The New Zealand
Climate Science Coalition
The Coalition is a not-for-profit, membership-based organization dedicated to climate science and has no political
affiliation. We take a science and evidence-based approach to climate change issues.
Media release (immediate) 7 November 2006
Time Govt Acknowledged NZ Climate is Cooling
It’s time that the Government stopped talking about climate warming in New Zealand, and acknowledged the fact that
temperatures in this country have been dropping since the El Nino high of 1998. This was said today by Professor Augie
Auer, chairman of the scientific panel of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition, commenting on the NIWA climate
statistics for October which showed that the average temperature of 11.9o C was 0.3o C below normal.
“We calculate that NIWA’s average New Zealand temperature for the first 10 months of this calendar year is 99 percent of
the 1975-2005 average New Zealand temperature for the same 10 months. By way of comparison for the same 10-month period
in 2005, the figure was 103 percent and the calendar year 2005 came out at 104 percent of the 31-year calendar year
average. So unless November and December are remarkably warm, 2006 is going to be colder on average than 2005 and
possibly no higher than the last 31-year average.
“This does not tally with repeated claims that New Zealand is subject to climate warming,” said Professor Auer.
ENDS