Misinformation
Misinformation
I was genuinely disappointed to see a recently published letter to the editor claiming water pollution will be one of the effects of the Thirty Meter Telescope construction.
This argument, which has been refuted numerous times, has been proven through scientific fact to be false.
An examination of rainfall maps for Hawaii Island makes this abundantly clear. The University of Hawaii at Manoa’s Geography Department has a map available for all to see at http://rainfall.geography.hawaii.edu/rainfall.html. It clearly shows the Mauna Kea summit is dry.
Should readers and writers of letters not believe UH, there’s always this map: www.homesforsaleonhawaii.com/hawaii-rainfall-map/.
The UH site states, “On high mountains, such as Haleakala, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, the maximum rainfall zones are found at the mid-slopes, above which rainfall declines steeply.
As mentioned above, the Mauna Kea summit has the lowest annual total in the islands.”
The summit gets a meager 8 inches of rain per year, compared to 10 times that amount halfway down the mountain.
In addition, the lower elevations have much greater land area, so the total amount of rain collected is 100 to 1,000 times more than at the upper elevations.
Even without this map, all Hawaii Island residents should know this to be true from their daily experience.
A glance at Mauna Kea often shows a clear summit, with the rain-bearing clouds trapped below 10,000 feet elevation because of the inversion layer, so the rain must fall below that level. And we should not need to remind folks of the nearly daily rains closer to Hilo.
Others will say, “Look at all that snow” — but remember that even 10 feet accumulation of snow during an entire winter season is not much water.
A gallon of water weighs 8 pounds. A gallon of powdery Mauna Kea snow is half a pound — telling you even a lot of snow is not a lot of water.
We appreciate that there are valid cultural concerns related to the development of Mauna Kea.
However, the ongoing barrage of blatant misinformation related to other issues makes it difficult to focus efforts on having a respectful dialogue about how we can move toward a solution for the future of Mauna Kea.
Roy Gal
Assistant astronomer and outreach coordinator, Institute for Astronomy
What’s made here?
In response to Ivy Gao’s comment, “Chinese people like ‘Made in Hawaii.’”
Yeah, we locals would like to see that also including “Made in USA.”
My relatives and friends on the mainland ask, “Send me something made in Hawaii.” Nearest thing I can come to that is “Grown in Hawaii.”
Ron Baptista
Mountain View