中国气候变化信息网 China Climate Change Info-Net

Penehuro Fatu Lefale, a scientist with New Zealand's National Meteorological Service who leads the study into small islands for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), will on Tuesday unveil his findings to journalists in Auckland.

The IPCC is a collaboration of more than 2,500 climate change scientists and 130 governments and the general findings of its latest report were last week unveiled in Brussels.

Lefale told AAP that some Pacific islands were expected to struggle with the effects of climate change.

"Water resources, food security, fisheries, human health and tourism will be highly likely to be impacted," he said.

"In particular ... in terms of the water resources, we expected by the middle of this century a reduction in water resources in many small islands to the point where they become insufficient to meet the growing demand during low rainfall periods.

"If the increase in tropical cyclones occurs, we will be seeing a significant increase in the damage to food crops and infrastructure very likely."

Lefale said different parts of the Pacific are likely to experience different problems, but he believes the entire region will be hard hit.

"What we are seeing in the models is that by the end of this century we are going to have more El Nino-like conditions, meaning there will be dryness to the islands to the west of the region - from Fiji spreading out to Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and of course part of Australia," he said.

"We are seeing more likelihood of more cyclones occurring throughout the central eastern part of the Pacific than to the western part of the region, if they are in an El Nino event."

Lefale said that for unclear reasons Australia was more likely to be hit by drought during moderate El Nino conditions compared to severe El Ninos.

He said there was a smaller chance of more La Nina events during this century, which would lead to more rainfall in eastern part of the Pacific.

"It really depends on the behaviour of the El Nino Southern Oscillation," he said.

He said that since the last IPCC report in 2001, predictions had become much more accurate.