Climate change

New Zealand has just experienced its warmest June and July since records began in 1909 and – with one month to go - is on track for its second successive warmest winter on record.

Flood flows on the Buller River this month were the largest of any river in Aotearoa New Zealand in almost 100 years, NIWA measurements show.

Preliminary analysis by NIWA climate scientists has shown that the recent Canterbury rainfall was so extreme in some inland places that it could be expected to happen only once every 200 years.

Clouds over the ocean, and how they trap or emit radiation from the sun, are partly influenced by the biology, biogeochemistry and physics of the surface ocean below.

Farmers visiting NIWA’s Fieldays stand at Mystery Creek next week have the opportunity to see into their future by playing a game that dices with climate change.

The prodigious rainmaker that hit Canterbury earlier this month saw NIWA field teams out in the elements collecting flood data from bridges, cableways and jetboat gaugings.

A Central Otago scientific research station with a globally revered reputation is marking its 60th anniversary.

A joint NIWA and Department of Conservation (DOC) project is extending New Zealand’s ocean acidification monitoring network to include marine reserves.

Scientists undertaking the annual glacier snowline survey over the South Island later this month are keeping a watchful eye on a lake that has been forming and disappearing at the junction of the Tasman and Hochstetter glaciers.

The Climate Changes, Impacts & Implications project ran from 2012 to 2016 and aimed to update and improve projections of climate trends, variability and extremes across New Zealand out to 2100.

A new international study using ancient swamp kauri from Northland shows a temporary breakdown of Earth’s magnetic field 42,000 years ago sparked major climate shifts leading to global environmental change and mass extinctions.

NIWA’s flagship research vessel Tangaroa leaves soon on a six-week voyage to Antarctica, making it one of the few full scientific expeditions to the continent since the global outbreak of COVID-19.