University of South Florida geology professor discovers the industrial boom’s impact on global warming.Peer-Reviewed Publication
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA
The early 1900s were an exciting time across the world, with rapid advances in the steel, electric and automobile industries. The industrial changes also mark an inflection point in our climate. According to an international team of researchers led by the University of South Florida (USF), the sea level has risen 18 centimeters since the start of the 20th century.
The study, featured on the cover of the July 1 issue of Science Advances, works to identify preindustrial sea levels and examines the impact of modern greenhouse warming on sea-level rise.
The team, which includes USF graduate students, traveled to Mallorca, Spain – home to more than 1,000 cave systems, some of which have deposits that formed millions of years ago. For this study, they focused on analyzing deposits from 4,000 years ago to present day.
The team found evidence of a previously unknown 20 centimeter sea-level rise that occurred nearly 3,200 years ago when ice caps melted naturally over the course of 400 years at a rate of 0.5 millimeters per year. Otherwise, despite major climatic events like Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age, the sea level remained exceptionally stable until 1900.
“The results reported in our study are alarming,” said lead author Bogdan P. Onac, geology professor at USF. “The sea-level rise since the 1900s is unprecedented when compared to the natural change in ice volumes over the last 4,000 years. This implies that if global temperatures continue to rise, sea levels could eventually reach higher levels than scientists previously estimated.”
To create the timeline, the team gathered 13 samples from eight caves along the coastline of the Mediterranean Sea. The deposits are rare – only forming near the coastline in cave passages that were repeatedly flooded by sea water, making them accurate markers of sea-level changes overtime. Each deposit holds valuable insight into both the past and future, helping researchers determine how quickly the sea level will rise in the coming decades and centuries.
The samples were taken to the University of New Mexico and University of Bern in Switzerland, where special instruments were used to determine their age by uranium-series method. Over time, uranium decays into other elements such as thorium and lead, allowing researchers to create a timeline of the sea level documented in each deposit.
A complex software at Harvard University helped generate predictions using various ice models and Earth’s parameters to showcase an accurate history of the sea level. These predictions are essential because they allow researchers to estimate past global mean sea level, which is key in addressing future sea-level rise.
“If humans continue to be the main driver and the temperature increases 1.5 degrees in the near future, there will be irreversible damage,” Onac said. “There will be no turning back from that point on.”
Based on ice mass loss from the Antarctic and Greenland, the average sea-level rise since 2008 is 1.43 millimeters per year.
Permanent flooding from the rising sea level won’t happen overnight, but Onac says it will be seen more and more during storm surges and hurricanes. With nearly 40 percent of the world’s population living within 62 miles of a coast, the rising sea level could be catastrophic with substantial societal and economic impacts.
“Even if we stop right now, sea level will continue to rise for at least a couple of decades, if not centuries, simply because the system is warmed up.”
In June, Onac received a new research grant from the National Science Foundation to continue his research to predict future sea-level rise due to global warming. The grant will allow Onac to expand the research further into history by 130,000 years and create a better understanding of sea level globally. Starting in September, Onac and his team will begin analyzing cave deposits from around the globe, including Italy, Greece, Mexico and Cuba.
This study was conducted in collaboration with the scientists from Harvard University, University of New Mexico, University of the Balearic Islands, University Rome Tre, Rutgers University, Australian National University, Los Alamos National Laboratory and University of Bern.
JOURNAL
Science Advances
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Data/statistical analysis
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
Not applicable
ARTICLE TITLE
Exceptionally stable preindustrial sea level inferred from the western Mediterranean Sea
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
29-Jun-2022
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“Unprecedented”—what a pack of liars.
n = 13.
An auspicious number for those prone to being superstitious.
Always prefer proxies to tide gauge readings.
The weight of the tide guages is known to cause significant subsidence.
I believe The Battery tide gauge is on bedrock as are many others. What is the source of your claim?
Are you sarcasm impaired?
2nd LOL on this thread, thanks Clyde, sarcasm impaired indeed!
We need to fund a Federal Ark project
Give ti the aerospace industry – it’ll be decades late and trillions over budget.
If it started in 1900, it couldn’t have been due to CO2, since that didn’t start to rise significantly till around 1950. Even the IPCC admits that.
If it takes a “complex computer program” to find a trend in your data, then the odds are there is no trend in your data.
Actually, what they said was “a complex software,” leads me to suspect that it was written by someone for whom English is a second language.
Corrected for istocacy? Without that, no conclusions can be made regarding global sea level change. Larson and Clark, of the USGS found sea level on the east coast of the US has risen at an average rate of about 1.5 mm/yr over the past 6,000 years. See Journal of Coastal Research, July 2006.
The Battery sea level gauge in New York City has been operating since 1856 and shows a sea level rise corrected for isostasy of about 1.5 mm/yr. Why did Onac choose to ignore this data and that of Larsen and Clark and his other peers when claiming such a “profound” discovery?
Confirmation bias junk.
“at least a couple of decades if not centuries”
Way to pin it down! That’s some serious “science” there.
There are caves in Mallorca?
Joined the navy to see the world and get skills to earn a decent living. After 9 years I had acheived the later but never deployed. Spent a lot of time in the shipyard. Told my detailer to get me on a ship where I could finsish quals like driving the ship.
So I got orders to the med. I signed myself up for ‘overseas diplomacy coordinator school’ know that my new ship had a chaplin who had those SLJ duties. So I spent a week goofing off and Mallorca was my class project.
I do not like flyhing and have been know to put Kalua in my coffee before getting on a commercial flight. First stop Rota Spain. When I returned to the base at 2 am I had failed to spend $20 practicing overseas diplocy. Rule one, do not drink at the first bar outside the gate.
Found out I was on the next COD in 2 hours to NAS Sigonella. I was able to navigate onto the plane without help but I was seriously impaired. The crew chief did not sugar coat the fact that no one had survived ditching at sea. My first time sitting in a cargo net with wax in my ears.
Then one of two engines stopped over water. I learned being drunk does not help with terror. We made an emergcy landing Mallorca. I am thinking party. Local authorties had other ideas. The crew got the engine running and we headed the shortest distance over water which was Rota.
Had many great shores leaves but never got back to Mallorca in the navy.
A few years later I was working in Spain. Decided Mallorca was the perfect place for a second honeymoon. Looked out into the bay fromn the hotel room to see CVN Nimitz and my CGN. Checked out and went to otherside of the island. Did not go cave hopping!
How is it every claim of “unprecedented” sea level rise uses everything except actual measurements of the sea level?
The facts supporting the unstated assumption — humans are the main driver — are not in evidence.
“The team found evidence of a previously unknown 20 centimeter sea-level rise that occurred nearly 3,200 years ago when ice caps melted naturally over the course of 400 years at a rate of 0.5 millimeters per year. Otherwise, despite major climatic events like Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age, the sea level remained exceptionally stable until 1900.”
So, it was ‘exceptionally stable’ except for 1200 of those 3200 years, and since the MWP and LIA were close to being back to back at the end of the time period, the exceptionally stable period appears to be from 2800 to 1000 years ago.
I’m at a loss to see how this ‘new’ info tells us anything helpful in relation to the climate change hypothesis. It does suggest that coastal areas are naturally subject periodic inundation, slowly and over long periods but we didn’t need to spend money to know that.
By the way, that exceptionally stable 1800 years is just one cave away from not being so exceptionally stable.
“In June, Onac received a new research grant from the National Science Foundation to continue his research to predict future sea-level rise due to global warming. The grant will allow Onac to expand the research further into history by 130,000 years and create a better understanding of sea level globally.”
Hmmm….
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his income depends on his not understanding it” – Upton Sinclair
Wow my first thought – shock, my second, has anybody told Gore, Obama, and Kerry, that they are about to lose their oceanside luxury homes?
I offered them 10cents on the dollar for their clearly worthless properties and for some reason they didn’t jump at it.
It’s as though they don’t believe their own words.
“With nearly 40 percent of the world’s population living within 62 miles of a coast, the rising sea level could be catastrophic with substantial societal and economic impacts.” It’s not how close you live to the coast, it’s how much higher you are than current sea level.
I pointed this out before
https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/carbon-dioxide-now-more-than-50-higher-than-pre-industrial-levels
From the link:
“CO2 levels are now comparable to the Pliocene Climatic Optimum, between 4.1 and 4.5 million years ago, when they were close to, or above 400 ppm. During that time, sea levels were between 5 and 25 meters higher than today offsite link, high enough to drown many of the world’s largest modern cities. Temperatures then averaged 7 degrees Fahrenheit higher than in pre-industrial times, and studies indicate offsite link that large ”.
So, if co2 controls temp, and if co2 is now the same as 4 million years ago when temps were 7F hotter and the ocean 25M higher, then why is it 7F colder and the oceans 25M lower today?
If co2 controls temps.
I’m just asking.
It’s not unexpected, unreported or unprecedented.
Here is a useful interactive summary of peer reviewed evidence of warmer times and higher sea levels, and less glaciation around the World during the Holocene optimum the IPPC deny, and the still warmer times as these temperatures fell, cyclically, from Minoan times. AS the geological record shows and the “Climate scientists” deny. Because they are paid to prefer prophesy to science.
http://pages.science-skeptical.de/MWP/MedievalWarmPeriod.htmx
In articular there is one on sea level from the Persian Gulf which saw recorded rises up the Euphrates and Tigris resulting from the rises in sea levels during the Holocene optimum, after the Straits of Hormuz were overtopped during the last interglacial warming event. In particular see page 55.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/s94gh2g2lhv6i0e/Persian%20Gulf%20Sea%20Levels.pdf?dl=0
There are more in my own acquired collection from my own research collection available here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xffozx2nfpy3sia/Interglacial%20climate%20papers.zip?dl=0
Why doesn’t everyone know the well demonstrated reality is that now is 2 deg colder than the Holocene optimum, and most probably warming is now reversing and soon set to cool. From the 1 deg above the coldest this interglacial we now live in.
Spread this truth to destroy the deceit of self appointed “climate scientists”, a quasi religious organisation who have never done real science thabt stested by the observation of nature, just invented models to prove what their masters paid for, in a VR computer World they created, not the real one we observe.
No science involved, mostly real science must be denied to presume otherwise in the models. Geologists and climatologists know the truth, but are not allowed to tell it, or risk personal attacks by activists and their grants and publications being stopped if they try.
But I can. Please do access, note and record the data above. Don’t believe, or be surprised.
The only REAL science, that proven by observation, already knows most of what we need to know to refute the claims of accelerating warming and a supposedly unusually warm climate. It’s simply lies, that were created to support political agenda of the UN, as part of Agenda 21. Falsely, per the observations of nature, hundreds and hundreds of papers by thousands of authors.
There is only one truth, and it’s not the UN’s.
Eur Ing, CEng, CPhys
All over Britain there are reliable signs that the sea has gone down in the last thousand years. There are castles with land locked “water gates” or tidal moats that are well above tidal levels. There are ports that have “silted up” (which are really above tidal levels). If you can find an old jetty with steps going down it is pretty easy to work out where the tidal levels used to be. There is usually a platform whose height is related to sea level when the boats are unloaded. People are not stupid and no one is going to build a jetty at the wrong height.
It is a lot easier to survey old ports than cave systems (and you are more likely to find ice cream shops in the process).
I am SO tired of people abusing the term “unprecedented.” If something is “unprecedented” then by definition it has NEVER happened before.
But it obviously HAS happened before, because the researchers found evidence to that effect.
“The team found evidence of a previously unknown 20 centimeter sea-level rise that occurred nearly 3,200 years ago”
A grand solar minimum driving a warmer AMO and Greenland warming.