Global Sea-Level Rise at the End of the Last Ice Age Interrupted by Rapid 'Jumps'

[Elmore Furth]

This does not protend well for easy solutions if the Greenland ice sheet and Antarctica glaciers start to melt quickly.

Southampton researchers have estimated that sea-level rose by an average of about 1 metre per century at the end of the last Ice Age, interrupted by rapid 'jumps' during which it rose by up to 2.5 metres per century. The findings, published in Global and Planetary Change, will help unravel the responses of ocean circulation and climate to large inputs of ice-sheet meltwater to the world ocean.

Global sea level rose by a total of more than 120 metres as the vast ice sheets of the last Ice Age melted back. This melt-back lasted from about 19,000 to about 6,000 years ago, meaning that the average rate of sea-level rise was roughly 1 metre per century.

Their analyses indicate that the gradual rise at an average rate of 1 metre per century was interrupted by two periods with rates of rise up to 2.5 metres per century, between 15 and 13 thousand years ago, and between 11 and 9 thousand years ago.

The first of these jumps in the amount of ice-sheet meltwater entering the world ocean coincides with the beginning of a period of global climate warming called the Bølling-Allerød period. The second jump appears to have happened shortly after the end the 'big freeze' called the Younger Dryas that brought the Bølling-Allerød period to an abrupt end.



Global Sea-Level Rise at the End of the Last Ice Age Interrupted by Rapid 'Jumps'

[Ghost Dog]

1. Dead link. But I believe this is the article referred to:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101201120605.htm

[txlibdem]

2. Nice find! So the tiny tropical islands might have been huge lush paradises?

If the beach slopes away fairly gently (not a volcanic mount in other words) that island must have been much, much larger during the ice age.

We have the technology now, however, to survive another ice age by building huge, domed floating cities. We just can't continue in our current Predatory Corporatist Capitalism at the same time.