This is interesting work. However, I note that they make no note of a
decline in sea level during the little ice age.
Thus we must presume no such decline actually took place which I think
is actually correct.
The four hundred year medieval
warm period from 1000 AD to 1400AD generated a 200 mm rise in the sea level, if
this calculation is correct. It is also
claimed that the past century added another 200 mm of sea level rise.
The total area of the ocean is
approximately 3.6 X 108 sq km and this means we are talking of 7.2 X
107 cu kms or 72,000,000 cubic kilometers of ice has been melted to
supply this water each time. This volume is equivalent to the present volume of
the Columbia
ice field. That field is thought to be
around half its size in recent times, so we may well be looking at part of the
answer.
It is not too hard to imagine
additional reductions in Greenland and even Antarctica
although that looks more like a counter argument.
What we have learned though is
that the Holocene is not making ice faster than it is losing it even when we
have serious cold spells.
We have now entered another warm
spell that I have good reason to think will last until 2700 AD with the best
period running from 1900 AD through 2300 AD.
I suppose the good news is that
will give us enough time to fully complete the terraforming of Earth itself and
this will then cushion us from cold spells because of the restoration of the
Sahara to Bronze Age conditions.
Fastest Sea-Level Rise in Two Millennia Linked to Increasing Global
Temperatures
by Staff Writers
Rising seas lap at the house in "Nights in Rodanthe," filmed
during the field work.
Credit: Andrew Kemp, Yale
University
The rate of sea level rise along the U.S. Atlantic coast is greater now
than at any time in the past 2,000 years--and has shown a consistent link
between changes in global mean surface temperature and sea level.
The findings are published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
The research, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), was
conducted by Andrew Kemp, Yale University; Benjamin Horton, University of
Pennsylvania; Jeffrey Donnelly, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; Michael
Mann, Pennsylvania State
University; Martin Vermeer, Aalto University School of Engineering, Finland;
and Stefan Rahmstorf, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany.
"Having a detailed picture of rates of sea level change over the
past two millennia provides an important context for understanding current and
potential future changes," says Paul Cutler, program director in NSF's
Division of Earth Sciences.
"It's especially valuable for anticipating the evolution of
coastal systems," he says, "in which more than half the world's
population now lives."
Adds Kemp, "Scenarios of future rise are dependent on
understanding the response of sea level to climate changes. Accurate estimates
of past sea-level variability provide a context for such projections."
Kemp and colleagues developed the first continuous sea-level
reconstruction for the past 2,000 years, and compared variations in global
temperature to changes in sea level over that time period.
The team found that sea level was relatively stable from 200 BC to
1,000 AD.
Then in the 11th century, sea level rose by about half a millimeter
each year for 400 years, linked with a warm climate period known as the
Medieval Climate Anomaly.
Then there was a second period of stable sea level during a cooler
period called the Little Ice Age. It persisted until the late 19th century.
Since the late 19th century, sea level has risen by more than 2
millimeters per year on average, the steepest rate for more than 2,100 years.
"Sea-level rise is a potentially disastrous outcome of climate change,"
says Horton, "as rising temperatures melt land-based ice, and warm ocean
waters."
To reconstruct sea level, the scientists used microfossils called
foraminifera preserved in sediment cores extracted from coastal salt marshes in
North Carolina .
The age of the cores was estimated using radiocarbon dating and other
techniques.
To test the validity of their approach, the team compared its
reconstructions with tide-gauge measurements from North Carolina for the past 80 years, and
global tide-gauge records for the past 300 years.
A second reconstruction from Massachusetts
confirmed their findings.
The records were corrected for contributions to sea-level rise made
by vertical land movements.
The reconstructed changes in sea level over the past millennium are
consistent with past global temperatures, the researchers say, and can be
determined using a model relating the rate of sea level rise to global
temperature.
"Data from the past helped calibrate our model, and will improve
sea level rise projections under scenarios of future temperature
increases," says Rahmstorf.
1 comment:
You are obviously unaware of Frank Stapor's work in Florida. See Walker et al in Florida Anthropologist ca. 1990.
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