Pacific Pandanus, Issue 3, May 2016

Summary

This issue focuses on the theme of CLIMATE VARIABILITY and how it affects the Pacific Islands region. This past year has given us ample opportunity to see how climate variability, in this recent case El Niño, affects us in our own communities.

The 2015–2016 El Niño has resulted in drought, sea-level change, prolonged coral bleaching, and other changes from normal throughout the Pacific Islands. The following pages will describe climate variability and the contribution of Kelvin waves to the El Niño -Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle. We will also highlight some of the ways that communities are being impacted by El Niño, and describe just a few projects that folks are working on to anticipate and address these changes.

Importantly, as we consider climate variability we must also reflect upon the ways in which climate change can combine with variability to give us a world in which there is no normal.

In this issue…

All About  El Niño, 2

Climate Waves, 4

Climate In Action, 7

… what’s been happening in the Pacific islands region

Calendar, 9

Opportunities, 10

Staff in Focus/Who We Are, 11