Oceania Atmosphere & Climate Data

Annual rainfall is the total accumulated rain over one year. Rain is vital for life, including plant growth, drinking water, river ecosystem health, and sanitation. Floods and droughts affect our environment, economy, and recreational opportunities.

This dataset shows annual average rainfall across New Zealand for years 1972 to 2013. Annual rainfall is estimated from the daily rainfall estimates of the Virtual Climate Station Network (NIWA).

This dataset relates to the "Annual average rainfall" measure on the Environmental Indicators, Te taiao Aotearoa website.

Geometry: raster catalogue
Unit: mm/yr

Rain is vital for life – it supplies the water we need to drink and to grow our food, keeps our ecosystems healthy, and supplies our electricity. New Zealand’s mountainous terrain and location in the roaring forties mean rainfall varies across the country. Changes in rainfall amount or timing can significantly affect agriculture, energy, recreation, and the environment. For example, an increase or decrease of rainfall in spring can have marked effects on crops or fish populations.
More information on this dataset and how it relates to our environmental reporting indicators and topics can be found in the attached data quality pdf.

This layer is the total rainfall for the year 2016, summed from interpolated daily rainfall, in mm, not the average.

​

More information on this dataset and how it relates to our environmental reporting indicators and topics can be found in the attached data quality pdf.

Lightning is the discharge of electricity from thunderstorms. Ground strikes can cause significant damage to property and infrastructure, and injure or kill people and livestock. Lightning is often associated with other severe weather events, such as strong wind gusts. Thunderstorms may increase in frequency and intensity with climate change.

This dataset shows the location of sensors in the New Zealand Lightning Detection Network (NZLDN), run by MetService.

Sensors around the country detect lightning over the New Zealand land mass and a short distance out to sea. These sensors detect very accurately the electrical discharge, location, and time, as well as noting other parameters such as current strength. The NZLDN records both cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground strikes.

"Annual rainfall is the total accumulated rain over one year. Rain is vital for life, including plant growth, drinking water, river ecosystem health, and sanitation. Floods and droughts affect our environment, economy, and recreational opportunities.

This dataset shows annual average rainfall across New Zealand for 2013 as part of the data series for years 1972 to 2013. Annual rainfall is estimated from the daily rainfall estimates of the Virtual Climate Station Network (NIWA).

This dataset relates to the "Annual average rainfall" measure on the Environmental Indicators, Te taiao Aotearoa website.

Geometry: grid
Unit: mm/yr"

Percent of land deforested in each Territorial Authority unit from 2008–2014. New Zealand’s indigenous and exotic forests absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and store the carbon as biomass and in the soil. On average, more than twice as much carbon per hectare is stored in New Zealand’s mature indigenous forests than in exotic forests planted for wood production. Regenerating indigenous forests are also an important store of carbon, adding carbon every year as they grow. Total carbon stored in exotic forests will fluctuate over decades as the forests grow from seedlings to mature trees, are harvested, and replanted. Because CO2 is the major driver of climate change, forests provide important mitigation services and help New Zealand meet its climate change commitments.
More information on this dataset and how it relates to our environmental reporting indicators and topics can be found in the attached data quality pdf.

"Sunshine is important for our health and recreation, and for the environment. It is also important for our agriculture-based economy, for example, for plant growth.

This dataset shows average annual sunshine hours across New Zealand for years 1972 to 2013.

The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) mapped mean annual sunshine hours from the virtual climate station network data (NIWA) generated from data in its National Climate Database, for the period 1981–2013. It generated the Units: percentage of normal by comparing the annual average to the long-term mean for 1981–2010. Maps were produced using the Virtual Climate Station network data. Data for each year are measured over the calendar year (January–December).

The accuracy of the data source is of high quality.

This dataset relates to the ""Sunshine hours in New Zealand"" measure on the Environmental Indicators, Te taiao Aotearoa website.

Geometry: grid
Unit: hrs/yr"

Lightning is the discharge of electricity from thunderstorms. Ground strikes can cause significant damage to property and infrastructure, and injure or kill people and livestock. Lightning is often associated with other severe weather events, such as strong wind gusts. Thunderstorms may increase in frequency and intensity with climate change.
This dataset relates to the "Lightning" measure on the Environmental Indicators, Te taiao Aotearoa website.

Lightning is the discharge of electricity, from thunderstorms, that equalises areas of positive and negative charge, for example, between a storm cloud and the ground. Thunderstorms form as a result of rapidly rising air with a high moisture content (humidity). On average, 1 in 10 lightning discharges strikes the ground (or sea) (Metservice, 2015). Lightning (and therefore thunderstorms) are also often associated with other severe weather events, such as strong wind gusts, and in extreme cases tornadoes.

By international standards, lightning does not occur frequently around New Zealand. However, thunderstorms, and thus lightning, can cause injury and damage (Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management, 2010), and may increase in frequency and intensity with climate change (Mullen et. al., 2011).

This data shows the average annual number of lightning strikes per 25km square.

This dataset relates to the "Lightning" measure on the Environmental Indicators, Te taiao Aotearoa website.

Geometry: grid/point

Unit: strikes/25km2/year

Further information can be found in:

MetService (nd). Lightning observation services. Accessed 3 June 2015 from www.metservice.com.

Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management (2010). Thunderstorms. Working from the same page: Consistent messages for CDEM (p3). Available from www.civildefence.govt.nz.

Mullan, B, Carey-Smith, T, Griffiths, G, & Sood, A (2011). Scenarios of storminess and regional wind extremes under climate change. NIWA Client Report: WLG2010-31 (pvii). Available from www.niwa.co.nz.

"The ocean waters surrounding New Zealand vary in temperature from north to south. They interact with heat and moisture in the atmosphere and affect our weather. Long-term changes and short-term variability in sea-surface temperatures can affect marine processes, habitats, and species. Some species may find it hard to survive in changing environmental conditions.

This layer shows annual sea-surface temperature difference from normal for 2010 as part of the data series for years 1993 to 2013. "Normal" is defined as the average sea-surface temperature for 1993–2013.

NIWA’s sea-surface temperature archive is derived from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) satellite data it receives from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The archive provides high spatial (approximately 1km) and high temporal (approximately 6-hourly in cloud-free locations) resolution estimates of sea-surface temperatures over the New Zealand region, dating from January 1993. Uddstrom and Oien (1999) and Uddstrom (2003) describe the methods used to derive and validate the data.

This dataset relates to the "Annual average sea-surface temperature" measure on the Environmental Indicators, Te taiao Aotearoa website.

Geometry: grid
Unit: percent

Further information can be found in:
Uddstrom, MJ (2003). Lessons from high-resolution satellite SSTs. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 84(7), 896–897.
Uddstrom, MJ, & Oien, NA (1999). On the use of high resolution satellite data to describe the spatial and temporal variability of sea surface temperatures in the New Zealand region. Journal of Geophysical Research (Oceans) 104, chapter 9, 20729–20751."