Expect to hear a lot more about climate change in the news in the weeks ahead – and a lot about NIWA’s work underpinning the science that is signalling a warmer world right now and its effects in the future.
NIWA is leading a New Zealand partnership to map the South and West Pacific Ocean's seabed as part of a worldwide initiative to map the entire globe’s seafloor.
Does climate change affect the position of the Subtropical Front around New Zealand? This has important consequences for New Zealand's climate and biological productivity.
New Zealand’s equal-2nd warmest year on record. Annual temperatures were above average across the majority of New Zealand, including much of the North Island as well as the western and southern South Island. See complete 2018 Annual Climate Summary details.
NIWA climate scientists are calling for volunteers to unearth weather secrets from the past – including those recorded by members of Captain Robert Scott’s doomed trip to the South Pole in 1912.
What happened in April, how our climate outlook for the previous three months turned out, global and local sea temperatures, and our outlook for May-July.
Massive increases in computing power are allowing NIWA scientists to not only analyse more data, faster, but also to envisage completely new experiments.
Weak La Niña conditions continued in the tropical Pacific during March 2018, but trends in low-level winds and in sub-surface ocean temperatures during the month indicate that the event is coming to an end.
New Zealand is situated in the latitudes of prevailing westerlies and exposed coastal locations often experience strong winds, with generally lighter winds elsewhere.
Sea surface temperatures in the southern Tasman Sea rose to exceptionally high levels in late 2017 and early 2018. These temperatures were far above any others previously observed at that time of year in the region, and extended west from New Zealand to Tasmania and mainland southeast Australia.
Twice a day at 1pm and 8.30 pm Sean Hartery, NIWA, and Peter Kuma, University of Canterbury, head for the Fantail at the very back of the ship to release their weather balloons.
Climate scientists and glaciologists are taking to the skies this week to find out how New Zealand’s glaciers are faring following this summer’s record-breaking warmth.
With La Niña’s influence waning over the next three month period, New Zealand’s regional climate over March – May 2018 is expected to be driven by the warmer than average ocean waters that are present around the country.
Auckland Council and Council Controlled Organisations commissioned NIWA to provide climate change projections, including high-resolution maps for the Auckland Region.
Apart from waning La Niña conditions, New Zealand’s regional climate over the next three month period is expected to be dominated by the very warm ocean waters present around the country, in the Tasman Sea, and in the Southwest Pacific Ocean.
January 2018 was New Zealand’s hottest month on record (since 1909) using NIWA’s seven-station series. Dozens of locations observed their record or near-record high mean temperature for January.
Four seasons with a little bit of everything.
It started with the bummer summer… then came the fires, rain, flooding and a very weird November.
But it’s all in a year of weather as NIWA wraps up the seasonal highlights.
