Abstract
The 2025 STAP Report represents the findings of the third New Jersey Science and Technical Advisory Panel on Sea-Level Rise and Coastal Storms (STAP). The STAP was charged with identifying, evaluating, and summarizing the most current science on sea-level change (i.e., historic sea-level rise and projections of future sea-level rise) and changing coastal storms. The 17 expert members of the STAP convened between November 2024 and September 2025 to draft this report and revise it in response to independent review by four peer experts and feedback on its usability from a panel of practitioners. As with previous STAP reports, this report aims to be policy-relevant, not policy-prescriptive. The report does not make recommendations about how decision makers should use projections. Such selections depend upon value judgments, such as the level of risk decision makers and impacted communities are willing to accept when planning their long-term resilience goals, as well as how decision makers and impacted communities choose to trade off the near-term costs of risk reduction and long-term sea-level risk. The STAP recommends that scientists and practitioners review the estimates and information herein on a regular basis, not to exceed five years, including after the publication of any major global (e.g., Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) or national (e.g., National Climate Assessment) assessments related to sea-level rise and coastal storms relevant to New Jersey.