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).
============
h/t to WUWT reader David Hagen
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Isn’t this just weather?
>>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…
Yes, it was proven by cores, that struck salt flats, that the Black Sea almost dried up during the last ice age. Then, some 7000 BC, the Bosphorus was finally breached and “the largest waterfall in human memory” was unleashed as the Black Sea refilled.
However, if you compare the width of the Bosphorus and the Gibraltar Strait, I don’t think this would affect the levels of the Med.
But I have to agree, that the stability of Mallorca, geologically, would have to be better established before this report can be taken seriously.
.
I just love this website.
Now we have a really interesting paper being reviewed and debated.
I seem to have read somewhere once, maybe it was my granddaughter’s science classroom, that the heart of science is open discussion and debate of observations.
UK Sceptic (00:19:19) :
And didn’t they have problems with sticky gas pedals and brakes that didn’t work? And the recalls didn’t fix the problems?
The proper view of this research is to regard it with skepticism. What the paper does is invite further research in other parts of the world to add evidence in support or falsify the result. Nothing is proved or disproved by this paper.
This is the way science should be done.
Oliver K. Manuel (19:50:17) :
“George Bush also took the advice of NAS President, Dr. Ralph Cicerone, in 2001 in formulating the US policy toward global climate change. ”
Oliver, you have to remember that allmost all political parties in the west was forced to do this. Because all voters are brainwashed by media. Which again are brainwashed by post-modern science institutes.
So, as a politician, you have 2 choices;
1) Say no to post-modern science, and loose all voters, or , say yes, swollow hard, and go on……
Its terrible, but there you have it.
They’ve been very clever to follow Michael Hulmes advise. To redefine what Science is…. Its a travesty.
SandyInDerby (00:51:10) :
“So the question is where did it (the water) go before the Black Sea was connected to the Med? One of these days I’ll get round to calculating how long it took (would take) to fill a blocked off Black Sea with all that fresh water.”
The water went into the Mediterranean the same as now, only the Bosporus was a river rather than a strait. The effect on global sea level of the Black Sea being filled with fresh rather than brackish water is completely negligible.
As for tectonics, it does seem that the Tyrrhenian block (including the Balearics) may be just about the only part of the Mediterranean that is relatively stable. See for example:
Ferranti, L. et al. 2006. Markers of the last interglacial sea-level high stand along the coast of Italy: Tectonic implications. Quaternary International 145–146 (2006) 30–54.
Ralph (04:24:19) :
No salt layers in the Black Sea. It has never been dry, but mostly a fresh water lake isolated from the Mediterranean. It is very unlikely that it could ever dry out with the Danube, Dniestr, Dniepr and Don all draining into it.
Well, just because it’s getting colder and wetter doensn’t mean that its not getting warmer and drier! Pretty hard to argue with logic like that!
John Hooper (00:56:19) :
“Re Monckton vs Lambert.
I think there’s been a little abuse of observing the Fallacy of Appealing to Authority.
It’s perfectly acceptable to refer to peer-reviewed literature endorsed by multiple bodies of science to support your case.
It’s what’s done routinely in court. It’s done routinely in the press.
As such, referring to the studies of an expert witness would normally trump referring to the studies of an witness with dubious credibility.
Without such “authorities” Monckton too would be without a case. It’s not like he does his own research. He merely collates (cherry-picks) contrarian studies that support his position.”
______
When I mentioned that Tim Lambert in the Monckton-Lambert debate made constant appeals to authority, what I was implying – but realize I did not state clearly – was that rather than explain the mechanisms of what is going on, Lambert referred to individual studies as being done by recognized experts and therefore they must be right, or stated that since there is a huge consensus on a certain “scientific fact” then the fact must be right. Monckton relied more on logical arguments based on physics, known meteorology, problematic record-keeping and data manipulation, and so on. His arguments were massively more substantive. However, some of the science he used also was questionable, such as the argument that ENSO events are triggered by undersea vulcanism in the west Pacific. I’ve looked that one up and there is no agreement on this idea, since there is some statistical correlation but by no means any consistent causative evidence.
The Dorale et. al. article which forms the basis of this thread does look convincing; as someone noted above, however, the Mediterranean is a special case in terms of its oceanographic history. The authors seem to have done their best to answer this by indicating sea-level correlations in Bermuda and elsewhere. One wonders how they could definitively rule out isostatic effects, however.
Either the sea level was higher or the crust raised.
BTW regardless my motto is
“Humans are not responsible for global warming … politicians are”
I don’t think anyone mentioned this paper: Lambeck K, Bard, E. 2000. Sea-level change along the French Mediterranian coust for the past 30 000 years. Earth and planetary sciences letters 175, 203-222.
This indicates rising sea levels in Medit before the SUV. Interesting because of the potential role of sea level differences in the time span between absolute myth, prehistory, and history. The Mahabharata includes Krishna foretelling the sinking of Dwarka (India); archaeology has discovered a submerged Dwarka along with present-day, dry-land Dwarka. They have an estiamted data range of this phenomenon – subsidence or flooding – of 2000 to 300 BCE. There are submerged archaeological locations in the Nile delta in the same era: who would build a town under water? Also, in Jericho, arguably well-established before 2000-3000 years ago, there is a story of the walls falling. Archaeology supports that there was a former town, with a fallen wall, circa the Biblical timline (Kathleen Kenyon, etc.); this town sits between the hills and the valley of the Jordan, obviously with water from the hills providing the springs well-known in the area. It is possible that rising water in the Persian Gulf, which drains the Jordan, raised the water table in the Jordan Valley, weakening the ability of the underlying soil to support this substantial (had small residences or storage areas built into it, concordant with the story) wall. The wall collapse is on the “downhill” side of the old city, supporting this possibility. Whether a parade of a millin people could de-stabilize the soil is another topic for another day; but the submerged archaeology across this vicinity of the globe – Nile delta, trans-Jordan, and nortwestern subcontinent, demonstrate non-SUV rise in sea levels in the past few thousand years.
As for tectonics, it does seem that the Tyrrhenian block (including the Balearics) may be just about the only part of the Mediterranean that is relatively stable.>
I’ve always wondered how one would establish this. The only way to say that any one given thing has moved a certain amount over time is to be able to measure it against something that hasn’t moved. We don’t have anything that we KNOW hasn’t moved, so we can only compare multiple things to each other to compare relative distance, height, etc. I thought of parking a laser on the moon but that darn thing moves about 3.8 cm farther away each year.
come to think of it, that would mean it was about 3 km closer to earth 81,000 years ago. F=Gm1m2/r^2 current r=384,000 km, so gforce between moon and earth would have been about 1.5% higher meaning higher tides, etc. Med and Black Sea being low tidal oscillation no much difference, but high/low tide marks in high oscillation areas….?
The other interesting thing is that the paper suggests a way to correlate atmospheric insulation with sea levels.
Eyeballing the graphs suggests that sea level isn’t very responsive to changes in insulation at the upper end. Even when the insulation was ~550w/m^2 125k years ago, the sea level looks to be identical to today’s.
vigilantfish (06:38:40) :
Monckton relied more on logical arguments based on physics, known meteorology, problematic record-keeping and data manipulation, and so on. His arguments were massively more substantive. However, some of the science he used also was questionable, such as the argument that ENSO events are triggered by undersea vulcanism in the west Pacific. I’ve looked that one up and there is no agreement on this idea, since there is some statistical correlation but by no means any consistent causative evidence.
Yes, that’s the problem with Monckton. As witnessed with Glaciergate, you only need to be caught out on one exaggeration, let alone unsupported/debunked claim, and your entire house of credibility starts tumbling down around you.
Watching him debate is like yes, yes, yes, oh no Chris not the mud pie story again, mate, just leave it out. You’re just setting yourself up for ridicule.
I had a girlfriend who lied compulsively. She always had proof for all her outlandish stories, which was all you had to do was call one of her friends you didn’t know and ask them.
Monckton’s a bit the same. He cites fact after fact after fact – and it sounds great – but honestly, his audience rarely has any idea, certainly not as he speaks, whether his data is sound. The press then picks up one of his claims, rips it apart, leaving the rest of his argument likewise suspect.
Sometimes less is more.
The editorial boards of Science and Nature need to do some very serious review of their policies with respect to the critics of man made CC and man made GW. These two publications have been at the forefront for years of intentionally blocking and censoring those legitimate and scientific fact based evidenced papers that have challenged the lies and the fraud and the hoax that are man made CC and man made GW. The greens still cannot clearly, accurately, and precisely show and demonstrate the causal relationship between man’s behavior and the alleged man cause CC and GW. We are just supposed to accept their unproven hypotheses because their positions are “superior to the positions of the critics” and their work and causes are “so much more important” than that of the critics. If the data of the East Anglia CRU, NASA, and NOAA are so scary accurate, precise, and predictive, then why did Phil Jones and Michael Mann put up such obstacles to having such data reviewed by the Canadians M&M? Where was the skeptical media? Where were the critical thinking skills of the media when Al Gore told his lies. (By the way, Al Gore told the public that the earth’s subsurface is millions of degrees hot. It isn’t. It is 4,000 to 7,000 degrees C.) Science should not be for sale or be manipulated by the corrupt media and by corrupt scientists. Until the leaders in science decide that science is not to be manipulated and compromised to promote and support the lies, bias, distortions, and prejudiced policies of politicians, then the four corners of deceit shall remain academia, government, media, and science.
tty (05:56:21) :
SandyInDerby (00:51:10) :
“So the question is where did it (the water) go before the Black Sea was connected to the Med? One of these days I’ll get round to calculating how long it took (would take) to fill a blocked off Black Sea with all that fresh water.”
The water went into the Mediterranean the same as now, only the Bosporus was a river rather than a strait. The effect on global sea level of the Black Sea being filled with fresh rather than brackish water is completely negligible.
—-
So how did it (the Bosporus river) do that if there was a dam which was breached by water coming in from the Mediterranean which then formed the Black Sea? There must have been a depression which became the Black Sea? So why wasn’t it a lake before it became the Black Sea with the Bosporus river flowing out ?
I am very puzzled by it. “It’s not logical Captain”
>>No salt layers in the Black Sea. It has never been
>>dry, but mostly a fresh water lake isolated from
>>the Mediterranean. It is very unlikely that it could
>>ever dry out with the Danube, Dniestr, Dniepr and
>>Don all draining into it.
The Black Sea dried out to an extent that it was less than 50% its current area – a vast volume change. And yes, this left a series of salt pans around the perimeter. The rivers that fill the Black Sea are not sufficient to prevent evaporation of the sea to much lower levels – which is why the Bosphorus only flows in one direction.
See Ryan and Pitman “Noah’s Flood”. Despite the non-scientific title, this research was peer reviewed in ‘Nature Mag’.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/phenom_apr00.html
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v430/n7001/full/430718a.html
.
>>The water went into the Mediterranean the same
>>as now, only the Bosporus was a river rather than
>>a strait.
No it was not.
The world sea levels and the Med dropped below the level of the current Bosporus during the ice Age – thus the Black Sea started drying out (yes, not completely dry, but substantially dry).
After the Ice Age, sea levels rose again, and finally they reached the level of the Bosporus. The Bosporus would have been a ‘river’ for all of one or two WEEKS. After that, with such a head of water behind it, the Mediterranean would have eroded a bigger and bigger path through the Bosporus – resulting in a vast torrent.
Ryan and Pitman estimate the water in the Bosphorus moving at some 120 miles and hour and the resultant Bosporus waterfall being the largest in human memory – while the Black Sea filled at some 2km per hour (lateral displacement, so you could easily walk ahead of it, if you did not get cut off.)
A distant memory of this may be present in the Flood myths, and also in Homer’s Odyssey. The ‘clashing rocks’ are a reference to the Bosporus, and the myth indicates these rocks open and close, much like the Bosporus actually did. Incidentally, the epic of Gilgamesh describes a boat being pulled along by rocks, which is still a current method of navigating the Bosporus – rocks in a basket under a boat will be pulled along by the current and pull the boat along, as the current is still towards the evaporating Black Sea.
.
I haven’t seen that issue of SCIENCE yet; well unless it’s already buried under papers.
My initial reaction to the story, is that this is just another “anecdotal” piece of evidence, that reaffirms my belief that there really isn’t any correlation between CO2 and global climate; well certainly not in the manner of the first being causative of the second.
The 600 million year purported proxy record here:-
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/PageMill_Images/image277.gif
should convince anybody (assuming the data is correct) that global mean temperature IS NOT;and never has been, proportional to the logarithm of the atmospheric CO2 abundance; so Dr Steven Schneider’s invention, (apparently) of “Climate Senitivity.” as being the slope of that logarithmic relationship, simply doesn’t hold water. Sorry I just couldn’t resist.
I know that Lord Monckton, has used that ancient climate data graph in his presentations; perhaps someone who knows how to access the raw numbers used to plot it, could actually plot Temp vs log(CO2), so we can see just how wrong that concept is. I don’t care what base for the logs; but 2.0 would be a good choice to match with Schneider’s thesis.
But back to the current paper under discussion; it will be interesting reading to see where this leads,in the direction of just what the heck WAS actually going on 81,000 years ago,that led to this (apparent) result.
“”” u.k.(us) (17:13:24) :
o/t
carl sagan quotes:
“Modern science has been a voyage into the unknown, with a lesson in humility waiting at every stop. Many passengers would rather have stayed home.”
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”
Where is the humility, or the evidence. “””
Well this often repeated (purported) quote of Carl Sagan, has a nice touchy feely aura about it; one might almost describe it as “Churchillian.”
But of course, other than being immortalized along with “Billions and Billions” by Sagan, it is quite wrong.
The standards of scientific “proof” are fairly well understood, and the level of adequacy, is not influenced by the overall importance of the outcome.
If Sagan’s edict is to be assumed true; then one must also accept that non-extra-ordinary claims do not require extra-ordinary proof; in other words sloppy workmanship is ok if the outcome is not of great significance.
That will not do; one must always explore under every rock, for supporting evidence (or the contrary) for ANY claims; if one wants to have any scientific integrity at all.
In fact the outcome, of one’s work, should be the least of one’s concerns.
Getting the facts correct, is ALL that matters; not the eventual outcome of those revelations.
That’s so true. Overkill will kill you. Tone it down. If you don’t have a winning hand, play for a draw. Don’t open yourself to a counterpunch. Etc.
I live in Mallorca!!! lol!
On the stability of Mallorca – We had a small earthquake last weak in the bay of Palma.
http://www.euroweeklynews.com/2010020372292/news/mallorca/earthquake-in-palma-bay.html