Climate and ocean monitoring and prediction

Supporting delivery of seasonal climate outlooks in Pacific Island countries

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About climate and ocean monitoring and prediction

The Bureau supports the delivery of Pacific climate and ocean monitoring, and prediction services. This includes long-term trends, seasonal and intra-seasonal outlooks and monitoring for:

  • rainfall, temperature, tropical cyclones and atmospheric pressure
  • ocean temperature, coral bleaching and sea level.

Video: Highlights – Seasonal Prediction Project

The Seasonal Prediction Project, or SPP, is helping Pacific Island Met services to produce tailored outlooks for a wide range of users. Including planners, scientists, and farmers.

So the seasonal prediction project involves climate and ocean monitoring and prediction. And in some cases, it involves long term climate change monitoring.

Fiji Meteorological Service provides a sector specific bulletin for the sugar industry in Fiji. It is a collaboration between Fiji Met service and Sugar Research Institute of Fiji.

It involves tailoring outlooks for the sugarcane sector in Fiji for sugarcane farmers.

We provide the climate outlooks so rainfall outlook for example, temperature, air temperature outlooks, and as well as other climate variables.

Through the support from COSPPac we have ventured into providing them with subseasonal outlooks as well from weekly to monthly outlooks.

The new ACCESS-S system is helping to provide enhanced seasonal prediction products.

ACCESS-S predictions are more robust to climate change. So are more likely to be successful in the future than historical statistical methods.

Whenever we use ACCESS-S, we have more confidence that our forecast will be accurate.

In terms of ACCESS-S, we can forecast anywhere around Vanuatu. You can tell me the name of your village, we can actually forecast what type of climatic condition for your specific village. So yes, this is very important for us here at the Met service.

The Climate Change in the Pacific Report provides historical climate change information. Including trends in rainfall, air temperature, tropical cyclones, and sea levels.

This is helping Pacific Island countries adapt to climate change, by helping them to understand long-term changes in climate.

The Seasonal Prediction Project also supports special ocean outlooks, such as coral bleaching alerts.

The Ocean Climate Outlook Forum is a great platform as it gives a setting where the national meteorological services across the Pacific Island countries can come and talk about the latest ocean and climate information data.

The Sea women of Melanesia, we introduced the coral bleaching alert and outlook to them through the ocean portal and they were quite engaged with this product.

This product may help them in future coral bleaching events so they can deploy technical assistance to carry out the coral bleaching alert in a more timely manner.

Early Action Rainfall, also known as EAR Watch, has been designed to support national disaster management offices.

SPP includes the Early Action Rainfall Watch product, which is looking at predictions for extreme rainfall for Pacific islands.

We have assisted the national meteorological services in terms of training them to produce the EAR Watch bulletins. We've also assisted Met services and the primary stakeholders with delivering information to communities via social media and radio bulletins.

The EAR Watch activity is critical for areas recently affected by drought, such as the Northern Cook Islands.

These watches normally to prepare the community especially those ones that are starting to feel a pinch on the amount of water that's coming in on a monthly basis.

Where COSPPac took us, we are now in the same level with other countries in the world. Where we can be proud of what we are doing because when you talk about seasonal forecast, subseasonal forecast, we are really doing a good job.

It gives us more confidence in providing forecast for specific locations and also that gives the confidence to our stakeholders to use our products.

Climate and ocean monitoring and outlooks

Climate and ocean outlooks assist Pacific communities to plan and prepare for seasonal and intra-seasonal variation risks. For example, extreme changes from normal rainfall, sea level, and ocean surface temperature.

Climate modelling with ACCESS-S

We use ACCESS-S predictions for the Pacific region to deliver better forecasts and support decision making.

The ACCESS-S model provides outlooks from weeks to seasons. It brings significant improvements in resolution and accuracy compared to previous models.

Pacific national meteorological services use ACCESS-S to plan and prepare for risks. For example, from seasonal and intra-seasonal variations in rainfall or temperature.

Learn more about our ACCESS-S climate forecast system.

Pacific climate change data portal

Long-term climate records help improve understanding of climate change in Pacific Islands.

The Pacific Climate Change Data portal provides historical climate information and climate trends for the Pacific Islands and Timor-Leste. It's the largest online data source for the Pacific region.

You can access climate information for more than 100 observation sites across the region.

Ocean climate outlook forum

The ocean climate outlook forum is a regular opportunity for Pacific Island meteorological services to discuss:

  • the status of Pacific climate drivers such as the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO)
  • seasonal climate and ocean outlooks.

It's hosted by the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) in partnership with the Pacific Community (SPC) and the Bureau.

National meteorological services use the forum to get guidance and confirm their analyses of recent rainfall and seasonal outlooks.

Visit the Ocean climate outlook forum.

Climate bulletin

The climate bulletin presents climate and ocean monitoring and prediction information for the western Pacific. This information assists national meteorological services deliver:

  • climate and ocean information
  • seasonal and intra-seasonal outlooks.

The climate bulletin covers:

  • El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO)
  • Madden–Julian Oscillation (MJO)
  • sea surface and sub-surface ocean temperature
  • mean sea level pressure
  • rainfall
  • coral bleaching
  • tropical cyclones.

The bulletin is produced monthly by the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme with contributions by the Pacific Community and the Bureau.

Learn more and access the climate bulletin on the Pacific Meteorological Desk Partnership website.

Pacific Ocean portal

The Pacific Ocean portal provides historical and forecast information to the public. It includes:

  • sea surface temperature
  • wave forecasts
  • surface current forecasts
  • coral bleaching alerts
  • seasonal sea level variations.

The portal provides climate data for a range of sectors. For example:

  • fisheries use the sea surface temperatures and daily chlorophyll maps to indicate areas of high biological activity
  • shipping uses the wave forecast for offshore shipping activities
  • small boat operators can use the wind forecast to assess choppy conditions.

It's hosted by the Pacific Community.

Providing tailored climate services

We work with Pacific national meteorological services to develop tailored climate information products and services. These support the operational needs of a range of sectors, including:

  • renewable energy
  • agriculture and food security
  • water
  • health
  • disaster management
  • fisheries
  • tourism.

Early Action Rainfall Watch

The Early Action Rainfall (EAR) Watch provides rainfall outlooks and drought monitoring information. EAR Watch helps disaster management agencies to act early if conditions will be drier or wetter than normal.

We've worked with these Pacific partners to produce the EAR Watch:

The Regional Ear Watch helps Red Cross National Societies' work to reduce the impact of abnormal rainfall conditions on local communities. It's produced by SPREP in partnership with the Bureau using ACCESS-S outlooks and blended satellite data products.

We're working with national meteorological services in other Pacific countries to develop National EAR Watches for use when preparing for national disaster. This includes the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Naru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

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