Science Friday - Climate change is increasing hurricane risk for Hawaiʻi

Episode Date: September 22, 2026

The Hawaiian Islands tend to be insulated from the worst effects of hurricanes, but this summer has been different. In mid-August, Hurricane Lala pummeled the Big Island, damaging homes and roads and causing flooding and power outages. Then a few weeks later, Hurricane Lowell hit the islands of Ni‘ihau and Kaua‘i. What do scientists make of this hurricane season? And how is climate change playing out along Hawaiʻi’s coasts? Flora talks with Haunani Kane, who studies how climate change impacts the islands, about resilience, the importance of reefs, and combining different types of knowledge. Guest:Dr. Haunani Kane is an assistant professor at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa studying how climate change impacts islands and island people.Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri and sign up for our newsletters. Got a science question that’s keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-472-4374 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, it's Flora and you're listening to Science Friday. The Hawaiian islands tend to be insulated from the worst effects from hurricanes. But this summer told a different story. In mid-August, Hurricane Lala struck the big island, damaging homes and roads, creating flooding and power outages. Then a few weeks later, Hurricane Lowell hit the islands of Nihihau and Kauai, leaving more destruction in its wake. So what does scientists make of this dramatic? storm season for the Hawaiian Islands. Joining me now is Dr. Hounani Kane, an assistant professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where she studies how climate change impacts islands, reefs, and

island people. Welcome to Science Friday. Aloha, Flora. Mahalo for having me here today. Thank you so much for being here. How anomalous is this hurricane season for Hawaii? This hurricane season has been wild. The fact that within a month, we had two back-to-back hurricanes. That is definitely something that I have not experienced in my lifetime. I mean, do hurricanes usually make landfall in Hawaii? It's rare. It's rare for hurricanes to make landfall in Hawaii. A lot of times, as you have mentioned, we're buffered from the majority of the storms due to both our isolated location, but also the fact that a lot of these hurricanes, they enter cooler waters before they come close to Hawaii. So with this year, with

El Nino, with the prolonged warming of our oceans, the fact that our ocean is actually warmer and that there are numerous hurricanes that are coming straight for Hawaii, it's been, frankly, it's been a bit scary for a lot of the people that live here in Hawaii. Is that how it feels for you? Yeah, I think so. I live in Hilo on the Big Island or Hawaii Island. We're used to getting a lot of rain. We're used to getting wind. But this much rain, like upwards of 10, 15 inches over the course of a day or two, that it's been a lot. So just to unpack it a little bit, we have an Elinio year, You mentioned that the waters are getting warmer, and is the problem that then the hurricane doesn't lose power? Like if it's not bumping into colder waters, it sort of stays powerful?

Yeah, so when you look at typically what happens during El Nino and also what is forecasted with climate change, you see that with an El Nino year, the waters are warmer, so that's more fuel for the hurricane. The warmer water season is prolonged with El Nino through the fall. And then the fact with climate change, it's projected that this warmer water and these warmer air temperatures will also steer the hurricanes further towards the west and towards the north. So it'll allow those tracks to come closer to Hawaii as well. I mean, I think on the news we've seen damage to houses and infrastructure, how are these storms impacting natural features like reefs and shorelines? Yeah, so we're still learning. We're still studying.

We're still trying to figure out exactly how these storms have directly impacted our reefs. We've seen photos from reefs along the south shore of Maui that have been damaged. We've seen beaches that are covered in coral rubble. And this reminds me of a hurricane that came to Hawaii in 2018, Hurricane Wolaka. And it was a first time in recorded history that this hurricane, a Category 3 hurricane, made direct landfall. on one of the northern atolls in Papanao Makwa Kea National Marine Sanctuary. And what we saw there is these large, beautiful, pristine reefs with large plated corals, be completely ripped off of the reef platform.

And instead, you saw after the hurricane large fields of rubble and sand. What we saw also was that entire islands were completely moved or swept off into the lagoon. And over the past eight years, we've been studying the recovery of these reefs. So I'm trying to understand as a reef recovers, what are the first things that pop up? What are the first types of corals? What are the first types of algae? And then how that then translates into the recovery of the islands and, you know, seeing those cascading effects throughout the ecosystem. So using that as a lesson here for our main Hawaiian islands, we do understand that our reefs, you know, they're important. They not only help to dissipate the energy of these storms,

the wave energy that comes to shore and eventually erodes our beaches, but they are also capable of recovery and they are resilient as well. So a lot of our work has been focusing on trying to understand the direct impacts to the reefs and then how that translates to land. So they can continue to protect our islands and our people well into the future. Yeah, talk to me about that connection, the protection of the islands and how that's related to the protection of people. Yeah. So, you know, from a islander's perspective, from a Hawaiian perspective, we're all related.

There's no separation between people, place, or nature. we have an O'lelo no E'al or a wise saying in Hawaiian that says, Hey, Pukwa Akani Aina, and it can be translated in a number of ways. Literally, it's translated into a coral reef that grows into an island. So this is a little reverse of what we think of from like the geological evolution of islands where the reefs come later. But from this perspective, when we think especially about our sandy beaches and our older islands, it's the reefs that are literally feeding our islands with sediment. It's the reefs that are

the platform upon which these atoll islands sit upon. And then it's the reef that is also literally like physically feeding our people with resources and cultural empowerment. We also believe that the first living organism was a coral polyp and from the coral polyp up, all other life, including humans, people, came from that coral polyp. So there's this really intimate relationship between our reefs and our people. It's interesting. I hear you integrating all of these different types of knowledge, like in real time in that answer, traditional knowledge, traditional science. How do you think about bridging these different ways of knowing? Yeah, I think of it as a way of necessity.

So living on islands, we see firsthand the impacts that climate change is having upon us, whether or not it's, you know, being warmer or having increased sea level rise, increased coastal erosion, drought resulting in wildfires. These are things that are affecting us now. It's not something that we're thinking about planning in the next 10, 15, 20 years. I've been a professor only a handful of years. And within that time, I've seen my students be directly impacted by the wildfires on the haina. I've seen my students trying to complete their thesis, but also having no electricity or internet or losing parts of their houses or caring for their families while there's also a hurricane that's impacting them. So for us here in Hawaii and for many other people that are living on islands, this is definitely we see. we see the impacts of climate change and we see them happening now. And we're trying our best using all of the best available knowledge, whether or not it be something that's been passed down from generations or things that we're learning now by using technology to study what's happening around us.

Do the stakes feel very high? Oh, the stakes are higher than ever. And, you know, especially, I think, being like a young professor and still considering myself as a student and having a young family, I'm thinking about how these things are going to are impacting us not just now, but how they're going to impact our children and our children's children and our students and their children and all the future generations. What's the knowledge we need? I think the knowledge that we need is to be open-minded. I think we need to be open-minded about where we're seeking knowledge, whether or not it be from our climate models, from, you know, our sensors that are out in the ocean, or if it's from the people that are living in the places that are being impacted the most. And I think we really need to consider what the needs are and the wants of those people and how they want to adapt.

And we need to fight for those wants and those desires and making sure that that knowledge is helping us to develop solutions. And what about science-wise? What are you researching now? Yeah, so science-wise, we're focusing a lot on resilience, natural resilience, and thresholds of resilience. using both modern records, historical records, and paleo records. So try to understand at what ranges of sea level rise or, you know, if we can identify storms in the past, how did our reefs, how did our islands fare during those time periods? And if we project those same values of sea level rise into the future, we'll get some sort of understanding of whether or not our reefs and our islands can continue.

to provide the same functions that we need them to as people. What makes islands resilient? And can we use that knowledge to intervene in a helpful way to make the Hawaiian islands more resilient to climate change? Yeah, for sure. So I think there's definitely certain types of coral, certain types of limo or calcareous seaweed that are more resilient than others.

we're seeing that crustos coralline algae that pink limo or seaweed that you find on rocks and corals is really critical both to the recovery of our reefs as well as the recovery of our beaches and our coastal areas. And then the other component is resilient islands are a lot of times a function of resilient people. So people and communities that understand the value of their resources, caring for their resources, and understanding their relationship with their place and with nature. Dr. Hanani Kane is an assistant professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you so much for having me and for sharing this story. It's very important.

This episode was produced by Rasha Aireti. and I want to shout out Babs Gigi who wrote on Apple Podcasts, each daily segment opens up a whole new world. I feel the same way. Thank you for that review. Appreciate it. We will catch you next time. Thank you for listening.

I'm Flora Lichtman.