A Window to the World

Good Morning,

Hawaii really is an amazing place.  I was reminded of that again while reading a short article by Rose Kahele in Hawaiian Air’s inflight magazine.  It’s about a story I often include on tours but one very few people know—Charles Keeling’s air collection study from Mauna Loa.  In 1958 Keeling came to Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Observatory to test a hypothesis about carbon dioxide accumulating in the atmosphere.  Keeling came here because the air above our islands is some of the cleanest on earth.  The study is still ongoing.  Scientists collect samples twice a day.  That data set has given us the Keeling Curve, which has documented an annual increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide.  His data is one of the foundations which global warming theory is built upon.  Kahele writes, “Because of its longevity and accuracy, the Keeling Curve is the most important data set in climate science.”

Keelings study is just one of many from an incredible diversity of disciplines that use Hawaii as place to understand earth and life processes.  From the depths of our oceans, across our volcanic slopes, deep in the rainforests, from the alpine summits, to the mysteries of the universe, Hawaii is a stage and showcase that is unequalled anywhere on the planet.

I’ll close today’s blog with one of my favorite quotes about Hawaii. The February 1924 edition of The National Geographic was all about Hawaii—the whole issue.  In the forward, N.G.’s founder and editor, Gilbert Grosvenor recalls how he and his wife were asked by several folks how they could entertain themselves for eight weeks on those “tiny specks” of islands in the Pacific.  Grosvenor writes in response, “The members of this Society know that the Hawaiian Islands are one of the wonderlands of the globe; that Nature conceals in them more of her mysteries to attract and chain the attention of the student and more of her masterpieces to enrapture the visitor than in any similar area”

With Aloha,

Rob P.
Posted by Rob Pacheco at 1:15:29 PM in Blogs by Rob Pacheco, HFT Founder (16) | Comments (0)