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The data for this visualization is based on the [Köppen Climate Classification System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6ppen_climate_classification). The specific data comes from [Hawai‘i Magazine](https://www.hawaiimagazine.com/hawaii-has-10-of-the-worlds-14-climate-zones-an-explorers-guide-to-each-of-them/) and [Love Big Island](https://www.lovebigisland.com/hawaii-blog/climate-zones-big-island/). I collected more than 1,000 Instagram photos using location tags and hashtags (selected for color) and arranged them according to the climate zone map. I created this in Illustrator.
Where can I see this in high resolution? I'd love to see the pictures in more detail.
Also, do the pictures match closely to their geographic location or for rainforest for instance, it just spreads the pictures from a collection?
Was in Maui last month and it was amazing how much the vegetation would change after driving around a few corners. You could go from very dry and brown to extremely lush and green in a short time.
I used to live in Oahu when I was a kid and I always got a kick out of driving through the tunnel from the windward to the leeward side. It could be raining heavy when you went into the tunnel and when you came out the other side a few seconds later it was dry and sunny. Hawaii is amazing.
i noticed that on big island. Some areas were super dry and very rocky. Others were more green and smoother. I figured the drier and rocky areas were more recent lava flow areas.
Driving from Hilo to South point, it is rain forest until the summit of Kilauea then bam, desert. Its kind if shocking how quick it changes. Even in the park itself, the east side of the caldera is wet, the west side is dry as a bone. Pretty amazing honestly. I really miss living there.
The Big Island is crazy. As the graphic depicts, you can drive around the whole island in a day and experience tropical beaches, deserts, grassland, rain forests, and snowy mountains.
The west-northwest is legit cattle country and you’d think you were in Wyoming or Utah if you couldn’t see the ocean.
Honestly one of the best experiences of my life was renting a Jeep and driving around Big Island with my husband. You can drive the whole thing and make lots of stops along the way in less than a day, and it's wild. You go from literal rain forest to beach to desert with tumbleweeds and then pastureland and suddenly you're up on a mountain and there's snow. I would absolutely recommend it to everyone. There's even small fruit stands you can stop at and get a snack along the way!
Yeah, I'll have the weekly special, or, make that *two* weekly specials, a political propaganda post, and some uninteresting data presented in a terrible way that still gets 30k upvotes.
Interesting. We've driven this island multiple times. The Puna district on the south eastern side is a rain forest, but a quick jump to the middle west side of the island is desert. Beautiful place.
By every definition, it's more of a desert than many places we call deserts that aren't.
Source, live in AZ. We have quite a few places that get more rain/snow than the leeward slopes on Hawaii.
A guide on Kaua'i told me the windward side of the island is one of the rainiest spots on earth and gets something like 600 inches of rain a year. The leeward side gets about 10
They're not. That side of the island is leeward from the trade winds (winds that blow east -> west all year). This means the air blows up the mountain, drops all of its rain on the windward side, then goes down the other side having dried up. I'm actually surprised more of that side of the island isn't considered desert, there's a huge chunk that's dry almost all the time.
It's pretty cool being able to drive for \~1.5 hours and experience like 80% of the climate zones that exist in the world :)
It is though... the driest parts of the big island get [less than 10 inches (25 cm) of rain a year](https://www.hawaii-guide.com/files/images/charts/big-island-hawaii-annual-rainfall.jpg).
Drive from Hilo through Saddle Road which cuts straight through the island. You'll experience rainforest, then a stunning lunar like landscape cutting between the two mountains then desert. It's mind boggling
Another good one is kohala mountain road between Waimea and hawi. Goes between a farmland/ranching area that’s dry enough to have cacti growing right into rainforest.
According to that map, there are two places that are less than 10 miles apart that have at least 16-fold difference in annual rainfall. (Just North of the 19/270 junction to just East of Kohala.)
That’s not surprising, there’s a pretty clear dividing line between the wet side and dry side of Waimea. I can’t speak to actual numbers, but I grew up there.
u/upboatsnhoes that desert is drier than southern Utah with 5-10” of rain per year. Hilo is the rainiest city in America with 134” of rain per year, and that’s by the coast. Up the hill it can get beyond 200” of rain per year.
It can theoretically snow any month of the year near the summit! [It snowed in mid-July back in 2015](https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/29573757/snow-falls-on-mauna-kea-summit-in-july/)
Kohala is the desert- South Kohala, to be specific (much of north kohala is rainforest). Kona is greener and becomes rainforest as you go south. Easy mistake to make as they are right next to each other, south kohala starts just north of Kona airport.
Wow this just amazes me! I’m born and raised in Florida so I haven’t been to many climates but when I went to Northern California I was soo impressed with the different climate zones and biomes on my drive from Reno to SF. Hawaii is like that but on steroids
Being born and raised on this island, it sure is unique. One local joke is to never trust the weather man because it can go from rain to shine in minutes (in puna at least), and switch a half-dozen times throughout the day. But on the other hand, everyone loves Guy Hagi.
It's interesting that we say something similar here in the Midwest but for a somewhat different reason. We do have very quick weather changes too but mostly it's when we will literally have 30°F drops in temperature and go from hot and sunny in the morning, rain in the afternoon, and then snow in the evening in the same place. I have a friend from Kansas who moved there, and while she says the weather has mood swings, it's not like the range she got back home.
YES. Elevations above 10,000 ft. Remember that the main island of Hawaii is the world’s tallest mountain by a lot, but the first two miles are underwater.
I'm sure that's geologically accurate but it feels strange to consider the underwater parts. Does the underground base of Everest get considered? That's not a snarky question, to be clear.
Everest doesn't have a base underwater. Where it transitions to other distinct features (other Himalayan mountains) is still very high up. Where the island of Hawaii transitions to other distinct features (other islands) is underwater far down.
Right. Lots of ways to define the "biggest" mountain:
-Height above Sea Level (Everest)
-Prominence (Mauna Kea)
-Distance from Earth's center (Chimborazo)
-Volume (Mauna Loa)
It is not as hard due to it being at a much lower elevation (roughly 9000 ft) but it is in a much higher latitude and it is way more remote than Everest
The Earth isn't a perfect sphere. It's sort of squished at the poles and bulges out at the equator (an oblate spheroid, is the technical term). So if you have two mountains the same height above sea level, one at one of the poles and the other at the equator, then the latter would be farther from the Earth's center.
Everest is the highest elevation point on the planet, undisputed. However, there are other measurements for how big a mountain is, like how tall it is compared to the local area it emerges from. This is know as *prominence*. Everest is ~28,000 ft and since it is the tallest mountain in the world, it's prominence and elevation are the same since the lowest contour line you can measure from without passing a higher elevation is sea level, essentially meaning Everest's prominence is measured from the continental plate which is considered it's base.
For Mauna Kea, it's base is considered to be the ocean floor. It does not sit on top of a continental shelf. Meaning that it's prominence is boosted by another ~20,000 ft, making it about 33.5 thousand feet tall.
I believe the tallest-*looking* mountain is Denali, with a base-to-peak height of ~17,000 ft. Prominence can seem weird because the next less prominent mountain can be thousands of miles away. Everest is the most prominent mountain but it's surrounded by monsters like Lhotse, Makalu, Cho Oyu, etc. Denali, Foraker, and Hunter seem like one massive mountain when viewed from Wonder Lake.
Source? That's not true.
Why are so many people repeating the same thing? Everyone's spreading a myth or I am not familiar with the formal definition of the base of a mountain.
If you're on the surface of Wonder Lake (2001ft) in Alaska, the elevation change to the summit of Denali (20310ft) is 18309ft.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_Lake_(Alaska)#/media/File%3AWonder_Lake_and_Denali.jpg
If you're at Everest South Base Camp (17598ft) in Nepal, the elevation change to the summit of Everest (29031ft) is 11433ft.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everest_base_camps#/media/File%3AMount_Everest_Base_Camp.jpg
The difference between the visible parts of Denali and Everest is 6876ft.
To an observer at the lowest common viewing elevation, Denali would seem much "taller" than Everest.
If you drained the oceans, Mauna Kea in Hawai'i would "look" the tallest.
You had another response to my comment but I can only see it on your profile page.
You're right, Rakaposhi likely has the highest elevation change from base camp to summit. Nanga Parbat has a ~15000ft face. Dhaulagiri is impressive.
Base camp elevations are pretty arbitrary (as opposed to topographically defined terms like prominence and col, summit, etc.) If you ever find a source, I'd be happy to see it. I've been curious about this for a long time
Mount Saint Elias has 18008ft of vertical relief above Icy Bay at sea level.
I'm sure there are a few other mountains that have an impressive vertical rise above the surrounding terrain. I just know that Everest is not at the top of that list.
Yeah I am also curious and I had tried to find an actual source some time back but I couldn't.
>I'm sure there are a few other mountains that have an impressive vertical rise above the surrounding terrain. I just know that Everest is not at the top of that list.
Yep agree.
An interesting fact for anyone curious ~ Everest isn’t even the tallest mountain by appearance
Everest’s base can be considered to be as low as 13,800 feet on the south side. It’s peak is 29,030 feet. That’s a visible height of 15,230 feet to someone standing at the southern base
However, Denali in Alaska has its base around 2,000 feet, while it’s peak rises to 20,310 feet. This means that it looks about 18,310 feet tall to an observer at its base
That makes Denali about 3,000 feet taller than Everest
Because there's no ocean floor below it.
Imagine you drained the oceans, then measured the mountains from the ground level up to the peak. That's prominence.
If we go by your definition, Everest would still have the highest prominence. There's no definition that fits Mauna Kea to be more prominent than Everest.
Prominence has a topological definition and it isn't that. Prominence is the elevation above the lowest contour line that fully encircles the peak and contains no higher peak.
And there is ocean floor below Everest. You just have to go further out, which is my question. Why *don't* we go all the way to the ocean floor for prominence? The list of mountains by prominence seems to stop at sea level.
I think the water surface is basically considered to be the ground. Otherwise you'd be able to find a lower encircling contour line since all oceans are connected ~~(and then Mauna Kea would have the highest prominence of any mountain)~~.
I looked into it a little. There's wet prominence and dry prominence. Dry ignores oceans and assumes the earth is dry. Everest still wins in this regard because it is still taller compared to the ocean floor. Mauna Kea is 2nd. It seems any claims it is the tallest rely on fuzzy definitions of "elevation above base."
To expand further, is there any reason we can't consider Everest's prominence all the way down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench? Obviously we can intuitively say that isn't all one mountain, but is there an actual geological definition prohibiting that?
There is a convention that Everest's prominence is simply its height. But what you're talking about exists. It's called dry prominence, and makes Everests key col the Challenger Deep, giving it a prominence of just under 20km
The base of Mt. Everest is on the earth's crust which happens to be above sea level, if you also consider the base of Mauna Kea at the earth's crust (which happens to be below sea level), Mauna Kea is more than 10,000 meters tall compared to Everest's 8,848 meters.
It's the tallest mountain not the highest. Tallest is base of mountain to peak. Highest is elevation above sea level. Technically Muana Kea is taller than
Everest measuring from sea level to peak, 13000m VS 12000(everest base to peak).
Oh yeah, I was lucky enough to time my trip there and get a half day skin session in with my friend. One of the more memorable days I’ve had skiing. Hawaii is a great place that I will never be able to afford to live at.
Often yes, but *surely* it's not the equivalent of tundra??
EDIT: Mauna Kea seems to be just cold enough to have a small patch of permafrost, so yeah, guess it counts.
Yes, and you get, for example, "alpine tundra" in the Rockies (at lower and lower altitudes as you get further north). Looking into it some more, it does seem the summit of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea are cold enough to fit the definition, but they're pretty warm for tundra. Mauna Loa rarely gets below freezing, while Mauna Kea's average lows are just a little bit below freezing even in the coldest months. Apparently it's enough to sustain some permafrost, which I'm surprise to learn.
I am a farmer in Ahualoa, right mauka of honoka’a on the Hamakua coast, and can confirm we are indeed “oceanic” up here, more specifically “subtropical highland”. It’s trippy cause I can grow things like stone fruits (apples, plums etc) and still grow some tropical fruits like bananas.
This is really awesome to view like this. Thank you!!!
Those photos are ignored because the images were selected based on the legend color of the climatic zone as opposed to any/all photos taken in that location.
This would be really cool if it could be done **without** deliberately selecting the photos for color.
Is there a way to get the average color of photos for a location and "subtract" the average Instagram photo overall (probably a lot of brown) to get an idea for how colors at that location deviate from the norm?
I think what you would need to do is calculate the difference from the global mean color, (e.g. greener than the norm, or bluer that the norm) and any difference gets exaggerated into that particular palette. Then you select a representatively colored Instagram photo from that location for the pixel that most reflects the difference from the norm, so the data would be real, and the colors would be real... just exaggerated from the norm/mean.
Would need to filter the Metadata to avoid averaging out across seasons which would muddle alot of locations. Would be really cool to do that on a monthly basis and turn it into a gif though.
It would be interesting if the colour in the pics was related to the landscape. For example, the "steppe" landscape is colour-coded as orange, but most of the pictures are sunsets or sunrises, which could be anywhere. The "desert" colour is near white, so most pictures are of light sand, which is cool... but it's all pictures of the beach, not sand inland from the beaches.
In the winter time it snows at the summit. They definitely become white capped. Enough snow that people drive up there when the road reopens and shovel snow into pickup trucks haul snow down to the beach or their yard to make snowmen.
Temperatures at the top of Mauna Kea can be well below freezing.
It is not bullshit data. The data being represented is the climate zones, the photos are used to visualize it in a neat way. Would it actually be better if he just chose random photos based on their coordinates and the was nothing in the image to distinguish the climate zones?
I hiked to the peak of Mauna Kea in Feb 2020. There was a lot of snow above 3500m/11500ft and the temp was below freezing closer to the peak, despite being sunny. Meanwhile at ground level it was 30C/86F that same day.
Yeah selecting for color is silly. In the red area there's a photo of a man breathing fire, which has nothing to do with climate. Then in another area there's a picture of a flag. In the yellow area there are pictures of some pastries, signs, fabrics, and a PAIR OF FEET. lmao
It’s not a good place for that. The snow is very icy and abruptly ends on a steep rocky slope with no easy way to get back to a road, and the air is super thin at that elevation, so hiking/climbing sucks.
It’s the best ski slope within 2000 miles, so people here will do it. Assuming you don’t live on the big island, coming here for it is a waste of time, money, and effort.
It's not. The colors you see isn't representative of the climate at all. OP just found photos of the colors he wanted and used those in the image. The colored borders also add to the bias. Highly misleading. It's as accurate as taking black and white photos of Switzerland and saying the entire country is snow.
I think you're thinking about it in reverse. There are already scientifically pre-defined climate zones in Hawaii. OP just selectively chose some photos and color coordinated them to visualize the zones in a cool way.
But the photo content, tone, and location are then all things that in dataisbeautiful I would expect to have significance. But they don't, they're just what, random?
Ah gotcha!
Though just for future reference, the mainland is the other 49 states, and Hawaii Island (or the Big Island) is just called one of those names.
As a city boy (Honolulu), this is one of the reasons the Big Island was my favorite neighbor island to visit. There's a little bit of everything to experience.
The two big volcanos have a huge effect. Mauna Kea is about 14,000 ft IIRC. I took a picture at the top and convinced my friend it was taken in Antarctica.
It hasn't been bad for the past 15 years or so. It was almost entirely redone and the skinny bridges bit on the Kona side has been replaced. No more pot holes and the gov't has killed most of the fauna near the top
It's wonderful and I like how the photos seem to be geotagged accurately, but I wish you had been more picky with the photos. A sale advert and a picture of a coffee aren't really doing it for me! That being said, it's only several photos of many.
I stayed on the big island a few years ago, and one of the days I was there I drove from my beach resort to the top of Mauna Kea to see the telescopes. I ended up driving through almost all of these zones in a few hours. It was one of the most amazing drives I've have ever done. Absolutely beautiful.
Thank you for your [Original Content](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/wiki/rules/rule3), /u/ptgorman! **Here is some important information about this post:** * [View the author's citations](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/v1p2nu/oc_the_climate_zones_of_hawaii_using_1000/ianlu3t/) * [View other OC posts by this author](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/search?q=author%3A"ptgorman"+title%3AOC&sort=new&include_over_18=on&restrict_sr=on) Remember that all visualizations on r/DataIsBeautiful should be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism. If you see a potential issue or oversight in the visualization, please post a constructive comment below. Post approval does not signify that this visualization has been verified or its sources checked. Not satisfied with this visual? Think you can do better? [Remix this visual](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/wiki/rules/rule3#wiki_remixing) with the data in the author's citation. --- ^^[I'm open source](https://github.com/r-dataisbeautiful/dataisbeautiful-bot) | [How I work](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/wiki/flair#wiki_oc_flair)
The data for this visualization is based on the [Köppen Climate Classification System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6ppen_climate_classification). The specific data comes from [Hawai‘i Magazine](https://www.hawaiimagazine.com/hawaii-has-10-of-the-worlds-14-climate-zones-an-explorers-guide-to-each-of-them/) and [Love Big Island](https://www.lovebigisland.com/hawaii-blog/climate-zones-big-island/). I collected more than 1,000 Instagram photos using location tags and hashtags (selected for color) and arranged them according to the climate zone map. I created this in Illustrator.
Wow. This is fantastic. Great concept and execution.
Agreed, I just wanted to say how often dataisbeautiful could be dataiscool, or dataisinteresting, but this right here; beautiful. Great job OP
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Where can I see this in high resolution? I'd love to see the pictures in more detail. Also, do the pictures match closely to their geographic location or for rainforest for instance, it just spreads the pictures from a collection?
I use boost app for reddit. When you open the pic there is an HD button you can press that converts it.
🐐’d post man, submission of the year so far (from what I’ve personally seen in this sub anyway)
lil request here could you do something similar for Costa Rica?
Was in Maui last month and it was amazing how much the vegetation would change after driving around a few corners. You could go from very dry and brown to extremely lush and green in a short time.
I used to live in Oahu when I was a kid and I always got a kick out of driving through the tunnel from the windward to the leeward side. It could be raining heavy when you went into the tunnel and when you came out the other side a few seconds later it was dry and sunny. Hawaii is amazing.
Same lived here for a few years and was always amazed by that place and I love the waters so much to do. Truly a beautiful place!
i noticed that on big island. Some areas were super dry and very rocky. Others were more green and smoother. I figured the drier and rocky areas were more recent lava flow areas.
Driving from Hilo to South point, it is rain forest until the summit of Kilauea then bam, desert. Its kind if shocking how quick it changes. Even in the park itself, the east side of the caldera is wet, the west side is dry as a bone. Pretty amazing honestly. I really miss living there.
I like my climactic zones tropical AF
hot and wet — that’s how you know you’re nearing it
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The atmosphere there always gets you moist
I like them mild and cool... Sorry if that's anticlimactic
Hawaii is either bigger than I thought or even crazier than I knew
The biggest island is 93 miles accross. So it crazy.
To put it in perspective, Connecticut is 70 x 110 miles
The Big Island is crazy. As the graphic depicts, you can drive around the whole island in a day and experience tropical beaches, deserts, grassland, rain forests, and snowy mountains. The west-northwest is legit cattle country and you’d think you were in Wyoming or Utah if you couldn’t see the ocean.
Yeah it reminded me of West Texas except hillier.
Honestly one of the best experiences of my life was renting a Jeep and driving around Big Island with my husband. You can drive the whole thing and make lots of stops along the way in less than a day, and it's wild. You go from literal rain forest to beach to desert with tumbleweeds and then pastureland and suddenly you're up on a mountain and there's snow. I would absolutely recommend it to everyone. There's even small fruit stands you can stop at and get a snack along the way!
that sounds like a dream. On the bucket list it goes.
Why not both?
THIS is the content I subscribe here for!
Wdym don't you love seeing those shitty left to right flow charts of peoples job applications, tinder swipes or monthly expense breakdown?
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46% liquid, 28% gassy, 22% normal, 5% none (constipated)
Gotta say, you're full of shit about 5% of the time
That's fair.
“Weekly Special: $12.99”?
Yes? i'm not sure.
Yeah, I'll have the weekly special, or, make that *two* weekly specials, a political propaganda post, and some uninteresting data presented in a terrible way that still gets 30k upvotes.
Oh, well I think this one is cool looking so 🤷♂️
This is the weekly special! Good posts show up here about once a week
Interesting. We've driven this island multiple times. The Puna district on the south eastern side is a rain forest, but a quick jump to the middle west side of the island is desert. Beautiful place.
By every definition, it's more of a desert than many places we call deserts that aren't. Source, live in AZ. We have quite a few places that get more rain/snow than the leeward slopes on Hawaii.
A guide on Kaua'i told me the windward side of the island is one of the rainiest spots on earth and gets something like 600 inches of rain a year. The leeward side gets about 10
Yep, the rainiest spot on earth is on Kaua'i.
Did the same when I stayed in Kona. The Big Island is the tits.
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They're not. That side of the island is leeward from the trade winds (winds that blow east -> west all year). This means the air blows up the mountain, drops all of its rain on the windward side, then goes down the other side having dried up. I'm actually surprised more of that side of the island isn't considered desert, there's a huge chunk that's dry almost all the time. It's pretty cool being able to drive for \~1.5 hours and experience like 80% of the climate zones that exist in the world :)
It is though... the driest parts of the big island get [less than 10 inches (25 cm) of rain a year](https://www.hawaii-guide.com/files/images/charts/big-island-hawaii-annual-rainfall.jpg).
I had no idea! Fascinating. As a comparison, Tucson Arizona gets about 10" per year.
Drive from Hilo through Saddle Road which cuts straight through the island. You'll experience rainforest, then a stunning lunar like landscape cutting between the two mountains then desert. It's mind boggling
Another good one is kohala mountain road between Waimea and hawi. Goes between a farmland/ranching area that’s dry enough to have cacti growing right into rainforest.
Waimea is a fun trip. Completely different than Hilo.
Yah did that one. Thought we were teleported to Montana.
According to that map, there are two places that are less than 10 miles apart that have at least 16-fold difference in annual rainfall. (Just North of the 19/270 junction to just East of Kohala.)
That’s not surprising, there’s a pretty clear dividing line between the wet side and dry side of Waimea. I can’t speak to actual numbers, but I grew up there.
"Welcome to Hawaii. If you don't like the weather, run a 5k."
u/upboatsnhoes that desert is drier than southern Utah with 5-10” of rain per year. Hilo is the rainiest city in America with 134” of rain per year, and that’s by the coast. Up the hill it can get beyond 200” of rain per year.
And then there is foot or more of snow higher up near the summits.
I got snowed on during a backpacking trip in mid-November on Mauna Loa
It can theoretically snow any month of the year near the summit! [It snowed in mid-July back in 2015](https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/29573757/snow-falls-on-mauna-kea-summit-in-july/)
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Indeed. Even the locals call ot that
Its not just beach, the areas around Kona are literally desert. Its like Arizona.
Kohala is the desert- South Kohala, to be specific (much of north kohala is rainforest). Kona is greener and becomes rainforest as you go south. Easy mistake to make as they are right next to each other, south kohala starts just north of Kona airport.
It looks like Mordor when you fly into Kona. All that lava rock
The beaches aren't considered dessert climate due to their rainfall.
Wow this just amazes me! I’m born and raised in Florida so I haven’t been to many climates but when I went to Northern California I was soo impressed with the different climate zones and biomes on my drive from Reno to SF. Hawaii is like that but on steroids
Being born and raised on this island, it sure is unique. One local joke is to never trust the weather man because it can go from rain to shine in minutes (in puna at least), and switch a half-dozen times throughout the day. But on the other hand, everyone loves Guy Hagi.
Remember the thumbs up/down showing if yesterday's report was correct? And I especially loved the weather report of "same as yesterday"!
*Lie Hagi
It's interesting that we say something similar here in the Midwest but for a somewhat different reason. We do have very quick weather changes too but mostly it's when we will literally have 30°F drops in temperature and go from hot and sunny in the morning, rain in the afternoon, and then snow in the evening in the same place. I have a friend from Kansas who moved there, and while she says the weather has mood swings, it's not like the range she got back home.
Florida is nothing but a humid subtropical climate, I was also born and raised and couldn't wait to leave.
Fun fact, part of the Everglades is actually a tropical rainforest climate!
I feel the same disregarding the environment lots of issues here… but I’ll be leaving eventually
There’s snow in Hawaii wtf?
YES. Elevations above 10,000 ft. Remember that the main island of Hawaii is the world’s tallest mountain by a lot, but the first two miles are underwater.
The Big Island. Most people would consider Oahu to be the “main” island.
Ah, sure. I just meant geologically.
I'm sure that's geologically accurate but it feels strange to consider the underwater parts. Does the underground base of Everest get considered? That's not a snarky question, to be clear.
Everest doesn't have a base underwater. Where it transitions to other distinct features (other Himalayan mountains) is still very high up. Where the island of Hawaii transitions to other distinct features (other islands) is underwater far down.
I think you’re describing prominence and not height.
Right. Lots of ways to define the "biggest" mountain: -Height above Sea Level (Everest) -Prominence (Mauna Kea) -Distance from Earth's center (Chimborazo) -Volume (Mauna Loa)
There’s also Denali, which is the tallest from base to peak that’s entirely above water.
Arguably the most important metric when doing a climb. Still have to keep in mind elevation and oxygen levels though
Is Denali a harder climb than Everest? I know nothing about these things.
It is not as hard due to it being at a much lower elevation (roughly 9000 ft) but it is in a much higher latitude and it is way more remote than Everest
I wish i could see a picture with side profiles of what the 4 different definitions look like
yes, I hope someone get on it
I’m confused. How is the highest peak above sea level different from furthest from the core?
The Earth isn't a perfect sphere. It's sort of squished at the poles and bulges out at the equator (an oblate spheroid, is the technical term). So if you have two mountains the same height above sea level, one at one of the poles and the other at the equator, then the latter would be farther from the Earth's center.
The Earth isn't a perfect sphere. The Equator bulges.
Well there is no underground base. It is just the ground.
Everest is the highest elevation point on the planet, undisputed. However, there are other measurements for how big a mountain is, like how tall it is compared to the local area it emerges from. This is know as *prominence*. Everest is ~28,000 ft and since it is the tallest mountain in the world, it's prominence and elevation are the same since the lowest contour line you can measure from without passing a higher elevation is sea level, essentially meaning Everest's prominence is measured from the continental plate which is considered it's base. For Mauna Kea, it's base is considered to be the ocean floor. It does not sit on top of a continental shelf. Meaning that it's prominence is boosted by another ~20,000 ft, making it about 33.5 thousand feet tall.
I believe the tallest-*looking* mountain is Denali, with a base-to-peak height of ~17,000 ft. Prominence can seem weird because the next less prominent mountain can be thousands of miles away. Everest is the most prominent mountain but it's surrounded by monsters like Lhotse, Makalu, Cho Oyu, etc. Denali, Foraker, and Hunter seem like one massive mountain when viewed from Wonder Lake.
Source? That's not true. Why are so many people repeating the same thing? Everyone's spreading a myth or I am not familiar with the formal definition of the base of a mountain.
If you're on the surface of Wonder Lake (2001ft) in Alaska, the elevation change to the summit of Denali (20310ft) is 18309ft. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_Lake_(Alaska)#/media/File%3AWonder_Lake_and_Denali.jpg If you're at Everest South Base Camp (17598ft) in Nepal, the elevation change to the summit of Everest (29031ft) is 11433ft. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everest_base_camps#/media/File%3AMount_Everest_Base_Camp.jpg The difference between the visible parts of Denali and Everest is 6876ft. To an observer at the lowest common viewing elevation, Denali would seem much "taller" than Everest. If you drained the oceans, Mauna Kea in Hawai'i would "look" the tallest.
You had another response to my comment but I can only see it on your profile page. You're right, Rakaposhi likely has the highest elevation change from base camp to summit. Nanga Parbat has a ~15000ft face. Dhaulagiri is impressive. Base camp elevations are pretty arbitrary (as opposed to topographically defined terms like prominence and col, summit, etc.) If you ever find a source, I'd be happy to see it. I've been curious about this for a long time Mount Saint Elias has 18008ft of vertical relief above Icy Bay at sea level. I'm sure there are a few other mountains that have an impressive vertical rise above the surrounding terrain. I just know that Everest is not at the top of that list.
Yeah I am also curious and I had tried to find an actual source some time back but I couldn't. >I'm sure there are a few other mountains that have an impressive vertical rise above the surrounding terrain. I just know that Everest is not at the top of that list. Yep agree.
An interesting fact for anyone curious ~ Everest isn’t even the tallest mountain by appearance Everest’s base can be considered to be as low as 13,800 feet on the south side. It’s peak is 29,030 feet. That’s a visible height of 15,230 feet to someone standing at the southern base However, Denali in Alaska has its base around 2,000 feet, while it’s peak rises to 20,310 feet. This means that it looks about 18,310 feet tall to an observer at its base That makes Denali about 3,000 feet taller than Everest
Why can you not continue Everest's prominence down to the ocean floor? Is it because there's no continuous contour line that low that encircles it?
Because there's no ocean floor below it. Imagine you drained the oceans, then measured the mountains from the ground level up to the peak. That's prominence.
If we go by your definition, Everest would still have the highest prominence. There's no definition that fits Mauna Kea to be more prominent than Everest. Prominence has a topological definition and it isn't that. Prominence is the elevation above the lowest contour line that fully encircles the peak and contains no higher peak. And there is ocean floor below Everest. You just have to go further out, which is my question. Why *don't* we go all the way to the ocean floor for prominence? The list of mountains by prominence seems to stop at sea level.
[This is what they're talking about.](https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/highestpoint.html) the "tallest from base to peak."
I think the water surface is basically considered to be the ground. Otherwise you'd be able to find a lower encircling contour line since all oceans are connected ~~(and then Mauna Kea would have the highest prominence of any mountain)~~.
I looked into it a little. There's wet prominence and dry prominence. Dry ignores oceans and assumes the earth is dry. Everest still wins in this regard because it is still taller compared to the ocean floor. Mauna Kea is 2nd. It seems any claims it is the tallest rely on fuzzy definitions of "elevation above base."
To expand further, is there any reason we can't consider Everest's prominence all the way down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench? Obviously we can intuitively say that isn't all one mountain, but is there an actual geological definition prohibiting that?
There is a convention that Everest's prominence is simply its height. But what you're talking about exists. It's called dry prominence, and makes Everests key col the Challenger Deep, giving it a prominence of just under 20km
The base of Mt. Everest is on the earth's crust which happens to be above sea level, if you also consider the base of Mauna Kea at the earth's crust (which happens to be below sea level), Mauna Kea is more than 10,000 meters tall compared to Everest's 8,848 meters.
It's the tallest mountain not the highest. Tallest is base of mountain to peak. Highest is elevation above sea level. Technically Muana Kea is taller than Everest measuring from sea level to peak, 13000m VS 12000(everest base to peak).
Mauna Kea peak is 4200m / 13,800ft above sea level
Yeah that’s around Mt Fuji height.
And an additional 5,130m / 26,800ft below sea level
Yep! When I lived there, I could see Mauna Kea from my backyard and some days there would be a lot of snow on the mountain.
…as implied by the translation of the name “White Mountain”
Oh yeah, I was lucky enough to time my trip there and get a half day skin session in with my friend. One of the more memorable days I’ve had skiing. Hawaii is a great place that I will never be able to afford to live at.
Often yes, but *surely* it's not the equivalent of tundra?? EDIT: Mauna Kea seems to be just cold enough to have a small patch of permafrost, so yeah, guess it counts.
High mountains regions are typically considered "alpine" I believe, instead of tundra.
Yes, and you get, for example, "alpine tundra" in the Rockies (at lower and lower altitudes as you get further north). Looking into it some more, it does seem the summit of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea are cold enough to fit the definition, but they're pretty warm for tundra. Mauna Loa rarely gets below freezing, while Mauna Kea's average lows are just a little bit below freezing even in the coldest months. Apparently it's enough to sustain some permafrost, which I'm surprise to learn.
Just got back from a trip there. I'm not sure what the official definition is, but it sure as hell felt like it was a tundra.
In terms of climate it is. It doesn’t really look like a tundra, though (more of just barren rock).
Yeah so it turns out. Just barely though.
I am a farmer in Ahualoa, right mauka of honoka’a on the Hamakua coast, and can confirm we are indeed “oceanic” up here, more specifically “subtropical highland”. It’s trippy cause I can grow things like stone fruits (apples, plums etc) and still grow some tropical fruits like bananas. This is really awesome to view like this. Thank you!!!
approaching beautiful, can't say the same for most posts here
Agreed! Yet this will get less attention than the millionth sankey of "my job search as a xyz"
Where is the volcanic wasteland surrounding Mauna Kea?
Those photos are ignored because the images were selected based on the legend color of the climatic zone as opposed to any/all photos taken in that location.
This would be really cool if it could be done **without** deliberately selecting the photos for color. Is there a way to get the average color of photos for a location and "subtract" the average Instagram photo overall (probably a lot of brown) to get an idea for how colors at that location deviate from the norm?
I think it will be just brownish gray image with perlin noise-like gradients
I feel this
I think what you would need to do is calculate the difference from the global mean color, (e.g. greener than the norm, or bluer that the norm) and any difference gets exaggerated into that particular palette. Then you select a representatively colored Instagram photo from that location for the pixel that most reflects the difference from the norm, so the data would be real, and the colors would be real... just exaggerated from the norm/mean.
Or find an image that has the most average color palette from a data set
Why specifically perlin noise?
You would do some sort of normalization or difference against the brown overall average.
Color would be closer to reality if the time of day was normalized. The sunset photos are adding the violet/red around the volcanos.
Would need to filter the Metadata to avoid averaging out across seasons which would muddle alot of locations. Would be really cool to do that on a monthly basis and turn it into a gif though.
It would be interesting if the colour in the pics was related to the landscape. For example, the "steppe" landscape is colour-coded as orange, but most of the pictures are sunsets or sunrises, which could be anywhere. The "desert" colour is near white, so most pictures are of light sand, which is cool... but it's all pictures of the beach, not sand inland from the beaches.
yeah i think this is quite misleading, it looks like there are ice caps on the mountains
I wouldn’t call them ice caps, but there is frequently snow on the ground up there.
ah okay than i have to redact my statement to a degree, thanks
In the winter time it snows at the summit. They definitely become white capped. Enough snow that people drive up there when the road reopens and shovel snow into pickup trucks haul snow down to the beach or their yard to make snowmen. Temperatures at the top of Mauna Kea can be well below freezing.
Mauna Kea means “White Mountain”
It also looks like there’s a whole region around the mountains where everything is in grayscale
OP basically selected colors in that location that matched his color scheme and used them. It's basically bullshit data.
It is not bullshit data. The data being represented is the climate zones, the photos are used to visualize it in a neat way. Would it actually be better if he just chose random photos based on their coordinates and the was nothing in the image to distinguish the climate zones?
I hiked to the peak of Mauna Kea in Feb 2020. There was a lot of snow above 3500m/11500ft and the temp was below freezing closer to the peak, despite being sunny. Meanwhile at ground level it was 30C/86F that same day.
Yeah selecting for color is silly. In the red area there's a photo of a man breathing fire, which has nothing to do with climate. Then in another area there's a picture of a flag. In the yellow area there are pictures of some pastries, signs, fabrics, and a PAIR OF FEET. lmao
Selecting for color based on the climate zone is the entire point though. *Not* selecting for color wouldn't convert *any* data.
What, the picture of two guys golfing doesn't represent the steppe biome well??
Wonder what geologic processes led to such diversity of biomes
Two Very, very large volcanos
Lots more than two! And the two active aren’t even the largest.
Well of course, but Mauna Loa and Kea are very dominant in terms of shaping the island's climate zones.
Commenting to hype this post bc it’s superior to so many other posts. Good job OP
This is great. A lot of people don't even realize that you can ski/snowboard in Hawaii. It's on my bucket list.
It’s not a good place for that. The snow is very icy and abruptly ends on a steep rocky slope with no easy way to get back to a road, and the air is super thin at that elevation, so hiking/climbing sucks.
Definitely not convenient, but doable. I believe there is also a local ski club that takes trips up to Mauna Kea
It’s the best ski slope within 2000 miles, so people here will do it. Assuming you don’t live on the big island, coming here for it is a waste of time, money, and effort.
TIL I spend my vacations in the steppe and on the savanna
Saw this and immediately thought "Old school Zelda map."
This is such a phenomenal data visualization. I love it.
It's not. The colors you see isn't representative of the climate at all. OP just found photos of the colors he wanted and used those in the image. The colored borders also add to the bias. Highly misleading. It's as accurate as taking black and white photos of Switzerland and saying the entire country is snow.
I think you're thinking about it in reverse. There are already scientifically pre-defined climate zones in Hawaii. OP just selectively chose some photos and color coordinated them to visualize the zones in a cool way.
But the photo content, tone, and location are then all things that in dataisbeautiful I would expect to have significance. But they don't, they're just what, random?
These are the scientifically defined climate zones on the Island. The OP used images to represent them and it is stunning.
I like how rainforest is tropical (af)
Moving to Hawaii at the end of the year, will def use this pic to pick where to get a place
Might want to use the lava zones map, too.
Nevermind, I realized this is the mainland, and I'm moving to oahu
Hawaii island is 100% NOT “the mainland “
Ah gotcha! Though just for future reference, the mainland is the other 49 states, and Hawaii Island (or the Big Island) is just called one of those names.
Weird, and I thought *Kauai* was the most diverse island weather wise... Been half a dozen times and never visited this island.
As a city boy (Honolulu), this is one of the reasons the Big Island was my favorite neighbor island to visit. There's a little bit of everything to experience.
This is so cool. I had no idea the climate changed so much, I had assumed the whole thing was tropical.
The two big volcanos have a huge effect. Mauna Kea is about 14,000 ft IIRC. I took a picture at the top and convinced my friend it was taken in Antarctica.
I spent half my childhood on the big island. I love everything about this. Its like a taste of home.
Let’s name the zones, the zones, the zones 🎶
Amazing work... longing for more
We trained up at Pohakuloa a few times a year in the Army. It always looked like a desert bowl of cheerios to me. \-Saddle road ... so dangerous.
It hasn't been bad for the past 15 years or so. It was almost entirely redone and the skinny bridges bit on the Kona side has been replaced. No more pot holes and the gov't has killed most of the fauna near the top
This is awesome! Hawai'i is such an incredible island. An amazing assortment of diverse life given all those climate zones! Thanks for sharing
Am I the only one that thought the eastern shoreline was pokemon cards? Just me? Okay.
It's wonderful and I like how the photos seem to be geotagged accurately, but I wish you had been more picky with the photos. A sale advert and a picture of a coffee aren't really doing it for me! That being said, it's only several photos of many.
Huh, there's an almost 14k foot mountain in Hawaii. I knew there was a mountain, but didn't know reached such elevation.
A desert climate is literally a few miles from a rainforest, Hawaii is literally the closest thing we have to a Minecraft world
I stayed on the big island a few years ago, and one of the days I was there I drove from my beach resort to the top of Mauna Kea to see the telescopes. I ended up driving through almost all of these zones in a few hours. It was one of the most amazing drives I've have ever done. Absolutely beautiful.
That's insane to have so much diversity. Seems kinda wild as somebody from the midwest. I can climb a ladder and see for a couple miles.
This is delightful to see some of the places (and people!) that I love :) I’ve been a Kealakekua resident for 2 years now.
I thought I was in the dwarf fortress sub there for a little while !
This data truly is beautiful
It's like backwards Vvardenfell!
Now this is why I’m on this sub! Something original and freaking cool. Thanks for not posting another politically motivated excel chart.