Climate & Weather

Sampling salps from different depths

24 October 2018: NIWA Blake Ambassadors Lana Young and Siobhan O'Connor report back

Students at Leigh School have been working with marine scientists and the 'Year of the Salps' project partners to learn how to count sea salps, understand salp life cycle phases and the importance of salps in marine ecosystems and their carbon-cycling effects on climate change.

Soils are drier than normal for the time of year in the majority of the North Island, excluding the eastern Gisborne region where the soil moisture is near average. Parts of Queenstown-Lakes District in Otago, the Grey and Buller Districts in the West Coast, northeastern Marlborough, and the Waimate District in southern Canterbury experience well below average rainfall for this time of year, while the rest of the South Island had near normal rainfall.

Inhabitants of the Marshall Islands may not be able to avoid drought, but thanks to a new tool co-developed by NIWA they can now plan ahead to better manage water resources when the big dry looms.

There are no currently no hotspots, but an area to monitor is in the southern Hurunui District in northern Canterbury.

Coastal communities around New Zealand are getting a say on how to respond to sea-level rise, and NIWA is helping them.

What happens when the contribution from seasonal snow and ice melt changes in a warmer world?

Farmers visiting Fieldays at Mystery Creek in June could not have missed the take-home message: that science and innovation are key to their continued success.

Te Huringa ki te Rangi is a decision-making model to support indigenous and coastal communities.

A cool start to spring is about to be replaced by a sudden burst of warmth, according to NIWA meteorologist Ben Noll.

A senior NIWA scientist is concerned many councils are having difficulty “getting off the starting blocks” when it comes to planning for coastal climate change.