Climate Monitoring Products: Region V (Southwest Pacific)Dr. Andrew Watkins [Australia] Meeting of the CCl Task Team on National Climate Monitoring Products, Geneva, Switzerland 12-14 September 2011

WMO Region V: Southwest Pacific Region

•Australia Bureau of Meteorology•Brunei DarussalamThe Brunei Darussalam Meteorological Service•Cook Islands Cook Islands Meteorological Service•FijiFiji Meteorological Service•French Polynesia Meteo France Polynesie Francaise•IndonesiaMeteorological, Climatological and Geophysical Agency•Kiribati Kiribati Meteorological Service•MalaysiaMalaysian Meteorological Department•Micronesia, Federated States ofFSM Weather Station•New Caledonia  Meteo France Nouvelle Calédonie•New ZealandNew Zealand National Meteorological Service•NiueNiue Meteorological Service•Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea Meteorological Service•Philippines Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration•Samoa Samoa Meteorology Division•SingaporeMeteorological Services Division•Solomon Islands Solomon Islands Meteorological Service•Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Dirrecão Nacional Meteorologia e Geofisica•Tonga Tonga Meteorological Service•United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland Met Office•United States of America National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration•VanuatuVanuatu Meteorological Services

WMO Region V: Southwest Pacific Region

Broad range of capabilities and skills

• Larger agencies with established climate services sections (e.g., Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, New Caledonia, US (Hawaii))

• Larger agencies with developing climate services (Indonesia, Philippines)

• Small agencies with established climate services (Vanuatu, Kiribati, Niue)

• Small agencies with limited climate services (Cook Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu)

WMO Region V: Southwest Pacific Region

Region highly affected by ENSOThis results in large interannual variability in :• Tropical Cyclones• Drought• Flood• Heatwaves• Cold snaps• Sea Level

Also affected by seismic activity and hence•Tsunami

WMO Region V: Southwest Pacific Region

Monitoring and Prediction Projects• Pacific Island Climate Prediction Project (PI-CPP) and Seasonal Outlook Reference Material – supported by Australia• Island Climate Update (ICU) – supported by New Zealand

Data Rescue• Finding and rescuing historical digitised and undigitised data; collection, archiving, digitising, quality control – supported by Australia, New Zealand

Tropical Cyclone• Monitoring projects

Sea Level• Monitoring projects

Cook Islands climate staff

WMO Region V: Monitoring Products

Australia – 1961-90 BaseTimeseries and data available for times:• Annual• monthly• seasonal• tropical wet seasonAnd regions:• national• states• main regionsAnd variables:• Rainfall• Temperature• Sea surface temperature• Density of Highs and Lows

WMO Region V: Monitoring Products

Australia

Climate Extremes• 30 extreme temperature and rainfall indices used here are based on those defined by the WMO Expert Team on Climate Change Detection Monitoring and Indices

• These are calculated using Fortran based on FClimDex software available at: http://cccma.seos.uvic.ca/ETCCDI/software.shtml

WMO Region V: Monitoring Products

Australia

Mapped products• Rainfall• Temperature• Vapour Pressure (humidity)• Solar Exposure• Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)

WMO Region V: Monitoring Products

Australia

Text Based Monitoring Products• Variety of products issued weekly, monthly, seasonally and annually

WMO Region V: Monitoring Products

New Zealand

• Mix of public and internal monitoring products• National “7-station” timeseries: “…temperature records from a number of local sites have been merged together to form a long time series. When merging different temperature records like this, it is necessary to adjust for climatic differences from place-to-place, or even changes in exposure or instrumentation at the same site. If no adjustments are made, significant biases could be introduced. For example, the longest record in the country comes from Dunedin, with climate readings taken at six sites throughout its history. “

WMO Region V: Monitoring Products

New Zealand

Internally:

• (Monthly, seasonal) mean temperature anomaly for 6 forecast regions of New Zealand •(Monthly, seasonal) rainfall % anomaly for 6 forecast regions of New Zealand•(Monthly) New Zealand-region sea surface temperature anomaly (internally)(Daily) Pasture Growth Index – Nationally, North Island, South Island, Major Dairy and Beef areas (internally)

WMO Region V: Monitoring Products

New Zealand

(Daily) Virtual Climate Station Network (VCSN) data, gridded over New Zealand at 5km x 5km resolution. Contains 0900 data: MSLP, PET, 24-hour rainfall total, RH, soil moisture level, 10cm Earth Temperature, Radiation, maximum temperature, minimum temperature, vapour pressure and daily-average wind speed. These data are available online from http://cliflo.niwa.co.nz, and details have been published in Tait et al, 2006. Can created monthly totals/averages, but stations only

WMO Region V: Monitoring Products

FIJI – use 1971-2000

Annual Summary Highlights National and station rainfall totals, percentages of normal and anomalies Sea surface temperature anomalies Mean national temperature and anomalies Extremes

Monthly Summary: site based observations rainfall totals and raindays, percentage of normal and anomalies temperatures – mean and anoms

WMO Region V: Monitoring Products

New Caledonia

Monthly Summary: site based observations rainfall totals and raindays, percentage of normal and anomalies temperatures – mean and anoms

http://www.meteo.nc/climat/bulletin

WMO Region V: Monitoring Products

Malaysia

• Drought summaries• Station totals and anomalies• Extremes• Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI)

August 2011

June – August 2011

WMO Region V: Monitoring Products

Indonesia

• Monthly Rainfall percentages and anomalies• Expanding climate service• Enthusiastic, diverse team keen to learn and develop a full climate service

WMO Region V: Monitoring Products

NIUE

•Highest density national monitoring network in Region V• Arguably most accurate national monitoring products in Region V

• 1400(?) PEOPLE• 1 (one) AWS• http://informet.net/niuemet/

WMO Region V: Monitoring Products

Projects assisting with climate monitoring data in the South Pacific:

• Pacific Island - Global Climate observing System PI-GCOS: http://pi-gcos.org/

• Pacific Island – Climate Prediction ProjectPI-CPP http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/pi-cpp/

WMO Region V: Monitoring Products

Summary:

• Very broad range of capacity, skills and data availablity and quality

• Capacity building still taking place

• A lot of recent work and initiatives in the South Pacific; prediction, monitoring and data rescue

• Concerns about sea level, particularly in South Pacific nations

Tide Gauge, Funafuti, Tuvalu

Andrew Watkins

+61-3-9669 4360

A.Watkins@bom.gov.au

Thank you…