Climate Projections

Earth’s climate and oceans are changing in response to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. The Pacific Islands region will experience higher air and sea temperatures, changes in wind and rainfall patterns, higher sea levels and increasing ocean acidification. The impacts of these changes are already being felt, and will continue to have significant implications on livelihoods and for sustainable development in the region.

Climate Monitoring

National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) in the Pacific Islands region monitor the state of the global- and regional-scale climate and oceans to assess the likelihood and risk of the formation and movement of tropical cyclones and storms, coral bleaching events, anomalously high seas, the location and intensity of the South Pacific and Inter-Tropical Convergence Zones, and abnormal sea surface and air temperatures.

National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) throughout the Pacific Islands region are mandated by their governments to regularly produce country-specific long range climate forecasts and disseminate these to their national stakeholders. The resources shown below aid this process by providing regularly-updated global- and regional-scale climate model output, analysis tools, and consensus-based forecast and validation products.

[title class="main_title dot"]Traditional Knowledge[/title]

By closely observing their local environment, communities in the Pacific have developed skills that enable them to build coping strategies for extreme weather and climate events. They are able to make their own predictions for weather and climate variables based on traditional knowledge that has evolved through observation and experience over a considerable period of time.