Getting ready for our warmer future

Stories about looking our warming world in the eye, and preparing for what is coming next. Collecting data about extreme temperatures in estuaries to help manage shellfish populations. Plus what might managed retreat of marae threatened by sea level rise mean for MÄori communities.

We know that global temperatures are on the rise, and even if we could stop all greenhouse gas emissions tomorrow some impacts would still be locked in. 2021 was New Zealand's warmest year on record. Could it also have been the coldest year of the rest of our lives?

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In the week that the IPCC has checked our homework and found that global efforts to reduce emissions are coming up short, we need to prepare for a future that includes warmer temperatures, sea level rise and increased extreme weather events. This week's episode includes two stories of researchers doing just that.

The extreme life of a cockle

Estuary intertidal regions are interesting environments uniquely impacted by warming of both the air and the sea. During daytime low tides uncovered sediment is heated by the sun. Incoming shallow water flowing over this hot sand or mud gets warmed to bathwater temperatures.

Therefore, combinations of land and ocean heatwaves, coupled with low tides in the middle of the day when the sun is at its hottest, lead to extreme temperature events in these environments. These are exactly what University of Auckland researcher Dr. Rebecca Gladstone-Gallagher wants to capture.

Rebecca is leading a project to deploy a network of temperature sensors, or loggers, in 25 locations across New Zealand's estuaries. Long term temperature loggers will remain out for a year, capturing the general trend over 20-minute intervals. But to get details on these extreme temperature events, Rebecca is also deploying loggers that will take readings every two minutes.

For these deployments she has chosen hot weeks with low tides in the middle of the day. The loggers will be placed just above and within the sediment, in cockle bed areas, so that Rebecca can get an idea of exactly what the animals are experiencing.

Claire Concannon joins Rebecca and her collaborator Professor Conrad Pilditch of the University of Waikato to learn more about the cockles that live in these estuaries, and how Rebecca hopes that this monitoring will help them.

Rebecca's work is funded by a 2020 Marsden fund.

Coastal marae and sea level rise…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details