A two-day workshop hosted by the Niue Meteorological Services and the Project Management Corporation Unit (PMCU) began last Wednesday 24 May and concluded the following day Thursday 25 May.
The workshop took place at the Millenium hall in Alofi, where it aimed at developing Niue’s national framework for weather, water and climate services.
According to climate consultant of JP Climate Consultancy Janita Pahalad, in her speech of the opening last Wednesday, the key objective of the workshop is to bring key stakeholders, community and village council members together to help develop Niue’s national framework for weather, water and climate services.
“The idea is to come up with a framework that will identify everyone who uses weather, climate, water and ocean information in Niue. Understand what their needs are, and to understand what exactly would you like to get out of that service that will enable you to do your work better. To make a decision, to minimise risk, to minimise any disaster event. To maximise gain, maximise profit out of using that information.”
Also in her speech, the Director of the Niue Meteorological Services Mrs Rossy Mitiepo shared the importance of helping our people know more about our climate, disasters and weather situations here in Niue.
“In order to understand the impacts of climate change, we need to understand the weather situation in our own homes, our own villages, and our country. We need to understand the climate normals. What is the rainfall like in a month? What is the rainfall like in a year? What about the temperature conditions? The sea surface temperature around the oceans in Niue?”
“Climate change is a change of state in our normal climate system due to manmade greenhouse gases. The impacts of climate change are affecting all of us. All our sectors, our culture, our people and our environment.”
In the past month, the Niue MET Services with PMCU were able to commission two important automated weather stations. One at Liku village and the other located at the Vaipapahi Farm in Hikutavake.
The weather stations were set up to assist in more localised weather data collection and weather forecasting. Paving the way forward in understanding our own weather, disaster, and climate situation on the island.