Atmospheric analysis

Weekly update to help media assess likelihood of extremely dry weather preceding a drought. Regions experiencing severely to extremely drier than normal soils conditions are deemed “hotspots”.

When we think about marine animals, we usually think about organisms that are relatively large, such as whales, sharks, fish, squid, or sea stars.

In a small green laboratory perched on the rocky volcanic southern peninsula of Ross Island, Antarctica, there’s a space waiting for a new shiny, hi-tech Christmas present.

Weekly update to help media assess likelihood of extremely dry weather preceding a drought. Regions experiencing severely to extremely drier than normal soils conditions are deemed “hotspots”.

The Ram’s Horn squid (Spirula spirula) is a mesopelagic species, meaning that it lives in the mid-water column. It typically lives in dark depths of 500-1000 m in the day and migrates up to the shallows of 300 m at night.

A NIWA climate scientist is awaiting a ruling from the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) on whether New Zealand’s coldest recorded temperature will be accepted as an official world weather extreme.

Weekly update to help media assess likelihood of extremely dry weather preceding a drought.

This week’s critter, found from the northern part of New Zealand to southern Australia, is the brightly coloured and aptly named clown nudibranch, Ceratosoma amoenum.

The plight of the penguins of Penguin Bay has attracted the interest of scientists who are studying why there are fewer and fewer of them every year.

Scientists will next month celebrate the diamond anniversary of the world’s longest continuous record of atmospheric radiocarbon measurements.

We would probably be grumpy too if we didn’t have any eyes, however, in the deep sea, where there is very little light many organisms have lost the ability to see altogether.

New Zealand’s climate is changing – and so are our freshwaters.