NZ temperature record
There are many lines of evidence showing that NZ has warmed during the past century. These include the "seven station" temperature series, the "eleven station" temperature series, and information from ship measurements of sea-surface temperatures and marine night-time air temperatures over the oceans around NZ.
July 20, 2010
‘Seven-station’ series
NIWA's 'seven-station' temperature series uses temperature measurements from seven 'climate stations'. The locations were chosen because they provide a representative geographical spread across NZ and have reliable records dating back at least to the early 1900s. The trend over the past 100 years (1909-2008) is warming of 0.9 ºC.
'Eleven-station' series
This series comprises a set of eleven stations spanning New Zealand where there have been no significant site moves for many decades. The data used in this series are raw (unadjusted) – no adjustments are required because the measuring sites have not moved significantly. There is a warming trend over the 77 year period 1931-2008 of close to 1 ºC.
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Mean annual temperature over New Zealand, from 1853 to 2009 inclusive, based on long-term station records from between 2 (from 1853) and 7 (from 1908 onwards) locations. The blue and red bars show annual differences from the 1971 - 2000 average, the solid black line is a smoothed time series, and the dotted line is the linear trend over 1909 to 2009 (0.91°C/100 years).
For enquiries contact
Dr David Wratt