Science Media Centre

Niwa has released its annual climate summary for 2017, which it says was a year of weather extremes. While the year started off wet, with the Tasman Tempest and Ex-Tropical Cyclones Debbie and Cook contributing to record amounts of rain, a dry end to the year had parts of the country recording their driest Novembers […]

Science New Zealand, the body that represents the country’s seven Crown Research Institutes (CRIs), hosted its inaugural national awards at Parliament last night. It’s been a week of celebration for the research institutes, which have been celebrating 25 years since the inception of the CRIs. Its conference on Thursday included addresses by new Minister for […]

New Zealand’s wastewater and stormwater infrastructure have asset values well over $20 billion, but much of it was not designed to withstand the challenges climate change will bring, from sea level rise to the predicted changes in rainfall frequency and intensity. A new report from the Deep South National Science Challenge and Motu Economic and […]

Researchers looking at air trapped within Antarctic ice have found humans are putting more methane into the atmosphere through fossil fuel emissions than previously thought. Using ice cores from Antarctica’s Taylor Glacier, an international team of researchers – including New Zealand and Australian scientists – measured natural rates of methane in the atmosphere over the […]

The country’s capital will have warmer autumns and rainier winters by 2090, according to a new Niwa climate report. The report, prepared for the Greater Wellington Regional Council, projected an increase in the annual number of ‘hot days’ (over 25°C) in Wellington, from six per year now, to 26 per year by 2090. In the […]

An international study has estimated deaths from air pollution will rise by about 60,000 globally by 2030 because of climate change. Published this week in Nature Climate Change, the study combined global climate models – including data from New Zealand – to examine how warmer temperatures will speed up the creation of air pollutants. The […]

Following the discovery of the parasite Bonamia ostreae in Stewart Island oyster farms, the Ministry for Primary Industries has issued a restriction on the area and plans to remove the affected oysters. Niwa put together a Q&A with fisheries scientist Keith Michael about the parasite and the risk of it spreading further afield. What is Bonamia […]

With the, somewhat signposted, news that 2016 was the warmest year on record globally, and the warmest in New Zealand since modern records began in 1909, Professor James Renwick writes that we need to channel energy into urgent action. An excerpt (read in full): The past year also saw two milestones: the atmospheric concentration of […]

2016 was the hottest year in New Zealand in over a century, surpassing the previous warmest year on record, 1998. Niwa released its annual climate summary today, which showed 2016 was the warmest year on record based on the seven-station series which began in 1909. The full annual climate summary is available on Niwa’s website. […]

GNS Science will lead a multi-million dollar study investigating the Hikurangi subduction zone and what danger it might pose to New Zealand. NZ Herald science reporter Jamie Morton highlighted the study, which has received $6.5 million in funding from the Government’s Endeavour Fund. The scientists will examine the Hikurangi subduction zone, where the Pacific tectonic plate […]