Samples from a changing ocean
This field report is made for a desktop screen.
Samples from a changing ocean
This field report is made for a desktop screen.
As the Pacific warms, changing ocean–atmosphere interactions influence rainfall patterns across the region. Rainfall is already highly variable, and rainfall variability associated with El Niño–Southern Oscillation is projected to increase, bringing greater swings between wet and dry conditions in the future.
From 2000 to 2025, the visualisation traces these fluctuations across nine Pacific Island countries. Each line follows annual precipitation anomalies, revealing how dramatically rainfall can shift from one year to the next and how differently these changes are experienced across the region. Blue highlights mark each country’s wettest and driest year, while countries are ordered by their largest absolute anomaly [most to least].
Explore the rhythms of rainfall across countries and years, and see how differently the Pacific experiences a changing climate.
The blue highlight and the value mark the wettest and driest years recorded for each country between 2000 and 2025.
Each line represents 5 mm of precipitation anomaly. Lines above the baseline indicate wetter conditions; lines below indicate drier conditions.
Subregion: Melanesia Micronesia Polynesia