NIWA’s research ship Tangaroa has spent the last few weeks in dry dock at the Devonport Naval Base where it is receiving an overhaul that will set it up well for many more voyages of discovery. But the inclement weather in Auckland has hampered efforts to get a fresh coat of paint onto Tangaroa’s bottom. […]
MoreThe fifth in a summer series created by NIWA Next time you head down to the beach for a swim scientist Els Maas would be delighted if you spare a thought for the invisible workhorses of the ocean. The NIWA microbiologist is the only person in New Zealand studying the processes of billions and billions […]
MoreA busy last morning at Mario Zuchelli Station involved packing our pile of gear onto the back of a tractor trailer for the trip up the hill to the local airfield to be picked up by a Twin Otter aircraft. These planes work in remote conditions throughout the world. Our flight was the crew’s last […]
MoreA research voyage report from NIWA… NIWA’s research vessel Tangaroa has just completed a very successful voyage of habitats of significance for marine organisms and biodiversity. ’We were amazed by what we saw,’ says NIWA’s Dr Mark Morrison, programme leader. Over 42 days, split across two voyages, the Tangaroa worked its way down the country […]
MoreAs NIWA faced a scurrilous legal challenge over its climate data yesterday, its scientists were getting on with business, releasing details of the partial collapse of an undersea volcano in New Zealand waters. As the Herald reports: A volcanic cone on Rumble III, 200km northeast of Auckland, had crumbled. The volcano’s highest point had dropped […]
MoreNew Zealand and Australia are these days passionately opposed to commercial whaling, a stance that in recent weeks has put them at odds with significant trading partner Japan. But it wasn’t always that way – the 1830s and 1840s were the golden age of whaling in New Zealand and Australia as whalers, predominantly from America, […]
MoreBluff oyster lovers will be heartened to learn that NIWA surveys of the oyster beds in Foveaux Strait show them to be looking increasingly healthy. The Bluff oyster season starts today, so you will soon see the expensive delicacy on menus at good restaurants around the country. But as in recent years, prices will be […]
MoreDr Klaus Bosselman is right when he suggests in a New Zealand Herald article today that opinion polls carried out by the media are fickle things and that Government policies in relation to climate change should be based on sound science not public opinion. But there’s no denying the fact that the public is becoming […]
MoreNew Zealand and Australia experienced their warmest periods in the decade just closed since records began according to data released by NIWA and Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology. While 2009 was slightly cooler overall than the 1971 – 2000 average, says NIWA, the decade was still the warmest, followed by the 1980s, the 1970s and the […]
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