascinating indeed. Here on Hawaii Island, we have all but one of the climate zones (no tundra), and this in a land mass the size of Connecticut. The contrasts are stunning and abrupt. The windward side that traps the clouds carried via the trade winds to the two 13,000-foot volcanoes keeps rainfall at 160-300 inches per year, while on the leeward side, the Kona-Kohala Coast averages only 10 inches (hence, the emphasis on resorts). Interestingly enough, there is no formal water storage system on the island, even though it is only plentiful on the east side. I've been told that the water utility maintains only a 3-day supply of water. While rural areas not covered by the utility have long used catchment tanks for drinking and irrigation water, those on the utility do appear to be vulnerable in the event of an emergency.