Researching weather patterns

Maara Vaiimene once envisioned spending his retirement years consulting on research projects for the Cook Islands Meteorological Service.
Instead, the service’s operations manager is about to start wading through records dating all the way back to the arrival of missionaries in the Cook Islands.
Vaiimene has been recruited to aid a pair of Australian scholars in their study of tsunami and tropical cyclone patterns as they pertain to Mangaia. Professor James Goff, of the University of New South Wales, and Professor Jonathan Nott, of James Cook University, recently visited that island, where Nott received permission to remove a stalagmite as part of his study into the frequency of tropical cyclones, as well as rainfall totals.
Vaiimene said the Met Service’s role in the project is two-fold: to compare the service’s 30 years of collected rainfall data to whatever information Nott is able to glean from the stalagmite; and to identify how many cyclones have impacted Mangaia over recorded history.
“What I need to do is to research at the time when Christianity came to the Cook Islands,” Vaiimene said. “Because there’s bound to be, during that time, government representatives who would have made some recordings.”
Vaiimene will start by digging into the records stored at Rarotonga’s Takamoa Theological College to see if anyone commented in their reports or diaries about such strange weather events as heavy rain that may have signalled a cyclone, or the sudden drops and rises in the sea level which occur during tsunamis.
It is tsunamis, in fact, that will be the focus of the project’s first leg.
“When we talk about tsunamis, we think that they don’t affect us,” said Vaiimene. “Now this research will help us answer that question, whether or not we are vulnerable to tsunamis.
“Secondly, we can have a look at the weather patterns over that time and see if there is a cycle there to determine climate change. Through this historical research, we are able to see if there is a pattern there and what pattern can we expect in the future.”
Vaiimene was pleased to encounter a number of residents on Mangaia who are keen to pitch in and lend a hand with the research.
“That is good, because if you have that type of people on the island, it makes my job a bit easier,” he said. “They know the culture, they know the land mass. It’s just a matter of preparing a document, explaining it to them and they carry it out.”
While the pilot project will focus initially on Mangaia, Vaiimene said the research may be expanded to include the entire Southern Group.
Vaiimene said the days of simply warning the public about the possibility of a cyclone are over. Better education – and instant access to the World Wide Web – has resulted in the demand for more specific information to be issued by the Met Service.
Projects like the one on Mangaia will eventually help the service provide better forecasts and predictions.
“All these findings can assist us here at the Met office,” Vaiimene said.
The tricky part, Vaiimene said, is fitting a research project predicted to take 12 months around his regular duties.
“I was hoping to do this kind of work when I retired – as a consultant – not while I’m still here,” he said. “It’s a matter of finding the time to do it.”

By John Ireland

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