Sea level rise won’t only affect infrastructure

Scoop via Forest & Bird (New Zealand): The independent conservation organisation Forest & Bird is asking the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment (PCE) to widen the focus of her next report on climate change-driven sea level rise.

A preliminary report on sea level rise was released by the PCE today. The PCE will release another report next year on the impacts of sea level rise on the most vulnerable areas of coastline around the country, and the risks to infrastructure in those areas.

Forest & Bird Group Manager Campaigns and Advocacy Kevin Hackwell says the next report should also take into account the impacts of sea level rise on our natural coastal ecosystems, and recommend the best ways to deal with sea level rise.

He says some critical natural features could be changed forever by sea level rise. “For example the huge Kaipara Harbour north of Auckland covers 947 square kilometres at high tide, with nearly half of that area exposed as mudflats and sandflats at low tide,” Kevin Hackwell says.

...“Quite a few of our shore birds breed just above the current high tide level on our open coasts or at the head of estuaries. For instance the four remaining nesting sites of New Zealand’s Seabird of the Year, the fairy tern, could be wiped out by storm surges,” Kevin Hackwell says.

“We would also like to see the PCE make recommendations on how sea level rise should be dealt with. Building extensive sea walls is likely to be very expensive, in many places unrealistic, and in the long run may create more problems than they would solve....

Sphinx Rock in Marie's Leg Cove, New Zealand, shot by Pseudopanax, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons 3.0 license 

Tuvalu family cites global warming on accepted refugee application

Terra Daily via UPI: On a refugee application recently accepted by New Zealand, a Tuvalu family claimed they'd be forced out by global warming if they returned home. It's the first instance of refugees citing climate change as one of the reasons for their displacement.

But this particular family could be the first of many if sea level rise continues at the rate many climatologists have predicted. Tuvalu is a tiny island nation in the Pacific, between Hawaii and New Zealand. At just 6 feet above sea level, Tuvalu is one of many island nations that could be nearly swallowed by the sea by the end of the century.

Even if sea level rise happens at only half the rate of more dooming predictions, these sorts of places could quickly become uninhabitable as their coasts become increasingly vulnerable to storms. This latest refugee case has many wondering: When will the floodgates for global warming refugees open?

As of now, climate change and sea level rise are not officially recognized as legitimate causes of displacement by the International Refugee Convention. And while the case of this Tuvalu family's application featured other circumstances -- the family had lived in New Zealand since 2007 and had strong ties to the community -- environmental lawyers have watched the situation closely, curious as to the case's larger implications....

Ocean on all sides. A landscape in Tuvalu, image by Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade , Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons 2.0 license 

Climate change adaptation not enough - Generation Zero

Voxy (New Zealand): The latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlights the need to manage the unavoidable and ensure we are avoiding the unmanageable impacts of climate change, says youth climate change organisation Generation Zero.

Responding to the major conclusions of the report, the work of over 2000 subject experts, Generation Zero Policy Director Alec Dawson explains, "the report shows that the impacts of climate change are already being felt across the world in all continents, and predicts that there will be significant impacts for the next generation. These include serious changes to the lives of people in coastal areas, global drops in crop yields, and impacts of heat waves and and inland flooding in urban areas."

Mr Dawson; "Adaptation is essential to manage the unavoidable but we also need to avoid the unmanageable impacts of climate change. The reality is that on the world's current emissions path we are on track for around four degrees of warming by 2100. In their 2012 report 'Turn down the heat', the World Bank said "there is no certainty that adaptation to a four degree world is possible".

"Minimising these impacts depends upon a global response, and New Zealand has a huge opportunity to be a leader in taking the world away from fossil fuel use and into a low-carbon world free from catastrophic climate change."...

Richard Palmer photo of Lake Mapourika in New Zealand, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Sea level rise report will help Christchurch become more resilient

Scoop has a press release from the Christchurch City Council: Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalziel has welcomed a Christchurch City Council-commissioned report on the impacts of sea level rise for Christchurch and Banks Peninsula.

“What this report has highlighted for me is the importance of feeding this long-term horizon into our current planning processes, so the timing couldn’t be better as we begin our District Plan Review, which will include a specific focus on natural hazards. This report gives us the confidence to proceed with this issue in the first phase of our District Plan Review with an eye to the challenges we may have to confront so that we will be a more resilient city in the future.

“It will also assist us develop a city-wide Resilience Strategy, which is a component of being selected to join the Rockefeller Foundation 100 Resilient Cities Network announced before Christmas,” Mayor Dalziel says.

She says the Council will focus on working closely with the community on working through this and other natural hazard issues that impact on people’s lives.

“The level of community engagement that needs to happen regarding this issue has been largely absent from the decisions that have been made in relation to lan
d use since the earthquakes, so this report gives us a fresh start in terms of building a shared understanding of both the likelihood and consequence of natural hazard risk,” Mayor Dalziel says.

The report, commissioned from environmental engineers, Tonkin & Taylor, is a research paper which updates an earlier report prepared in 1999. This latest report takes into account current international science about the impacts of climate change on sea level rise, as well as the impacts the earthquake sequence has had on land levels in the city’s flood management areas....

Christchurch in 2008, shot by Mark Lincoln, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr,  under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Climate change concerns raised for Māori health and economy

Michael Sergel in Pacific Scoop (New Zealand): Climate change was top of the agenda at the Pacific Islands Forum last month – and it is an issue that strikes at the heart of the traditions of tikanga Māori across Aotearoa.

More than 10 years of research by Taihoro Nukurangi, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, has found the effects of climate change will particularly affect the fishery, agriculture and forestry models that are core to the Māori economy and iwi tradition.

The institute conducted extensive hui consultation with iwi and government agencies on what could be an extremely important issue for the future of Māori society.

University of Auckland Te Kupenga Hauora Māori researcher Dr Rhys Jones (Ngāti Kahungunu) has also studied the potential impact of climate change – focusing on the impact on hauora, health and wellbeing.

“[Aotearoa] will be relatively insulated from the effects of climate change compared to other Pacific countries – but any impact will be borne disproportionately by Māori, Pacific Islanders and lower socio-economic groups,” he explained.

Children were particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, he claimed. “They are smaller, less able to cope with heat extremes and natural disasters, and spend more time outdoors – and that puts them at greater risk.”...

Tiki shot by Abaconda Management Group, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

‘Climate-change refugee’ from low-lying Pacific island will test argument in New Zealand court

Washington Post via AP: A man from one of the lowest-lying nations on Earth is trying to convince New Zealand judges that he’s a refugee — suffering not from persecution, but from climate change. The 37-year-old and his wife left his remote atoll in the Pacific nation of Kiribati six years ago for higher ground and better prospects in New Zealand, where their three children were born. Immigration authorities have twice rejected his argument that rising sea levels make it too dangerous for him and his family to return to Kiribati.

So on Oct. 16, the man’s lawyer, Michael Kidd, plans to argue the case before New Zealand’s High Court. Kidd, who specializes in human rights cases, told The Associated Press he will appeal the case all the way to the country’s Supreme Court if necessary.

Legal experts consider the man’s case a long shot, but it will nevertheless be closely watched, and might have implications for tens of millions of residents in low-lying islands around the world. Kiribati, an impoverished string of 33 coral atolls about halfway between Hawaii and Australia, has about 103,000 people and has been identified by scientists as among the nations most vulnerable to climate change.

In a transcript of the immigration case obtained by the AP, the Kiribati man describes extreme high tides known as king tides that he says have started to regularly breach Kiribati’s defenses — killing crops, flooding homes and sickening residents. New Zealand immigration laws prevent the AP from naming him....

Fiji under curfew as cyclone arrives

Stuff (New Zealand): Much of Fiji is now under curfew as it awaits Cyclone Evan - which is threatening to become a devastating category five storm. Radar pictures show that Evan, which devastated Samoa on Thursday night, is about to hit Fiji tonight and into tomorrow.

It is not known what happened to the 15,000 people of the French islands of Wallis and Futuna, which Evan passed over today. The upgrade came as Evan was on top of Wallis Island, part of the French territory of Wallis and Futuna. The islands, the only kingdoms within the Republic of France, are now completely cut off. Authorities there usually take down satellite dishes as cyclones pass over.

The military commissioner for Fiji’s northern district, which includes Vanua Levu, Colonel Ilai Moceica, this afternoon imposed a curfew, saying it was necessary to save lives. Meanwhile the Fiji Navy has warned all seafarers that travelling during disasters not only threatens the lives of those at sea, but also the Fiji Navy.

The latest warning from the Fiji Meteorological Service has issued storm and gale warnings across a wide area of Fiji, including the Yasawa and Mamanuca areas, popular with tourists. All tourists at island resorts off the western coast of Viti Levu have been evacuated to the Nadi area. The service is warning that “destructive winds” may begin several hours before the cyclone centre arrives around midnight.

Weather forecasters are predicting that super cyclone Evan will hit New Zealand's Northland and Auckland area toward the end of the week....

Severe Tropical Cyclone Evan on December 16, 2012

Experts warn of climate change threat to New Zealand coastal communities

Xinhua: New Zealand government scientists warned Tuesday the country needs to plan around the threats of more severe floods as sea levels rise with climate change.

The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) said storm surge flooding was starting to occur more frequently on king tides.

Sixty-five percent of New Zealanders including those in 12 of the country's 15 largest towns and cites lived within 5 km of the sea and the country had to plan to manage the growing risks, said NIWA principal scientist Dr Rob Bell.

"Rises of more than a meter by 2100 can't be ruled out, and should at least be considered in assessing the vulnerability of our existing development at the coast," Bell said in a statement.

"New Zealand's Coastal Policy Statement directs that we also avoid further increasing risk in the future. So for large new subdivisions and developments, we should be building into this new development sufficient capacity to absorb even higher rises in sea level, given the permanent nature of subdivisions."

As sea-levels rose, low-lying coastal areas would face an escalating risk from sea flooding, with a present-day 100-year flood event occurring every year if the sea level rose by half a meter, said Bell.

Higher storm surges could damage beaches, seawalls, buildings, roads and other infrastructure, and affect drinking-water supplies in lowland rivers and groundwater....

Cape Campbell in New Zealand at sunrise, shot by Phillip Capper, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Australia, New Zealand in airlift to drought-hit Tuvalu

BBC: Australia and New Zealand are to airlift equipment to the Pacific nation of Tuvalu to help it deal with a severe water shortage caused by drought. Military planes from both countries will fly a large desalination unit to Tuvalu's main island of Funafuti.

New Zealand has already flown smaller units to Tuvalu but its foreign minister said more capacity was needed. Tuvalu has declared a state of emergency over the shortage, caused by the La Nina weather phenomenon.

It has not rained in the remote nation of about 11,000 people for more than six months, and there is no drinkable groundwater because rising seas have contaminated it. About half the population live on the main island of Funafuti, where water is being rationed.

"The advice is that more capacity is needed to relieve the acute water shortage and replenish stocks," New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully said....

Heat goes on climate for Australasian disaster costs

Victoria Robinson in Stuff (New Zealand): Climate change is largely to blame for Australasia putting in almost a quarter of the world's natural disaster insurance claims last year. Data from major reinsurance provider Munich Re, shows that from 1980 to 2009, Australasia was responsible for 3% of natural disaster insurance claims in dollar terms. But after the Christchurch earthquake, floods in Queensland, and enormous hailstones in Melbourne and Perth, that skyrocketed to 22% last year.

Munich Re, in its own report on the deluge of natural disasters, said climate change "is real and continuing" and cited floods in Pakistan and wildfires caused by a heatwave in Russia. The Christchurch quake was not climate-change related. Munich Re said 2010 was one of the warmest years since 1850 and featured the second-highest number of loss-related weather catastrophes since 1980, when it started keeping data.

Niwa principal climate scientist Dr James Renwick agreed that weather events like heavy rain were linked to global warming. "It's possible part of the change since the 1980s is natural variation, but I'm sure there's a climate change component. We know the globe has warmed and it's well-documented that the occurrence of extreme rainfalls around the world has increased in a way that's consistent with the climate models," he says.

"It's just what you'd expect – you warm things up, more moisture, more energy, more rain falls. There's definitely a climate change component in extreme rainfalls around the world."...

Thomson River in flood at Jundah, Queensland, 1950

Climate change brings risk of more infectious diseases in New Zealand

Xinhua: The number of New Zealanders being hospitalized with infectious diseases has surged in the last two decades, say researchers in a warning that the government must do more to understand the links between global warming and public health. More than a quarter of acute hospitalizations in New Zealand are resulted from infectious diseases, compared with only 18 percent in the early 1990s, said a statement from the University of Otago Sunday.

"A warmer, wetter and stormier climate has the potential to make this burden of serious illness significantly worse because of the biological and ecological origins of many infectious diseases. This potentially means both additional human suffering and additional costs to the tax-payer funded health system," said Nick Wilson, Associate Professorof the university's department of public health. A study conducted by the university showed "significant gaps in our knowledge" of the connections between climate change and infectious diseases, said Wilson.

Much more effort should be made by government agencies and researchers into the possible increase of infectious diseases because of climate change. "While climate change is having impacts on the environment, it is also critical to understand its current and potential impacts on human health, including infectious diseases," said Wilson.

One of the highest priorities identified by the study was the need for better understanding of the risk of mosquito-borne diseases, such as dengue fever, carried by insects from tropical countries. Many New Zealand habitats could be colonized by new mosquito species as temperatures and rainfall increased, it warned….

Frying Pan Lake in New Zealand. Original uploader was Famelor from de.Wikipedia.org, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Massive iceberg shears off New Zealand glacier after quake

Terra Daily via AFP: A 30 million tonne block of ice sheared off a New Zealand glacier just minutes after a violent earthquake devastated the city of Christchurch, officials said Wednesday. The huge iceberg crashed into a lake shortly after the 6.3 magnitude tremor rocked the South Island on Tuesday and created waves up to three metres high for 30 minutes which rocked two sightseeing boats on the lake at the time.

The enormous iceberg -- estimated to weigh 30 to 40 million tonnes -- began ripping off the Tasman Glacier at Aoraki Mount Cook National Park accompanied by a loud noise which sounded like a rifle shot, a local tourism official said. Aoraki Mount Cook Alpine Village tourism manager Denis Callesen said locals had been expecting a major iceberg to drop from the glacier for the past month, but the "curve ball" was that the event was caused by an earthquake.

"The earthquake that we felt here was a swaying motion for about a minute, then it stopped and then it swayed for about another minute," he told AFP. "Within about a minute of that happening, the staff at the lake heard from five kilometres away (from the glacier) a sound that sounded like a rifle shot and then over the next two minutes all the events started to unfold. "I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that the earthquake was the trigger."

The Department of Conservation confirmed that a "large chunk" of the glacier fell into the lake but was unable to say if this was caused by the earthquake, which was only felt lightly around Mt Cook some 150 kilometres (93 miles) from the epicentre. "You could argue whether the earthquake precipitated it or not -- the fact is that the terminal face was about due to carve anyway," area manager Richard McNamara told AFP....

The view across Tasman Lake to the rock-covered Tasman Glacier, New Zealand's longest glacier, with the Minarets (3040 m) visible in the distance. Icebergs float on the lake, and part of the lateral moraine projects into the lake on the left. The scour line left by the glacier in previous centuries marks the hillside to its right. Shot by Avenue, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Extreme weather conference in New Zealand

Voxy (New Zealand): Over the past decade, predicting the weather, and understanding the changes in climate, has emerged as one of the most important and topical areas of scientific endeavour. An international community of over 200 scientists will converge on Te Papa in Wellington this week for the Extreme Weather Conference, from 9 -11 February. The scientists will share information, and work to better understand extreme weather events such as recent damaging storms in New Zealand, and Cyclone Yasi, which hit northern Queensland last week with destructive winds reaching 290 kilometres per hour.

Cyclone Yasi demonstrated the importance of forecasting, and how, when combined with good preparation, this can dramatically reduce the impact of a cyclone….Conference presentations will cover six key areas:

• extreme weather in the Australasian region - from floods to droughts
• impact and meteorology of the main climate drivers (ENSO e.g. El Nio and La Nia,)
• using high-resolution models to understand local meteorology
• oceanography of the Australasian region
• climate change in the Australasian region
• impacts of natural catastrophes in the Australasian region.

Cyclone Yasi damage in Townsville, shot by Rob and Stephanie Levy, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Drought highlights urgent need for New Zealand water storage

Voxy (New Zealand): Reliable irrigation is the way forward to ensure sustainable and resilient communities says Irrigation NZ as it highlights the urgent need for nationwide water storage. Agriculture Minister David Carter foreshadowed a major water package as part of the government's response to climate change when he spoke after meeting Northland's drought-affected farmers.

…While government has financially assisted the planning stages of community water storage projects, through the Community Irrigation Fund, none have yet proceeded to implementation stage. And that time can't come quick enough, says IrrigationNZ chief executive Andrew Curtis.

"Reliable Irrigation is the way forward to minimise boom bust scenarios and create wealth and opportunity for communities alongside resilience." Farmers get a risk management tool and it also enables them to undertake better environmental management, Curtis said.

Good Management Practice (GMP) irrigation keeps grass and crops growing optimally absorbing the applied nutrients. This enables farmers to proactively manage losses from the system, as opposed to a dry land scenario where there is no control over soil moisture and consequent plant growth, leaving outcomes unequivocally in the hands of the rain gods! Across the country it's shaping up to be a long summer and there is every likelihood other areas will soon find themselves in the same situation as Northland.

…In terms of production, reliable irrigation demonstrates clear benefits. Due to the declared drought in Northland and the looming drought declaration in Waikato, these two regions, without reliable water supply, are falling well behind the central South Island in terms of production. For example, milk production in the upper North Island, including Northland, has this month (December 11 figures) dropped 8% on a daily basis compared to last season. Waikato has fallen 10.5% while the central South Island (Canterbury and North Otago) has increased 5.5%....

An aerial shot en route between Rotorua and Wellington, shot by Phillip Capper, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

US universities partner on study of fire and climate

Montana State University News: Faculty at Montana State University, the University of Colorado, the University of Idaho and collaborators at the USDA Forest Service received a $3.85 million grant to study fire and climate change in sensitive forests in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand. The National Science Foundation is funding the project, which starts today, through their Partnerships in International Research and Education (PIRE) program.

"Our goal is to better understand fire as a global process, one that is driven by changes in climate and human activities around the world," said Cathy Whitlock, an earth sciences professor at MSU and lead principal investigator on the grant. "Fire is the same everywhere -- it threatens human health and livelihoods as well as vital ecosystem processes and services. It makes sense to look at fire in a variety of settings, because the more we can understand and predict fire occurrence and its effects, the better we can adapt and plan for it."

The proposed research studies conducted in the U.S. and abroad, will help inform fire management decisions and educate the next generation of fire scientists and managers worldwide. "We will be looking at how climate change and humans have altered fire activity in areas with different climates, fuels and human activities, as points of comparison," said Whitlock. "One thing is clear - the frequency and severity of fires have increased around the world and this is considered to be one of the signs of global climate change."

…The five-year project, entitled "WildFIRE PIRE: Wildfire feedbacks and consequences of altered fire regimes in the face of climate and land-use change in Tasmania, New Zealand, and the western U.S.," has educational, outreach and research components….

"Elk Bath" – A wildfire in the Bitterroot National Forest in Montana, United States, shot by John Colgan, USDA

Rural women's drought experiences key to policy

Nathan Crombie in the Wairarapa Times-Age (New Zealand): The reality of drought for rural Wairarapa women will be put under the microscope next year. University of Otago lecturer Dr Charlotte Chambers has just completed a series of nine interviews in Marlborough as part of a research project exploring the social well-being of rural women during drought in that region.

The second phase of the project comprises a similar series of interviews of rural women in Wairarapa in May next year, she said, and the results from each region would be compared. Wairarapa is the only region in New Zealand that has endured four official back-to-back droughts, the latest being declared for the east coast of the region.

Dr Chambers said the study seeks to capture whether and how women's roles and responsibilities shift during a severe climate event in areas of decision-making, divisions of labour and resource access and control. “What we found in Marlborough was that the women during drought just seem to harden up and get on with it _ they literally become the glue that holds those farming families together,'' Dr Chambers said.

''They were also open and frank about their male partners suffering depression during drought, but thankfully there were no stories of suicide or domestic violence. ''The stories we heard included those about some men who had to take anti-depression medication and their women having to jolly them along in times of emotional stress,'' she said.

''We found the women had family and other off-farm connections while the men were far more bound to the farm, and consequently isolated _ there were precious few opportunities for them to get out and physically interact with others enduring the same trials….

Castlepoint, Wairarapa, New Zealand, shot by Phillip Capper, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Slice of ice

The Press (New Zealand): The Roosevelt Island site is located on the northern edge of the Ross Ice Shelf, directly in the path of cyclonic storm activity which means there is the high level of snow precipitation needed for high resolution climate records. It is also an ideal site for research as it is one of only two grounded pinning points of the ice shelf where the biggest changes in ice shelf extent and behaviour are observed.

But because the site is about 750km from Scott Base, they will have to use small fixed-wing planes to get there and this limits the weight of equipment to be carried. Unfortunately, the drilling systems that are traditionally used to drill to such depths are incredibly heavy leaving the scientists a weighty problem.

Enter Alex Pyne, projects manager of the Antarctic Research Centre's science drilling office. Along with his team, he has managed to overcome this barrier thanks to a healthy dose of Kiwi ingenuity. He made a copy of a light-weight Danish drill rig never used for such a depth range then made modifications to increase its drilling capability. In doing so he created the only operational ice-core drill that is lightweight but capable of drilling down to 1000 metres.

…Butler says this encapsulates Antarctica New Zealand and the Government's strategy for Antarctic science to have practical benefits for New Zealand. "Not a lot is known about Antarctica and its influence on the global climate, so by doing this sort of work it contributes directly with the science strategy that we're putting together and it has a real outcome that helps New Zealand do its job as an international player in this area."...

The Ross Ice Shelf in 1997, shot by NOAA

More than 100 icebergs heading towards New Zealand

Terra Daily via Agence France-Presse: More than 100, and possibly hundreds, of Antarctic icebergs are floating towards New Zealand in a rare event which has prompted a shipping warning, officials said on Monday. An Australian Antarctic Division glaciologist said the ice chunks, spotted by satellite photography, had passed the Auckland Islands and were heading towards the main South Island, about 450 kilometres (280 miles) northeast.

Scientist Neal Young said more than 100 icebergs -- some measuring more than 200 metres (650 feet) across -- were seen in just one cluster, indicating there could be hundreds more. He said they were the remains of a massive ice floe which split from the Antarctic as sea and air temperatures rise due to global warming.

"All of these have come from a larger one that was probably 30 square kilometres (11.6 square miles) in size when it left Antarctica," Young told AFP. "It's done a long circuit around Antarctica and now the bigger parts of it are breaking up and producing smaller ones."

He said large numbers of icebergs had not floated this close to New Zealand since 2006, when a number came within 25 kilometres of the coastline -- the first such sighting since 1931….

A 2000 shot of an Antarctic iceberg by Jerzy Strzelecki, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License

Seas may rise even higher

Kiran Chug in the Dominion Post (New Zealand): Scientists are predicting seas will rise higher than the levels the Environment Ministry advises local councils to plan for. Delegates in Copenhagen for the United Nations climate change conference next month are to be told of the new predictions, which draw on new satellite images of Greenland and Antarctica.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has predicted a sea level rise of up to 59 centimetres by the end of the century. However, the director of the Antarctic Research Centre, Tim Naish, said the international community now believed sea levels could rise by 1.9 metres. Environment Minister Nick Smith said the Government was working on establishing a national environmental standard on planning for sea levels, which he hoped would be in place next year.

He hoped to put the standard out for consultation next year, but said it was likely that councils would still be required to plan for a rise of 59cm. "The Government is not going to consider adjusting its policy every week," Dr Smith said.

…Ministry senior analyst Warren Gray said the current advice to councils was to plan for a sea level rise of 50cm, and consider what a rise of 80cm could mean. He said some were planning for sea level rises of up to 1.5 metres. "We want people to be safe, but not building defences that are not necessary," he said.

The mouth of the Uawa River in New Zealand, shot by Monsieur Blanc, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License

New Zealand's methane effect worse than thought

New Zealand Herald: New Zealand may be making a bigger contribution to global warming than scientists thought. A Nasa study says climate scientists have underestimated by 20 to 40 per cent how much methane warms the planet - even though it is already believed to be 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

The study, led by Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, said methane blocked the creation of aerosols that would otherwise cool the planet - a new finding not counted in current estimates of global warming. New Zealand is almost unique in the developed world because of its large proportion of methane emissions. The gas is released by farm animals, as well as landfills, crops and coal mines.

New Zealand scientists reacted cautiously to the new study, saying more work was needed to back it up. A New Zealand author of the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Martin Manning, said at least one more study showing the same thing would be needed before the panel would change its stance. It was a "very short paper on a very complex topic" but it would open up debate, he said.

Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium manager Mark Aspin said New Zealand would be looking to the IPCC for guidance, "given our [emissions] profile it is something we want to keep an eye on". The study found methane and another pollutant, carbon monoxide, soaked up an atmospheric "scrubber" called hydroxyl that would otherwise join other substances to make cooling aerosols. The sulphate aerosols elbowed aside by methane cooled the earth by scattering light and affecting the clouds….

Lake Marian in Fiordland National Park near the Homer Tunnel on the road to Milford Sound, New Zealand, shot by Thorney¿?, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License