Climate & Weather

Understanding our variable and changing climate is critical for managing resources and reducing risks.

  • Adaptive futures: a serious game for climate change adaptation

    Research Project
    NIWA is using serious games to look at problems holistically, support understanding and give a framework for climate change adaptation decision-making.
  • Upper Rakaia weather station

    Snow and Ice Network

    Research Project
    NIWA has established a network of high elevation electronic weather stations to provide a solid basis to understand seasonal patterns and long-term changes to seasonal snow and ice in alpine regions of New Zealand.
  • The Stormy Seas project

    Research Project
    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.
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    'Eleven-station' series temperature data

    Research Project
    Temperature trends from 1930s to present day
  • National and regional climate maps

    Research Project
    Maps of average annual rainfall, temperature and other climate variables have been produced for all of New Zealand, based on the period 1981–2010.
  • PARTneR (Pacific Risk Tool for Resilience)

    Research Project
    Understanding how hazards impact people and the environment provides the foundation for informed decision making for a resilient Pacific.
  • Generating synthetic wind data

    Research Project
    NIWA has recently created synthetic, multi-year, 10-minute wind datasets at 15 wind farm sites across New Zealand. These will be used by the Electricity Commission to model the impact of wind farms on the national grid.
  • Assessment of crop and tree species growing potential using climate, soil and topographic information

    Research Project
    This project demonstrates how to assess high value alternative land-use options by means of a quantitative analysis of the growing potential of selected niche crops and tree species.
  • Regional modelling of New Zealand climate

    Research Project
    Developing probabilistic scenarios of expected future regional climate changes.
  • Climate change scenarios for New Zealand

    Research Project
    Projections of how climate change is likely to affect New Zealand.
  • NZ temperature record

    Research Project
    There are many lines of evidence showing that NZ has warmed during the past century.
  • Effects of ocean acidification on plankton in New Zealand waters

    Research Project
    Our oceans are expected to become more acidic as carbon dioxide concentrations rise. This will likely have impacts on the plankton, which play a major role in ocean ecosystems and processes.