File:Post-Glacial Sea Level.png

From Global Warming Art


Expansion of the most recent 9 kyr


The black curve is based on minimizing the sum of squares error weighted distance between this curve and the plotted data. It was constructed by adjusting a number of specified tie points, typically placed every 1 kyr but at times adjusted for sparse or rapidly varying data. A small number of extreme outliers were dropped. It should be noted that some authors propose the existence of significant short-term fluctuations in sea level such that the sea level curve might oscillate up and down about this ~1 kyr mean state. Others dispute this and argue that sea level change has largely been a smooth and gradual process. However, at least one episode of rapid deglaciation, known as meltwater pulse 1A, is agreed upon and indicated on the plot. A variety of other accelerated periods of deglaciation have been proposed (i.e. MWP-1B, 2, 3, 4), but it unclear if these actually occurred or merely reflect misinterpretation of difficult measurements. No other events are evident in the data presented above.

The lowest point of sea level during the last glaciation is not well constrained by observations (shown here as a dashed curve), but is generally argued to be approximately 130 +/- 10 m below present sea level and to have occurred at approximately 22 +/- 3 thousand years ago. The time of lowest sea level is more or less equivalent to the last glacial maximum. Prior to this time, ice sheets were still increasing in size so that sea level was decreasing semi-continuously over a period of approximately 100,000 years.



Global Warming Art License


Please select the category below that best matches your intended use.




File history


current06:32, 2 April 2007Thumbnail for version as of 06:32, 2 April 2007526×359 (19 KB)Robert A. Rohde (Talk | contribs) (fix spelling)
00:06, 18 November 2005Thumbnail for version as of 00:06, 18 November 2005526×359 (23 KB)Robert A. Rohde (Talk | contribs)