Dear Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment,

I have some questions following Commissioner Jan Wright's speech on sea level rise. In her report on see level rise reported on interest.co.nz she talked about a 30cm sea level rise being 'locked in' 'baked in' by 2050.

She is saying we are guaranteed to get 300mm of sea level rise in 35 years, that is an average of 8.5mm a year. She also states this will likely result in -ve equity and loss of insurance cover for costal property owners.

Questions
1. What was the sea level rise last year in New Zealand
2. What was the average annual rise over the last 10 years
3. If the average annual rise over the last 10 years is less than 8.5mm when is the increase expected to come and what is going to trigger it.

Yours faithfully,
Warwick Schaffer

Dear Tom Crick/Dr Blackwell,

Thank you for your response, I appreciate the effort that has gone into it and it has clarified some things for me but I have 2 more questions.

This is the quote from interest.co.nz on commissioner Wright's report.

"Commissioner Jan Wright appeared before the Local Government and Environment select committee to discuss her recent report‘Changing climate and rising seas: Understanding the science”’, which spelt out that a 30cm rise in sea levels by 2050 was already ‘baked in’."

You state that this conclusion is based on 2013 IPCC projections that average sea level could rise 17 - 38 cm by the 2046 - 2065 period and the starting point for this is the 1986 and 2005 sea level average.

If we take commissioner Wrights 30 cms and the 1986 - 2005 average as the starting point between 2006 - 2025 sea level needs to be on average 10cm higher.

I want to know if are are in fact on this track. My questions are;

1. What was the global average sea level in the 1986 - 2005 period.
2. What is the average so far in the 2006 - 2015 period

Thank you
Warwick Schaffer