By Jill Rischbieth

Communicating climate science in accessible and meaningful ways is always a challenge. A comical and highly resilient climate crab is now taking on this challenge across the Pacific.

We have teamed up with the Bureau of Meteorology and humanitarian experts from the Red Cross to produce ‘The Pacific Adventures of the Climate Crab’. This animation follows the escapades of a comical and highly resilient crab and aims to help Pacific Island communities better understand El Niño and La Niña and how to prepare for these events.

For people living in small Pacific island countries El Niño and La Niña can have very serious impacts. For example, the 2010/2011 La Niña event resulted in severe droughts in Tuvalu and floods in Fiji. The result can be threats to water quality, food security, infrastructure (like houses and roads), livelihoods and health.

But the good news if people are prepared the impacts can be somewhat mitigated. Weather offices can provide warnings and forecasts to help Pacific Islanders anticipate and prepare for changing risks.

The animation comes with a ‘tool kit’ to help link the information presented in the animation to decision-making and action on the ground.

The films and accompanying resources will be useful those working in fields that address climate risk such as climate change adaptation, disaster risk management, health, education, food security, community planning, environmental protection, agriculture and natural resource management.

The series continues in July with a reggae parrot, the next climate communicator to join the climate crab. For more information, visit www.pacificclimatechangescience.org/climatecrab