News about climate change

Easy access to environmental research data

New Zealand’s seven Crown Research Institutes (CRIs) have created the National Environmental Data Centre (NEDC) website to make the environmental information held by CRIs more accessible to all New Zealanders.

Scientists Are Racing to Understand the Fury of Tonga’s Volcano

Ten-thousand miles away in England, Simon Proud, a satellite data researcher at the University of Oxford, began to monitor the twitching volcano using an array of satellites.Then, early in the morning on January 14 local Tongan time, a 12-mile-high plume of ash pierced the sky.

The Long-Lost Tale of an 18th-Century Tsunami, as Told by Trees

They could use them to better understand the aftermath of quakes and tsunamis in this highly populated yet risky zone, and to validate the flooding models that policymakers use to prepare for future disasters.

Explosive research sheds light on volcanic tsunami

The following video shows glass beads being tipped down aerated ramps into water to mimic what happens when pyroclastic flows hurtle down the sides of erupting volcanoes: .

Climate Change Is Intensifying the Tsunami Threat in Alaska

This destabilization is being driven by climate change: Tsunamis are becoming more likely in Alaska as hillsides, formerly reinforced by glaciers and solidly frozen ground, loosen their hold on once-stable slopes.Climate change makes land more unstable and increases the risk of landslide-caused tsunamis.

New tsunami monitoring system for Pacific

A network of state-of-the-art tsunami buoys is being deployed from New Zealand up into the Pacific to keep communities safer.Every 15 seconds the BPR records the height of the ocean above it and sends that information to the surface buoy once an hour.

Tsunami evacuation zones home to 1 in 10 New Zealanders

NIWA hazards analyst Ryan Paulik, who led the assessment, says overall 430,000 people – or nine per cent of the population – live in the zones of which 170,000 are in red and orange zones.

NIWA mapping Whakatipu lake floor

For the first time the Whakatipu lake floor will be mapped to build a picture of the potential for local tsunami hazards in the future.

Climate change triggered tsunami TWICE the size of Big Ben - 193m SUPER WAVE hit Alaska

CLIMATE change triggered a tsunami which was twice the size of Big Ben in 2015, and experts believe these mega waves will become more common in the future as the globe continues to warm.

Melting glaciers increasing risk of landslide-triggered tsunamis, study reveals

Melting glaciers could be triggering a ripple effect of natural disasters that culminates in massive tsunamis, according to new research. This problem is likely to be exacerbated along the icy coastlines of Greenland, Patagonia and Norway, where huge chunks of rock smashing into the water can create towering waves.