04-21-2018, 10:43 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Midnight Rambler
I'm curious, during what part of the last 4.543 billion years was the climate not in a state of change?
It's been pretty stable for the past 10,000 years or so (with a couple of little bumps as the last bits of ice sheets melted), until the past 20.
First arrived here in 1975. Can't say I've seen much in the way of "climate change". Like you said droughts and floods seem to have always been part of the weather picture.
The long-term average has been considerably lower since 1998, the first seriously hot year, than it was before then. Particularly on the dry side, but even on the windward side (obviously, a 20% drop in rainfall is less noticeable when it goes from 120 inches to 100 than going from 40 to 32). Nearly everyone I know who has been here as long as you have has said this.
When was the last time the streams in Kau flooded and cut off Highway 11 below Pahala? IIRC it happened once last year, for the first time in 10 years or so. When I first got here in the early 90s, it happened two or three times a year, every year.
Pahoa was warmer in the 1960's and 1970's. All monthly high temperature records were established between 1963 and 1977. Dry? Pahoa is just shy off 70 inches of rain this year and its only April. Most sites put 100 inches as the average yearly rainfall for Pahoa. Probably hit that average before even half the year is over.
Wet years, dry years. A series of dry years followed by a series of wet years. This is the only pattern I've noticed.