Weathering the year's extremes

By ANNE BESTON environment reporter

It was a year of extremes. Last year's winter was the second-warmest on record, but the year brought hailstorms, heatwaves, tornadoes and drought.

"In terms of weather, the year had it all," said senior climate scientist Dr Jim Salinger of the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research.

Present climate research suggested unsettled weather and higher temperatures would continue this century, Dr Salinger said.

The warm winter (1998 was the warmest) was further evidence of global warming, as greenhouse gases continued to be pumped into the atmosphere, he said.

"Currently we are warming 2 degrees per century and that amount of warming is unprecedented in the last 10,000 years."

The shrinkage of the ice mass on the Southern Alps - by 40 per cent since measurements began in the 1860s - was further evidence of a warmer climate, Dr Salinger said.

It was even possible New Zealand would one day become subtropical with hot, dry temperatures in summer and a rainy season.

Last year, 15 high rainfall events produced floods, an early autumn drought, two heatwaves, six cold snaps, three tornadoes, 11 high-wind episodes leading to property damage and three severe hailstorms.

But New Zealand's largest population centre had nothing to boast about weather-wise in 2000 - Auckland had less sunshine that Wellington and more rain than the other three main centres.

Wellington was the sunniest main centre, and Christchurch the driest.

Nelson, as usual, took first place in the sunniest city stakes, ahead of Blenheim and Tauranga. New Plymouth had its sunniest year since 1943.

Milford Sound was the wettest place in New Zealand last year, and Alexandra the driest.

Dr Salinger said climate modelling, feeding data into a computer to try to predict New Zealand's future weather, was "light years ahead" of where it was 10 years ago.

It would continue to improve in the next 10 years, so scientists would have an even clearer picture of what to expect.