This Week in SCIENCE, Volume 327, Issue 5967, Food Security dated February 12 2010, is now available at:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol327/issue5967/twis.dtl
Standing High (requires free registration to view)
Excerpts:
Abstract:
Sea-Level Highstand 81,000 Years Ago in Mallorca
Jeffrey A. Dorale,1,* Bogdan P. Onac,2,* Joan J. Fornós,3 Joaquin Ginés,3 Angel Ginés,3 Paola Tuccimei,4 David W. Peate1
1 Department of Geoscience, University of Iowa, 121 Trowbridge Hall, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA.
2 Department of Geology, University of South Florida, 4202 East Fowler Avenue, SCA 528, Tampa, FL 33620, USA; and Department of Geology, Babes-Bolyai University, Emil Racovita Institute of Speleology Cluj, Romania.
3 Departament de Ciències de la Terra, Universitat de les Illes Balears, Carretera Valldemossa km 7.5, Palma de Mallorca, 07122, Spain.
4 Dipartimento di Scienze Geologiche, Università di Roma III, Largo St. Leonardo Murialdo, 1, 00146 Roma, Italy.
…
Sea-level rises and falls as Earth’s giant ice sheets shrink and grow. It has been thought that sea level around 81,000 years ago—well into the last glacial period—was 15 to 20 meters below that of today and, thus, that the ice sheets were more extensive. Dorale et al. (p. 860; see the Perspective by Edwards) now challenge this view. A speleothem that has been intermittently submerged in a cave on the island of Mallorca was dated to show that, historically, sea level was more than a meter above its present height. This data implies that temperatures were as high as or higher than now, even though the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was much lower.
…
, Bermuda [Ber (23, 24)], Grand Cayman [GC (25)], and Mallorca [Mal (1)]. (C) Sea-level reconstruction for Mallorca. Elevations and U/Th ages of encrusted speleothems throughout MIS 5 and at the onset of MIS 4 are shown (ages and 2{sigma} error bars are color-coded by sample; blue-colored ages are obtained from earlier studies (10). (D) The reconstructed ocean water {delta}18O, scaled as sea level (29). (E) 60°N June insolation (27). The vertical yellow bar denotes the timing of peak MIS 5a sea level recorded at Mallorca and shows a good correlation with 60°N June insolation and the reconstructed ocean water {delta}18O scaled as sea level."]”]
…
We therefore consider the simple interpretation of our data that eustatic sea level during MIS 5a stood around +1 m relative to present sea level, implying less ice on Earth 81,000 years ago than today. Although this interpretation conflicts with the generally accepted eustatic sea-level curve based on the far-field sites of Barbados and New Guinea, it is consistent with a number of other estimates from around the world, including those from the Bahamas, the U.S. Atlantic Coastal Plain, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, and California (4, 6, 22–26) (Fig. 2B). We considered the simple fact that this geographically diverse suite of sites spans a wide range of presumed isostatic states, yet the suite consistently indicates a late MIS 5a highstand of ~ +0 to 3 m (Fig. 2B). Bermuda and Mallorca, for example, are both tectonically stable, and both have MIS 5e/5a estimates of 2 to 3 and 1 to 2 m above modern sea level, respectively; whereas MIS 5e/5a estimates from Barbados are ~ +5 m and ~ –18 m (2). Any appeal to GIA to account for these discrepancies must somehow take into account the unlikely outcome that different ice centers on different continents (Laurentide versus Fennoscandian) would generate the virtually identical MIS 5e/5a relative sea-level histories of tectonically stable Bermuda and Mallorca. The very rapid onset and relatively brief nature of the MIS 5a highstand may have plausibly generated lags between the timing of sea-level changes and the timing of coral reef growth, and may provide a partial explanation as to why reefs on Barbados and New Guinea do not record a comparable eustatic height for this event. This and other factors that could be part of the apparent discrepancy are discussed in (9).
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h/t to WUWT reader David Hagen
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Hopefully the less ideological pro-AGW’s will; be looking at this sort of excellent research based on the real world, and will be thinking a lot about their position.
I know it is nothing new, but Science, as a journal, has been right up there with Nature in blocking this type of thing.
Have they finally found some integrity?
And some say you don’t have real science here! Think again.
This just shows that the environment responds the way it does regardless if we are on it or not.
This means the glacial/inter-glacial temperature and CO2 reconstructions from ice cores are completely wrong.
The reconstructions say it was 2C to 4C colder than present.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_core
Cue the, “Well just think of how bad things would have been IF CO2 had been elevated” spin.
Either sea level was a meter higher OR the land level at the location of measurement was 1 meter lower. Sea level at that distance into the past is all relative to the land surface, and means absolutely nothing.
REPLY: True, but they have a section in the complete paper where they ruled out isotasy issues. – Anthony
Philip_B said;
“This means the glacial/inter-glacial temperature and CO2 reconstructions from ice cores are completely wrong.”
As a proponent of Becks research I have always believed the ice cores to be wrong as I think the historic co2 readings from the 1830’s onwards are broadly correct. The two measurements are said to be incompatible and therefore ice cores ‘must’ be right.
Tonyb
Philip_B (15:46:23) :
I guess we all know that the CO2 concentration extracted from ice cores are questionable but I am not too sure if the concentration of CO2 in that cave was in equilibrium with that in the atmosphere. My guess is it was in equilibrium with that in the water. Not sure if the water in the cave was at equilibrium with sea water though.
Observe how various editors, authors and researchers are beginning to tippy-toe away from their previous AGW position. Who will make it to the door before the big rush? Who’ll be left in the room?
And who was behind all the misinformation?
Why not Bush and the Jews? Requires some tweaking…but the AGW gang will need some really solid, proven scapegoats to get out of this one.
For anyone interested I started playing with Cheifio’s dT/dt data and think I found some interesting tidbits.
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/12736
Cheers, AJStrata
Or was Mallorca 1 meter lower?
Is Mallorca that tectonically stable?
It is at the intersection of two major plates –
With the African plate creating enough pressure to build the Alps.
The entire Balearic chain is on a fault line.
I am simply asking.
Given the tectonic activity of the Mediterranean region –
I would have to see convincing evidence that this was not due to uplift.
I know what the warmers will say:
That was proven wrong long ago
That was caused by global warming
That is not peer reviewed
The author is obviously funded by oil companies
They use it with just about everything
Wierd, a brief melting period maybe??
Well, duh. Being a resident of Florida it always struck me as odd when warmists use the threat of rising sea levels as a consequence if we don’t change our ways, but it was common knowledge growing up that in the recent past (geologically speaking) almost all of the Florida peninsula was under water. I wondered why that was never brought up to refute the rising sea level claim by the warmists.
If I am reading the graph correctly, sea level maxima and minima seem to lag insolation maxima and minima by 2,000 to 10,000 years. If so, we might be at or just past the sea level peak of the Holocene interglacial.
More evidence that Milankovitch Cycles govern global climate change.
Probably a red herring but the Med is land-locked apart from the Straits of Gibraltar, with shallow sills. There is also a salinity density difference between Atlantic and Mediterranean, with complex tides and bores through the straights. It might have variably affected sea level equilibrium with the open oceans in the past.
This is no coming around, just an editorial strategy that backfired: I bet these papers were supposed to be drowned by the noise of the Copenhagen accord… hence their publication AFTER copenhagen. However this was without counting with climategate and the failure of COP15 and the renewed scrutiny…
It is obvious that since sea level is the datum by which land elevation is determined, an increase in CO2 concentration has caused the earth to rise
Just thinking out loud here, but isn’t there a theory floating around that up until the last 10,000 years or so the Black Sea was land locked and then flooded? I wonder how much that might have affected sea levels… would be interesting if it worked out to be about a meter(?)
Anywayz… just a random thought. Interesting read thanks!
A meter plus minus is just margin of error. The seas have risen and fallen 100 meters through the ice ages.
But what did I miss the last glaciation period started about about 120,000 bp and lasted until 11,000 bp. So how does this fit in the the established time lines?
As John Egan states, this is all about tectonics, not climate.
Sea levels were definitely ~250 feet lower 80,000 years ago.
This has got to give the warmists pause. (Not that they’ll openly admit it.)
I wonder how many other findings like this have been suppressed, spun, or soft-pedaled in the past.
The battle of the MSM networks on Climate Change is in full furry over the world record world wide snow storms. These neophyte climatologist reporters are a hoot to watch. MSNBC is parading out Bill Nye the Science Guy for Christ’s sake.
Dylan Ratigan Responds To Glenn Beck’s Global Warming Attack With His Own Chalkboard (VIDEO)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/11/dylan-ratigan-responds-to_n_459206.html
“This data implies that temperatures were as high as or higher than now”: really? I can see that the data are consistent with its having been as warm or warmer, but I don’t see why they imply that it was.
Anyway, the big deal is that it certainly implies that the science isn’t settled.
Off topic but worth mentioning.
Dallas is about to shatter almost all their snow records.
I wonder how the pro-agw crowd will spin this newest record snowfall being that it’s so far south.