Water & Atmosphere 3, November 2011

It took just under a month for 2011 to make the weather records, when, on 29 January, Cyclone Wilma brushed the North Island's east coast. Wilma drenched some regions with 400 per cent of their normal January rainfall, leaving a $24m cleanup bill behind.

When designing infrastructure, such as a new bridge, to last well into this century, engineers must think worst-case scenario: specifications demand a structure so durable as to withstand the worst Nature might be expected to throw at it.

They might be the same species, but two discrete populations of Cooks petrels – one from Little Barrier Island in the Hauraki Gulf, and the other more than 2000km away on Whenua Hou, or Codfish Island – keep their distance genetically.

A preliminary seismic survey of the seabed off the north Canterbury coast has found a complex arrangement of geologic faults in the bedrock under Pegasus Bay.

Creating marine reserves may affect the behaviour of some fish that live in them, a NIWA study has found.

Dive beneath the Poor Knights Islands – or just kick over some leaf litter in the bush – and you'll be astounded at just what lives there. We share New Zealand – and its surrounding seas – with about 55,000 other species, and Dennis Gordon wants to name and describe every last one of them.

While poring through old temperature records, climate scientists recently discovered New Zealand's coldest known daily minimum reading – a shivering minus 25.6ºC (originally recorded in the old Fahrenheit scale as minus 14ºF).

Much of our electricity now comes from rain and wind, but, asks Greta Shirley, can they keep the lights on in a changing climate?

Out in all weathers, farmers are the first to notice a change. By Dave Hansford.

Climate change will test the infrastructure of the future. We need to start planning now, finds Harriet Palmer, for higher tides and heavier downpours.

NIWA researchers document their work in some of the country's most spectacular reaches.

Psychology may yet be the most potent foil to climate change, finds Harriet Palmer.

How do we model the climate?