Hot outside (Honolulu: house, heat pump, wedding)

[Jungjohann]

Originally Posted by Jonah K

It's an ʻohana unit on one of my properties that was assembled from a kit. It's way more comfortable than the air-conditioned main house that was custom-designed by a "mainland-trained," local architect.

Little large for an ohana isn't it?

[hawaiian by heart]

Originally Posted by Jonah K

It's an ʻohana unit on one of my properties that was assembled from a kit. It's way more comfortable than the air-conditioned main house that was custom-designed by a "mainland-trained," local architect.

Well its a gorgeous ohana home. Im happy for you.

[UHgrad]

Originally Posted by Jonah K

It's an ʻohana unit on one of my properties that was assembled from a kit. It's way more comfortable than the air-conditioned main house that was custom-designed by a "mainland-trained," local architect.

Is it comfortable inside when it isn't comfortable outside though? I'm in an old plantation style home with trade wind exposure and it is fine most of the time but these calm days where the afternoon temperatures are near 90 it just isn't comfortable in the house no matter what we do. How can a house be cooler than the environment around it without mechanical cooling? Even if you are able to get a good circulation going with ceiling fans and good ventilation, that air is still 90 degrees... Maybe you are upcountry or someplace cooler but town is HOT right now.

[whtviper1]

Originally Posted by UHgrad

but these calm days where the afternoon temperatures are near 90 it just isn't comfortable in the house no matter what we do. How can a house be cooler than the environment around it without mechanical cooling? Even if you are able to get a good circulation going with ceiling fans and good ventilation, that air is still 90 degrees

If you choose to be inside when it is 90 degrees with no AC, then you are essentially sitting inside in 90+ temperatures. Fans just move/circulate the 90+ degree air around - that's all. It isn't like you have a wind chill factor in those temperatures.

Don't be inside in 90+ degree temps without AC.....

[UHgrad]

Originally Posted by whtviper1

If you choose to be inside when it is 90 degrees with no AC, then you are essentially sitting inside in 90+ temperatures. Fans just move/circulate the 90+ degree air around - that's all. It isn't like you have a wind chill factor in those temperatures.

Don't be inside in 90+ degree temps without AC.....

I guess that's my point, folks are pointing to design as a cause, and certainly in some cases it is part of the problem... but at the end of the day you can only really make your house as cool as the outside air unless you have some other means of cooling it.

Obviously I don't want to be inside the house when it is 90 degrees but we have an infant which limits our beach time and I'm not gonna go walk around Kahala mall for 6 hours a day just for the air conditioning. Going outside doesn't help, it is no better on the lanai than inside the house... it is just HOT.

It's fine, we aren't gonna die from heat stroke or anything. But I wouldn't call it comfortable by any stretch. I didn't really intend this thread to go down this path, I was just commenting on how hot it was and how I think it is funny that people say "it is never hot in Hawaii" or "you don't even need A/C in Hawaii". I just think A/C is a good option out here. You probably don't need it ever but it is certainly nice about 20 - 30 percent of the time.

[pj737]

Originally Posted by UHgrad

I just posted the advertiser article because this is not a meteorology forum, trust me I read the study. In fact I know the girl that did the study and published it. While I will admit that the 28% is just picking two endpoints and taking the difference to make the article seem more interesting, the honolulu long term trend is downward and far greater than 2% as you say it is. If you extrapolate it goes from about 240 NE trade wind days in the 70's to about 200 in the 2000's in Honolulu. Furthermore, the long term data indicates a decrease in the intensity of the NE trade winds when they are blowing from about 5.5 m/s to about 4.8 m/s over the same period.

How about I just post the link to the full article and people can read for themselves.

Changes of the prevailing trade winds over the islands of Hawaii and the North Pacific - Garza - 2012 - Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres (1984–2012) - Wiley Online Library

Figure 4 shows the decrease in NE trades pretty effectively along with the increase in easterly wind days and figure 5 shows the decrease in intensity. Northeast winds and east winds are not the same thing, they bring different air masses with different properties and they interact with the mountains differently to impact the frequency and intensity of rainfall. NE trade winds did not increase since 1984, easterly trade winds did. They address that in the conclusions of the paper very specifically.



It is also getting warmer in Hawaii (just like everywhere else) and the rain patterns are changing. It is all well documented because we have decades of data taken at multiple stations.

http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/coasts/p...eBrief_low.pdf

It really wasn't my intention to get into a pissing contest here but I know a thing or two about Hawaii weather and climate so I am not gonna just let misinformation be spread. Like I said, you may be right about the changes in building codes and construction methods... I am sure that has an impact on how hot the houses get... but you are wrong to say that the weather is the same as it was 40 years ago. The data says otherwise.

What fun are forums without pissing contests?

Since you know the girl who actually did the study, you are probably very well aware that these people need to substantiate their existence. They LIVE for this kind of sensationalist spread of information. Some science-centric/career people work decades just to have the opportunity to present a sensationalist white paper; they will do everything in their power to present/translate/interpret the data they've collected so that it raises alarms and increases human interest - simply because they want the attention, they want the exposure, they want the notoriety.

Try to read the paper again but this time ONLY focus on the data and plot charts. Allow yourself to use some logic and reasoning to interpret this data on your own and you will come to the same conclusion - it's all fluff.

I understand there are environmental changes that result from a more easterly wind flow than northeasterly wind flow but the azimuth (heading) change is insignificant. We are talking a 5-10 degree change in heading, not 45+ degrees. Such a shift will not have a dramatic impact on our weather patterns as you would suggest. Again, the sensationalist paper stated in its first paragraph that "at the Honolulu International Airport, northeast trade wind days usually occurred 291 days per year 37 years ago are observed to occur only 210 days per year in 2009." This represents a whopping 28% decrease and the headline to the article capitalized heavily on this "fact". In reality, it's a lie. This is where they lost all credibility right off the bat. First of all, the data previous to 1973 was "tweaked" in their favor to enhance the tradewind flow so the "291" figure was WAY too high to begin with. Then they cherry picked the 2009 year (with the lowest number of tradewind days in their sampling period) as the base for "recent" tradewind flow further cherry picking data points to raise alarms.

Using ship based observations and winds stress measurements
from 1947 to 1972, Wyrtki and Meyers [1976]
found a shift in the northeast trade wind direction toward a
more zonal orientation between 125E to 75 W. Harrison
[1989] analyzed trends from 10 to 30 years of surface
winds from several of the central Pacific Islands between
135E and 125W. It was shown that between 3N and 3S,
each island shows decreasing easterlies and increased meridional
flow toward the equator, although there is no significant
trend in the trades overall. Because there are very few spatial
observations of surface conditions in the tropical Pacific, it is
difficult to conclude the statistical significance of overall
trend patterns in the wind stress fields

Sorry, this data won't work for us; we need something that shows trade winds are dying and dying fast... next

In addition to island records, surface winds from
individual ship reports were also investigated by Cardone
et al. [1990] and more recently by Tokinaga and Xie [2011].
Multidecadal trends are explained as a result of Beaufort
observations versus uncorrected anemometer observations in
the data set. This resulted in spurious trends in wind speeds,
as suggested by previous research.

Well, this data is definitely not going to work for us either. Nobody wants to use "spurious" trends to come to a conclusion.

utilized surface atmospheric
pressure data as opposed to wind observation data.
Because surface pressure data do not depend on varying
wind estimation methods and therefore do not suffer from
false trends due to incomplete and inhomogeneous wind
observations, this data set is preferred.

Translation "this data is preferred because it suits our agenda the best

Further, they state that wind pattern changes that last decades DO indeed happen -

simple surface atmospheric pressure
gradients between the eastern and western equatorial
Pacific boundaries are effective indicators of tx [Clarke and
Lebedev, 1996]. Based on inferences between zonal pressure
differences and tx, their results suggested that the equatorial
Pacific trades have strengthened in the 1930s, weakened
from the late 1930s to late 1950s, strengthened during the
1960s, and have weakened rapidly since the early 1970s.
The recent reduction in wind stress has significant implications
on oceanic features such as sea level rise and others.

The standard for expressing wind direction in meteorology
and most general public weather forecasts is the
8-point compass, which uses the cardinal points of the compass
(north, east, south, and west) as well as the ordinal
directions (northeast, southeast, southwest, and northwest).
In this study, the northeast and east direction intervals of
the 8-point compass are considered. A northeast trade wind
is defined here as a wind observation between 22.5 and
67.5 degrees, while an east trade wind is defined from
67.6 to 112.5 degrees each of which direction encompass a
45 degree angle.

So basically a benign shift of several degrees will turn "tradewinds" into "easterly" winds. OK.

Bottom line is this study proves nothing at all. Someone else could take all that data and say the complete opposite - and that trade winds are getting STRONGER.

Yes, we know the planet is getting hotter because we have 650,000 years (not just 30 years) of data and tens of thousands of agreeing scientists across the globe to prove it - nothing to logically refute that. And yes, these higher temperatures are indeed making things a little warmer here on Oahu but nothing you would actually "feel" and nothing that is changing weather patterns to create hotter environments in general. The difference in temperature increase over the last ~30-40 years is so insignificant that it's 100% imperceptible to a human. However, in the meantime, society has created more mechanically controlled climates (i.e. air conditioning) so humans spend more time in them than they have in the past. Air conditioners are proportionately inexpensive compared to 30 years ago. They are sold literally everywhere light bulbs are sold. New homes 30 years ago NEVER had air conditioning. Now all new homes have ac to some extent. People are more and more by the day becoming conditioned to these more prevalent/omnipresent mechanically cooled spaces. After sitting in a 75 degree air conditioned school, house, office for 10 hours straight, and step outside into 90 degree heat, of course people are going to say MAN IT'S HOT! In fact, I swear it was NEVER this hot before!

This is 100% a result of human conditioning to man-made, electrically/mechanically environments. The heat we are "experiencing" has nothing to do with changes in ambient exterior temperature do to weather changes but 100% to do with human conditioning. Humans are literally becoming acclimated to the man-made cold interior temperatures of buildings and are now suffering more when they go outside.

In 30 years when 5X more people will have solar pv on their homes, they will be introduced to the luxury of "free" air conditioning. And guess what, in 30 years everyone will say - damn it's so much hotter these days then it was in the mid 2010's. That's 100% guaranteed.

[nerdlette]

Getting back to OP… I for one agree that it was freaking hot and I absolutely need AC. They did maintenance on the cooling tower yesterday so we couldn't turn on the AC from 8-5. I opened the windows and any air that did come in was warm. Blech. It was 85 degrees inside. Fans didn't change the temp - did feel more comfortable, though.

I work from home and turn off the AC once in a while but, not a day goes by that it's not on. Our electricity bill for our first month was just a little under $300. Not sure yet if that'll be our new normal but, that's pretty on par with our NYC bill. (Is that high for Honolulu standards?)

I guess it depends on where people are since Hawaii geography is pretty diverse. Reading the forums prior to moving here, I read stuff about things getting moldy that lead to rot and yep, how you don't even need AC - just to mention a few things. Hasn't been our experience. Just my 2 cents.

[Jonah K]

Originally Posted by UHgrad

Is it comfortable inside when it isn't comfortable outside though? I'm in an old plantation style home with trade wind exposure and it is fine most of the time but these calm days where the afternoon temperatures are near 90 it just isn't comfortable in the house no matter what we do. How can a house be cooler than the environment around it without mechanical cooling? Even if you are able to get a good circulation going with ceiling fans and good ventilation, that air is still 90 degrees... Maybe you are upcountry or someplace cooler but town is HOT right now.

From owning some of those old plantation houses and some modern "hotboxes," I've learned a few tricks for keeping the interior of a house slightly cooler than the outdoors, such as the importance of good roof/attic insulation, strategically-planted trees, using window shades/blinds, etc. For instance, it's usually several degrees cooler in the shade underneath my ʻohana unit than it is in the rest of the yard. Floor vents allow this cooler air inside and roof vents allow warmer air to escape, taking advantage of the "stack effect."

[McFrostyJ]

Here's another good tip that might help some of you. If you want to feel cooler in warm weather, lose some weight. Sadly, most all of my friends and family who complain about warm weather are overweight. In fact, I don't know anyone who is in good shape that complains about the heat.
Oh, and drink lots of water.

[whtviper1]

Originally Posted by McFrostyJ

Here's another good tip that might help some of you. If you want to feel cooler in warm weather, lose some weight. Sadly, most all of my friends and family who complain about warm weather are overweight. In fact, I don't know anyone who is in good shape that complains about the heat.
Oh, and drink lots of water.

UHgrad- Lose some weight already!! Drink some water! You and the baby!!!