Summer in Eastbourne, Wellington. Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King
New Zealand avoided extreme temperatures seen globally for the month of January, but Niwa's principal scientist says that should change in the coming months.
Last month was the world's warmest on record, according to the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service.
There was a 1.75 degrees Celsius increase globally, but regional variants meant New Zealand instead had its coldest January since 2017.
Chris Brandolino said the reports are the latest in consecutive months of top temperatures, but he doesn't expect New Zealand to be an outlier in the coming months.
"It looks like temperatures are going to be warm this month," he told Morning Report. "We're back into a warming trend, we're going to have a very warm weekend for much of the country."
He said while some regions may escape the heat, he would be "very surprised that was duplicated again February, March and April" for most of New Zealand.
Brandolino said the global trend is concerning, and that 2023's record year was only beaten by 2024's temperatures.
He said scientists are puzzled by the data as La Nina was expected to bring cooler temperatures, as El Nino is the climate driver.
"We have La Nina, which we have now in the Central Equatorial Pacific, those are cooler than usual ocean temperatures and that tends to have flow-in affects to the global air temperatures and it does favour or tilt the odds toward cooler air temperatures globally," he said.
"But that hasn't happened, that is a bit of a head scratcher."
Brandolino said there are theories to the unexpected temperatures, such as the impact of the efforts to cut pollution by limiting sulphate.
As sulphate acts to reflect the energy and light from the sun, with it less sulphate, the energy can make its way back into the atmosphere, he said.
He said we have to reduce greenhouse gases "but unfortunately that's not happening at a pace that it needs to happen".
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