Atmospheric analysis

A whole of catchment Report Card for the Waikato and Waipa rivers has been released by the Waikato River Authority giving the catchment an anticipated low rating for its wellbeing.

This fan-shaped beauty is large and solitary, with a widespread distribution throughout New Zealand and mainly lives on soft substrate in a broad range of depths (0 – 3200 metres).

A weekly update describing soil moisture across the country to help assess whether severely to extremely dry conditions are occurring or imminent. Regions experiencing these soil moisture deficits are deemed “hotspots”. Persistent hotspot regions have the potential to develop into drought.

Corallimorpharia are a group of cnidarians morphologically intermediate between sea anemones and stony corals. Like sea anemones (Actiniaria), they lack a calcareous skeleton but their internal anatomy and nematocysts are similar to stony corals (Scleractinia). In fact, phylogenetic studies have shown that Scleractinia and Corallimorpharia are closely related.

NIWA researchers have spent part of the last month keeping a close eye on the bottom of Lake Tekapo to find out what it looks like and what is going on below the lake bed.

NIWA scientists scan Lake Tekapo with the aim of finding out if submarine landslides can create a tsunami hazard for the Lake Tekapo township and hydropower infrastructure.

The main breeding population of NZ sea lions at the Auckland Islands has declined by approximately 50% since the late 1990s.

A weekly update describing soil moisture across the country to help assess whether severely to extremely dry conditions are occurring or imminent.

A breakthrough in understanding about the causes of climate change has today been published online in the prestigious international journal Science.

Ophiactis abyssicola (Sars, 1861) is a very common deep sea species of brittlestar distributed throughout New Zealand waters and in temperate regions in the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans.

NIWA climate scientists studying the diaries of an early English missionary stationed in the Far North have found the oldest surviving long-term instrumental weather records made in New Zealand.