 Yeah, let's do some research. Research in Manoa. We like Manoa. We like research. We like all the agencies that do research, okay? So, today we have two special guests. One is Rashid Chowberry, and he's from Manoa. He's from the—wait? Pacific Cancer Applications Climate Center. Yes. He's a research scientist, which is something. He's a principal research scientist. That's something. And what do you research, actually, Rashid? Well, the Pacific Cancer Application Center is—the primary objective of this center is to generate and so base to climate informations for the vulnerable US-affiliated Pacific Islands. So, we produce, like, rainfall focused, sea level focused, and tropical cyclone focused, and also define the hazard response plan based on those informations, and disseminate this information to the Pacific Islands communities. Do you find you're more popular now? Well, yes. I mean, everybody beat you. They want to talk to you and hear from you and get plans from you? Yes, we regularly talk to them, and if we—actually, we find—we found it that we are popular when sometimes we are late to disseminate our newsletter. When we are late, they call us. They call you up. You got to hear from you. Where is the informations? So, that makes us feel wonderfully in some cases. And your friend, Joe Brinkley, is from NOAA, and G-Wiz, former Coast Guard, yay, Semper Paratus, which is—you know, really, that's what it's all about. We've been sitting at this table now for weeks talking about preparedness in the Coast Guard. So, you went into the—you went into NOAA, why? To get into the—this is the scientific base, kind of serving the country. Do you use the scientific research type thing? It's—which, NOAA does a lot of scientific stuff. It's a huge organization. So, NOAA Corps is a very small part of it. It's only a 200 and—or 320 of us, roughly, at any point in time. So, it's a very small branch of service—uniform service. Let me—let me sort of confirm the obvious. You guys do work together. You know each other. You see each other. You collaborate. And how? So, Rashad is kind of our C-level guru guy, and he prepares a in-house rainfall seasonal forecast. So, season will be in three months. And I basically prepare another forecast that we—basically, there's—so, we use seven dynamic models that we use to try to make a forecast, and then Rashad has a statistical model. Is it a weather forecast? Yes. It's rainfall—rainfall forecast. Okay. It's more than weather. I heard you—I heard you were going to say that. No. More than weather. It's climate. Not really weather. Climate. Yes. Aside from weather, what is there in climate? Well, it's a—we are—we are—what we are doing, we are focusing all on seasonal time scale. It's not like the weather folks that—from three to 21 days. We are far beyond that. So, when you go to that threshold, three months to nine months or one year, time is—it's actually for largely under climate. It's a horizon thing. It's like this program on BBC that says, beyond a hundred days, that's the name of the news program. And they were really telling you—and I think Tech could tell you the same—is they're not looking at their shoelaces. They're looking into the future. Yes. They're looking at sea changes in a larger sense. Right? Sea changes. I got that from the Coast Guard. But we are slightly different from others, because climate change actually is a—the time scale is really longer than one year. It goes from one year to a hundred years. But ours has more focus on climate variability on—on inter-annual time scale. That's the difference. So, how far out do you focus? I mean, ordinarily, when you make your reports and you suggest your plans. Usually three months to one year. And it ends in one year, because you really can't make an accurate forecast. Yes. That's one of the objectives. And we are working on climate variability, not really climate change. Also, the—which we mean thus variability within one year or within a certain time cycle, like three months or six months like that, based on the ocean and atmospheric changes. What's the difference between climate change and climate variability? Well, variability is that—you say, for example, this year you are having some weather and some anomaly on the weather atmosphere or ocean system. But it doesn't mean that this is done forever. Next year you might have something very different. Next year you might even get back to normal. So, this is what we try to mean variability. And change means it's already changed from one stage to another stage. And it's not coming back to the previous stage anymore. That's change. But from all this, can you draw long-term changes? I mean, for example, can you tell me how over—just between us, just between us, can you tell me how over a long period of time the climate is going to change? Is it going to get hotter? Well, that's why there is a probability forecast. That's why there is—excuse me, that's why there is an uncertainty. I mean, it's very difficult, but people are doing that. And we do not know and not really have any data to verify those information. Right now, this future will tell, I mean, how uncertain, how skillful those forecasts are. But at this time, the probability of forecasts are at least giving us a sense of what's going to happen in the future. Yeah. Okay. Well, we go one leg at a time. So, question is, what data do you get, do you need to do your work? And where do you get it from? I heard something about seven charts coming from NOAA. Is that it, or is there more? No. Well, this is part of the story, what Joe says. First, the question you asked, team, that how we work together. As I said, we are working on climate variability and change focus. Although change part we don't really touch much is about climate variability. The success of climate information is totally depends on—I mean, largely depends on how successfully you can disseminate this information to the target group, to the stakeholders, to the people. I mean, you have to—you need to train the people to really take your focus, because this is something different. People are not really ever of it. So, the major component of a successful story depends upon how quickly, how timely, how smartly you disseminate this information. Yeah, right, sure. There's a climate change if it falls alone in the forest. Anyway, and that's what Mr. Joe does. He is the person who really takes this information— And goes to the public. You're the outreach, then. Yes, I am the outreach. Okay, tell us how you do that. Come on, Think Tech, this is a big thing in terms of outreach, but what else? So, we have a monthly conference with—we try to have at least one person from every affiliated island that we work with, like Chuk and Quadruland and places like that, to call in every month. And we basically do—it's a conference call with them to find out like how everybody's doing, like give us a basically in-house report of like what their weather was. Who's there? Excuse me? Who's there? Noah Only or Noah Plus on their agency? It's generally WSOs from weather station or office, I think. Weather service officials? Okay. Basically, it's the other parts of branches of weather service. What is a weather service officer? Where is he deployed? Where do I find him? If I walk down— Well, I mean every place has their own like little place to do a forecast. Agency? Federal agencies? Like Guam is probably the closest like weather service— Governments of— Like forecast office that's there. Touristictions. Yeah, exactly. Okay, and they all have a weather service officer? I think so, yeah. And if they don't, they should these days, yeah? Yeah, well, I think that Guam is their primary—primarily their forecast kind of person that they turn to, for the most part. But we use—we have affiliates in Guam that we use for the most part of the outreach because there's people that— Are they giving you information or are they getting information? They're giving us some information and then we basically disseminate like— You're totally— By what they give us, we're able to make our own— You're tabulating it. You're giving it back to them. You take the data you get— From them. From them and you try to make some larger sense out of it and then you share that. The information that they give us helps us make our forecast. Okay. Or confirm that our forecast were correct or that sort of situation. You really need him, don't you? You really need him. And if it's funding dried up, you'd be a sad, unhappy fellow. Well, the way things occur, as you mentioned, yeah, those are part of the National Weather Service. And there are some NGOs, too. They participate in our monthly conference call. They provide some information like rainfall. We get rainfall data from them. Also, we verify with other sources, too. And based on those raw data, we prepare our forecast. What does rainfall tell you? I mean, obviously, there's clouds up there, they're giving up the water. And you make a—you chart them out, you map them, and you try to get a pattern on where those clouds are, where they've come from. And you probably have some data on how much rain and how big it is in terms of inches and all that. So you have various data within the rainfall, yeah? Yeah, various data. But the data that we collect and use is the tight-gaze data, the rain-gaze data. For syllable, we use the tight-gaze data. For rainfall, we use the rain-gaze data. That's—there is a particular locations. And the same days that the rain is saved here and the misery, they give us that. So, okay, so you have a spreadsheet, I always imagine— Yes. You know, you have a spreadsheet and you're filling it in. Somebody's filling it in in your office, yeah, and putting it in from the—what do you call it? The rain-gaze? Yes. And you have a time factor working? Yes. You have a location factor working? Yeah, six hours. They normally take six hours early, I think. Six hours early rainfall data. Six hours early. So you're getting this all the time? Yes. And you're sending it to them? You have a way of sending it to them? Well, we're not sending their rainfall data to them. They are sending their rainfall data to us. Wait, who's they? Some of the other—the affiliated islands in— WSOs. WSOs. Okay. I mean, office of WSO, we do not know exactly who is doing that. Yeah, okay. It's coming from the office of WSOs. So you're getting on a large geographical basis, okay? Yes. And I take it that rainfall data is like the most important factor, the most important contributing scientific data for you to make your maps and plans. This is one of the most contributing— What are the others? Sea level, depending upon the islands that we are talking about. It's the US-affiliated Pacific Islands, mostly in the North Pacific. And— Let's do some photographs. Yes. Yes. So these are one of those islands. This is the—this is how the islands are located in their area. It's so low-lying at all that even a couple of inches of rise of sea level or sea water, it inundates the whole area, when it's to the whole islands. What island is that? It's Majuro. Majuro. Yes. Okay. So what we— Is Noah out there? Yes. It is. Yes. Okay. Because that's going to be so tight. You're everywhere. Yes. You're a big agency. I know that. Yes. Sorry. Okay. Go ahead. Yeah. So we largely covered the US-affiliated Pacific Islands, mostly in the North Pacific, and one in South Pacific is American, somewhere in South Pacific. And in North Pacific is Guam, Saipan, Micronesia, Federated States of Micronesia, RMI, Republic of Marshals Islands, and Palau. You've described most of the Pacific Islands here. Yes. There are other islands, too. But these are the ones you care— And these are the ones that are at great risk to climate change. Yes. So the project you are working on, Rashid, right, is all about climate change in places of Pacific Islands, which are at great risk to climate change. I would again disagree. We work on climate variability. Time climate variability. I don't know what made me say that. Let's take a break. Get my head back together, get accurate here. We'll be right back after this short break. And aloha, my name is Calvin Griffin, a host of Hawaiian Uniform. And every Friday at 11 o'clock here on Think Tech Hawaii, we bring you the latest on what's happening within the military community. And we also invite all of your response to things that's happening here. For those of you who haven't seen the program before, again, we invite your participation. We're here to give information, not disinformation. And we always enjoy response from the public. But join us here, Hawaiian Uniform. Fridays, 11 a.m. here on Think Tech Hawaii, aloha. Aloha. I want to invite all of you to talk story with John Wahee, every other Monday here at Think Tech Hawaii. And we have special guests like Professor Colin Moore from the University of Hawaii, who joins us from time to time to talk about the political happenings in this state. Please join us every other Monday, aloha. Okay, let me just clarify. We're talking today about the role of the Pacific ENSO Applications Climate Center. And that acronym is PEAC, P-E-A-C, in Reducing Vulnerability to Climate Hazards. And we're talking about the experience of the affiliated Pacific Islands in that regard and climate variability. Yes. So what is an ENSO, ENSO, what is that? ENSO means El Nino Southern Oscillations. This El Nino Southern Oscillation is a most important climate variability in that area. The climate in those Pacific Islands are very sensitive to ENSO. During an El Nino year, usually they receive less than normal rainfall. The sea level goes down. And during an El Nino year, it's just opposite. There is more rainfall and sea level is higher than normal. So this is a most, I mean, the driving factors in the Pacific Islands. So that's why, I mean, our center has a name and it has a vision, too. That's why it's Pacific ENSO Applications Center. What's your purpose? I mean, how are you helping the world? Yes, the purpose is that there are many ENSO sensitive islands, ENSO sensitive countries in the greater Pacific Basin. It's not only those not Pacific Islands. So if we can really put an example, a successful example, that this ENSO, if your climate is sensitive to ENSO, we have an opportunity also to develop ENSO-based climate information. And we can generate that information well, at least three to six months well in advance. If we have that kind of an advance information, it's much easier and it is doable to handle, I mean, to generate a response plan and to, I mean, manage hazard management. So I live on Majuro. I know that every couple inches is a big threat to me and I know it's coming. And sometimes more, sometimes less, but it's coming. And it's already come, some of those islands. So I get your plan one day and I say, hmm, this is a plan from Rashid. I mean, it bears your organizational name, which is the, what is that? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And what does that plan tell me? And what can I use it to reduce my vulnerability? How can I, in turn, make the plan into action? How does that work? That's a great question. That's a great question. That's why we are here. I mean, that's what we like to talk about too. And that's the difference that we maintain from others. Well, what do we have? We can tell them that this is an early new year. It means you are going to receive less rainfall than normal. But when did it start? This summer? It's going to be end of this summer. Maybe start from October. September 21st. May end of September or early October. That's the equinox, isn't it? Early October. Solstice or whatever. Early October. So, yes, this means that they're going to receive less rainfall. They're still a little bit lower than normal. The less rainfall means, I don't know. Less rainfall is not a good thing then. Not even a good thing because they are, they save rainwater for drinking purposes. On a practical basis, sure. Yes. This is the only source of water. Catchment of water, yes. Catchment. That's the only source of information, only source of water they have. So, if we have less rainfall, that means it would cause sort of drought. And in 1997, we can explain it, that they had to import water from mainland. Even 2015, they had to import water from mainland. So, this is a sort of very expensive and also time consuming. They may not get that right. I mean, water timely, because there's some bureaucratic procedure that they have to maintain and call for those kind of water. It takes time to shift from California to here. But we're not saying that if it doesn't rain much in a given El Nino year, that that means that the rain is like pent up up there. It's pent up and one day there'll be a storm and it'll be really extreme. And it'll have all the rain that didn't fall before. You're not saying that. That's part of the story, but we cannot say it right now. That happens somewhere, if not on that island, maybe other island. That's what we call climate extremes, rainfall extreme. That is happening nowadays. I mean, this is a sort of new science coming up. But I won't really stay much or discuss much about that, because that's not part of the story. You're a weather scientist. What is your PhD? I did my PhD in water resources planning. So this is perfect for you. Pacific Island, this is perfect for you. It's okay. So I get your report and it says there's going to be El Nino year, maybe not so much rain. So you have to save rain water. So I have to save rain. You have to save water. You're going to tell me to do that and I have to try and do it. You cannot do that. Make some arrangements so that you can get at least drinking water. And you have to take care of your other agriculture. Also health issue too. When there is drought, there's the dehydration, some health concerns. And also it means that the sea level will be low. So coral reef will be exposed. That is another important source for fishing industry. So it affects everything. Everything. So giving them a warning that be careful, take care of that. Weather and water is central in the lives of Pacific Islanders. Yeah, that's what it is. So I heard Rashid mention the year 1997, something happened there and you actually Joe are qualified to tell us about it. What happened in 1997? It was just a strong El Nino year. And there's a picture I think that too. True. This is in the Marshall Islands where people are lined up for water rations that they were getting every 14 days. That's not too often, yeah. At that point you're in serious drought conditions where every little drop of rainfall is important. You can imagine how that was tough. 14 days, that's not very much. So let's spin through the rest of your pictures so we can handle on that. Can you go to number three? Yeah. As just you asked me before, how do they use this information? This is one of the stories that we like to tell here. This happened in 2008 or 2009, 2008. 2008 we told them that you are going to have a lanina, which means high sea level, higher than normal. What do you call that word? Lanina. Oh, lanina. Yes. It's going to higher than normal. That's different than King Thai. Just though, no, it's different than King Thai. But it's opposite to El Nino. So you don't have both at the same time? No, it's normally one this year. Normally it starts with El Nino, then lanina, then the cycle. Okay, okay. So we told them like this. And what happens, this is one of the islands and they took care of that. They used the boulders, sandbags, to protect some of the important infrastructures. So that's how they use. We told them and when they have that information, they take necessary actions to protect their lives and properties. That's what it is. Scary. Let's see some more pictures. Is that it? No, that's it. Okay, those are the pictures. Okay, well, we have a few minutes more and I just want to do this on a larger scale. I mean, you're working with the Pacific islands, but we all know that climate variability is coming other places as well. I mean, I went to Iceland recently and it was really interesting, you know, that the, what do you call it, the glaciers are melting and the tour guides says, oh, see that one in five years, that's gone. I believe them. That's climate change. That's climate change. Okay, all right, good. But you know, this is a part, this is the water aspect and the weather aspect is really a part of the new science, as you say. This has got to be, there have to be counterparts to Eurasia all over the world, right? Studying it wherever it takes place has a phenomenon. True. You have collaborators elsewhere? Well, we closely, actually all the islands are, we are collaborating very closely with them. This is one thing. Number two is that we are collaborating with Australians, via Bureau of Meteorology, the other islands in the South Pacific. And this information actually cannot be generated without collaborations. We have to collaborate with, say for example, CPC, Climate Prediction Center. We use their data. We use data from the International IRI International Research Institute for Climate and Society in New York. We are using data from even of doing world meteorological organizations. Or we are using data from NCEI National Center for Environmental, something. So there are so many institutions inside the U.S. I'm growing. I'm growing. You mentioned some new science. Yes. So what that tells me is that there is funding, there are organizations interested in building the scientific base on this, getting more algorithms, more data, more reports, more maps, so that we can all understand in close time what's happening. This must be very exciting for us. Exciting from that perspective, that we have to collaborate with the institutions inside the U.S. and also outside the U.S. Because climate, it doesn't have any boundary. Sure. It can happen everywhere. And all have to work together. And that's only then we can get a result. And what we produce here, actually, there are so many centers are directly or indirectly involved. And we take so many information from so many centers that, I mean, if I explain, they take a long time. But this is how it's working without others' help. And also we provide help to others, too. How big is your sense? How many people are involved? Well, in terms of this is a research center. Well, we call it applications research centers. I mean, we do research only if we see there is a possibility to implement the findings of this research. I mean, the findings of that research makes sense to the people, only then we go for that kind of thing. Just like the way we do here. So the research center itself is not very big. We have a couple of scientists. He is an outreach officer. There are two students with us. And also we have a PI, a principal investigator. And also we collaborate with some of the professors of the Department of Atmospheric Research. Oh, within the university. Yes, within the university. But our collaborators are all those national weather service officers in each of the islands. Yeah. But what really interests me, I didn't hear you disagree when I used the word algorithm, is that you take all this data and you put it on the spreadsheet and you want to have a conclusion of some kind or at least a suggested conclusion. And so somebody has got to find a mathematical relationship between the data in this column and the data in this column, the data from one of those seven sources or more and the data from other sources and put it all together. And that means making formulas and algorithms. You do that? I do that. But this is very interesting question. Is that you already mentioned a word correlations. So those are the tricky things here. Sometimes all models, all models doesn't really correspond very well with the observed data, with the findings. In that case, we have to use some other techniques to avoid some models, to take something or to disregard something like that. The models like artificial intelligence, you look at it and you learn from the way it moves. So you're not necessarily starting from the ground up because you know what happened here, you know what happened there, now you can figure out what's likely to happen. And that's the difference. I mean, that's the difference of the Pacific and application of climate center because we have an opportunity to get raw data and we have a chance to verify the findings. Not like others. Because what I say today, this goes to the field, to stakeholders within the next 15 days. And they will reuse it. Within two months, they will let me know whether I was right or wrong. So that's fun. Are you going to be the guide, Joe, that lets them know whether it's right or wrong? No, no, that's not me. That's the people that we give it to. They'll call and let us know how badly we did. How good we did. The national, what is it? NOAA is the national oceanic and atmospheric. Administration. Administration. And my question is, it must be changing. It must be perforce changing within its own organization to deal with the likes of this research and the demands made by agencies like this research. And ultimately, it's a governmental organization, so it's got to be sensitive to government and budgeting and all that. How do you see its role in moving ahead in this kind of science? What's its role? Just providing data or is it more? Well, I mean, NOAA is a... Weather services specifically are more about they're not nearest much into scientific research like what Rashid does. They're more like into applications to the prediction of hurricane sort of thing. So they're not really researching as much of hurricanes as much as they are figuring out how to predict them. So it's not researching actual hurricanes as much as they are just the tracks or situation going on. So I'm not really sure exactly how to answer your question. It's a big question with probably a very long one. It's a policy question. I'm asking a policy question. Well, let me just ask it this way to say you do foresee, at least you and your role, do foresee a long-term relationship with the likes of Rashad Rashad and his kinds of agencies here in Elstra. You need him and he's committed to you. It's not just casual. It's not just short-term. This is part of your research career going forward to have a relationship with NOAA, all right? Well, NOAA is doing a great job in this area, especially atmospheric and oceanic science. So, I mean, definitely they need also research, different types of research to find out new areas. And I think that's why I'm here. I'm just doing that kind of work right now. Although I belong to Joint Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research, University of Hawaii. It's a specialized area. But the nature of my job is to provide information to the National Weather Service, NOAA. I envy you. I envy you both. Different reasons. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Rashad and Joe, thank you for coming down. I hope we can do this again. We're behind you all the way. Thanks for having us, Joe. Thanks for having us.