Water & Atmosphere 4, March 2012

In November 1994, the skipper of a Russian super trawler, the Yefim Gorbenko, put his vessel into Calliope dry dock in Devonport, complaining of excessive fuel consumption and high engine temperatures.

A team of NIWA and University of Otago scientists has won the New Zealand Prime Minister's Science Prize for 2011 with world-leading research on geoengineering.

In February, philanthropist Gareth Morgan set sail with a crew of scientists, educators, business leaders, campaigners and commentators, bound for the subantarctic and beyond into Antarctica.

We tend to take it for granted: when we turn on a tap, we simply expect water to appear, but Dr Ross Woods has been thinking about where that water might come from in our changing future.

Ship noise is a homing beacon for mussel larvae, a NIWA biosecurity scientist has discovered.

NIWA researchers head to Foveaux Strait this month to look up an old friend. 'Grim', a young male white shark, made headlines in 2010 when satellites followed his epic swim from Stewart Island to Fiji.

We should have been in for a cracking summer. Seasonal forecasts late last year, taking their cue from a La Niña phase in the Pacific, tantalised with visions of beaches, basking and barbecues.

Priceless or pestilent? Your view of mangroves, finds Greta Shirley, often depends on how many mangroves are in your view...

"We want fertile land, not fertile water." So said Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Jan Wright, earlier this month. In her latest report: Water Quality in New Zealand: Understanding the Science, she referred to nitrogen and phosphorus runoff as "the focus of most concern today."

Right now, millions of cubic metres of biogas either gets flared off, or wafts downwind to annoy the neighbours. But that gas could be generating electricity, powering vehicles and balancing our trade deficit at the same time, finds Dave Hansford.

The price of prosperous waters, finds Marieke Hilhorst, is eternal vigilance...New Zealand has at least 3.3 billion reasons to make sure our seas are free from invasive species.

NIWA's climate chief, David Wratt, on science, steadfastness and spark plugs. Dave Hansford finds out more...

Almost every branch of NIWA's science employs stable isotope analysis, but what are they, why are they so valuable, and how are they measured?