The narrative that says relative sea level changes are driven by variations in atmospheric CO2 concentrations has taken another hit.
Before relative sea level (RSL) declined to its present position over the last millennium, Africa’s Atlantic coast RSL ranged anywhere from 0.8 to 4 meters higher than today between 5000 and 1700 years ago (Vacchi et al., 2025).
This Mid- to Late-Holocene RSL highstand was “mainly controlled by the deglaciation history” − meltwater contributions from Earth’s ice sheets and glaciers. Because the climate was so much warmer than today at that time, there was significantly less water locked up on land as ice.
The Antarctic Thermal Optimum “simulated melt of the western Antarctic ice sheet until 2.0 ka BP.” Consequently, sea levels were still ≥ 1 meter higher than present during the Roman Warm Period
“Between -15°N and -0°…data indicate RSL reached its maximal elevation above the present sea level in the late Holocene (~2.0 to ~1.7 ka BP).”
Image Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-56721-0
Nice to know.
We knew it already;
but nice to have it confirmed in ‘Nature’ after all the ‘Sky is falling & seas are rising’ tripe they have put out over the last decade !!
Although they cite many examples elsewhere and Törnqvist on the Mississippi Delta about the earlier cooler period there are some weird places on the central coast that may be explained by this. Zimmerman Road near Port Lavaca as an example, others farther down the coast which they mention. Blum, M. D., et al. 2001. Middle Holocene sea-level rise and highstand at +2 M, central Texas. Journal of Sedimentary Research. 71(4):581–588. https://doi.org/10.1306/112100710581
When it gets higher needing a meter stick to measure it would be a concern.
Similar thing can be said about the Eastern Australia coastline.
(I don’t know about the West, South or North, so not included in comment)
Undercuts that I’ve seen at the western shores of three continents tell me the same.
A photo of an island off Zanzibar showing the Indian Ocean was much high about 130,000 yrs ago.
How does the picture say 130,000 years ago not some other interval? +1 for the great photo though. I hope it was a vacation.
Story Tip
In which the UK finally admits that intermittency is a thing.
From the UK Telegraph:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/07/16/miliband-to-unleash-new-gas-plants-to-cover-unreliable-wind/
Ed Miliband has opened the way for a fleet of new gas-fired power stations to back up Britain’s wind and solar farms…
…Mr Miliband’s letter to Neso has told it to ensure it has 40GW-worth of back-up generating capacity on the system, roughly equating to the output of 35-40 large gas-fired power stations. About two thirds is expected to come from gas and the rest from batteries, interconnectors and other sources…..
….John Constable, director of the Renewable Energy Foundation, said that the mix of subsidies supporting renewables were collectively costing the UK £25.8bn a year.
“Renewables are intrinsically unreliable,” he said. “Under the capacity market consumers are forced to provide an indirect subsidy to wind and solar to pay for a shadow fleet of gas turbines and batteries to guarantee security of supply. This results in two parallel electricity systems and so reduces grid productivity and increases costs.”
The move coincides with a separate announcement from Mr Miliband regarding contracts for difference (CfDs) – a different subsidy mechanism. These support construction of renewables such as wind and solar farms by guaranteeing a minimum price for the power they generate.
Mr Miliband said that future projects would now be able to apply for CfDs before even getting planning consent – and could then claim subsidies for 20 years instead of the previous 15 years.
He said such changes would help deliver more clean power and support thousands of jobs.
However, CfDs added £1.8bn to bills last year – equating to about £100 on the average household bill according to parliamentary reports. This too is set to surge, in line with the planned increase in wind and solar farms.
The question is whether 40GW will be enough. Peak winter demand in 2030 will be north of 60GW if their EV and heat pump plans work out, and there will be days when wind and solar together produce almost nothing. 30GW of gas is about what there is now, and last winter the system nearly crashed when peak demand was about 47GW. Batteries will do nothing in the face of this. And then there is the effect on costs and therefore prices.
This, though it does represent a sort of acknowledgement of reality, is playing with fire.
I play with fire whenever I need to.
I have a fireplace in my house and put it on sometimes in winter and I guess I’ll need it next winter when the inevitable blackouts start.
Best stock up on wood now.
Batteries degrade to ~50% rated capacity at cold temperatures.
In extreme cold, batteries freeze.
Not a huge problem in most of England or USA, but it adds to my confusion over Canadians and Russians who would want Net Zero. There are places in Canada where -30C is a normal winter occurrence.
We had a cold event in Chicago.
EVs could not charge.
The battery heaters exhausted the batteries which then froze.
Using search to find out why an English politician tells a private company what to build and when.
“Edward Samuel Miliband is a British politician who has served as Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero since July 2024.”
Guy works as a regulator in correct industry.
“Future Energy Scenarios (FES) 2025 Pathways to Net Zero provides an independent view of a range of future pathways for the whole energy system, exploring a range of routes to net zero in 2050 for energy demand and supply.”
Company at least pretends to want the same goals as Miliband on its website. Is it a private company? The acronym name has ‘N’ for National. Does England’s Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero direct its operations?
“Our Chief Operating Officer, Kayte O’Neill, has written an open letter to industry thanking customers for their continued feedback and outlines our commitment to ensuring customers can move forward at pace with clarity and assurance to progress their projects.”
Company has a COO, so it pretends to be a business, not a government entity. Photo of COO looks a little young to be in charge of such a large operation in a slow moving old-boy industry. I guess Gates started Microsoft at age 20 so OK.
Can someone smarter or British explain how Neso fits into the power industry and whether they’re more a business thing or a government thing?
And the response to this from the climate caterwaulers will be:
Crickets.
Great! Another reminder that Science cannot isolate a signal (unusual rise in sea level due to anthropogenic CO2 generation), which signal is necessary to formulate a theory, however, Political
Science can make things up without problem. Follow the money!
It was so much higher then, it’s lower than that now.
Apologies to Bob Dillan …
My Back Pages. 1964.
Dylan said play a tune for me…………..
Charles,
Sea levels rise, sea levels fall.
Sunken cities show sea levels have risen, sea ports now a long way from the sea show sea levels have fallen.
Life is full of ups and downs, isn’t it?
Most of your examples are due to changes in land level, not changes in sea level.
erm…what? I guess the definition of sea level rise is relative.
Similarly, Curt Larsen of the USGS and colleagues found that relative sea level along the east coast of the US has risen at an average rate of about 2 mm/year during the past 6,000 years. See https://www.usgs.gov/publications/search-scale-sea-level-studies
Went to check the question: How does someone know what happened 6000 years ago down to millimeters when the acuracy of 2025 data is what I call “not great”?
“Reconstructions of sea-level changes for the past 1000 years derived using benthic foraminifer data from salt marshes along the East Coast of the United States suggest an increased rate of relative sea-level rise beginning in the 1600s.”
Followup… what’s “benthic foraminifer“?
“Benthic foraminifera are single-celled marine organisms that live on or in the seafloor (benthos). They are known for their diverse morphologies and sensitivity to environmental changes, making them valuable tools for reconstructing past climates and assessing current ocean conditions.”
Sounds like a case of “finding data to support conclusion” to me.
If you had read further you would have seen that using benthic foraminifer to determine stratum ages was invented in the 1920s and has been used since. Also, it’s not too hard to measure where in a core sample a strata is located to an accuracy of a millimeter.
1920s were also the era of Phrenology, Eugenics, Lysencoism and machines that measured shoe size with cancer causing rays (shoe-fitting fluoroscope).
If the ‘narrative’ was that only atmospheric CO2 variations caused changes in relative sea level then this article might have a point.
But no one thinks that, so it doesn’t.
“Most of the observed sea-level rise (about 3 mm per year) is coming from the meltwater of land-based ice sheets and mountain glaciers, which adds to the ocean’s volume (about 2 mm per year combined), and from thermal expansion, or the ocean water’s expansion as it warms (roughly 1 mm per year).” – NASA
So, of the 3mm pa observed sea level rise, 2mm + 1mm = 3mm is caused by global warming. And what causes the global warming? NASA again: “the evidence shows the current warming cannot be explained by the Sun. [] Scientists attribute the global warming trend observed since the mid-20th century to the human expansion of the “greenhouse effect””.
So, in “no one thinks that”, NASA must be no one.
Err, reading comprehension ….
The article is entitled “New Study: Africa’s Atlantic Coast Sea Levels Were Still 1 Meter Higher Than Today 2000 Years Ago“.
The optimum words there being “2000 years ago”
Making your comment, sir, an obvious ideologically driven bias that overrode basic comprehension.
NASA says modern warming is caused by man since the industrial revolution (bar land-use changes prior) and for a duration of ~ 150 years. Not the last 2000 years.
What caused the temperatures to be higher 2000 years ago, then they are today and why should we assume that whatever caused that temperature rise isn’t still at work?
What “temperatures” are you talking about? Present day surface temperatures due to the unconcentrated rays of the sun vary between roughly 90 C and -90 C. What temperatures were “higher” 2000 years ago?
You sound like a zealous GHE believer, confusing religion with science. No offense intended, but really, . . .
I think you’ll find that does not compute with Banton.
Even warmer than current during the MWP.
The current period should be called…
.. The Modern “TEPID” period.
The narrative has always been that CO2 drives climate and that climate drives sea level changes.
The only variation that has been accepted by the orthodoxy is that you have to account for land level changes.
More comprehension failure – for the same reason.
Yep, the whole AGW scam is turning into a comprehensive failure, isn’t it !
Everything about it is inconsistent with history and science.
The AGW scam is destroying societies, and is based on fakery, ignorance, and malinformation.
More inability to actually defend the claims made, so just insult those who don’t agree with you.
Word salad. The atmosphere, aquasphere, and lithosphere are in constant, chaotic, unpredictable motion, unless you can demonstrate otherwise, which you can’t.
You don’t have to accept reality, and you can choose to believe in a GHE – which you can’t actually describe. Religion, not science.
Then why are half the world’s governments working hard to destroy their economies and put their citizens in poverty to stop emitting CO2?
Because they think as TFN does.
Watch those goalposts moving!
Someone has to take over the distracting and irrelevant nitpicks when Nick is not around.
Tag team trolling.
You, Nick and the rest of the resident zombies love to argue for the lack of proof of the GLOBAL MWP and the RWP (as in this example) and you continue to be proved wrong and wrong and wrong again and again. The current narrative IS that ONLY CO2 increases have caused the modern warming ( See the latest IPCC report below), so once again you have been proved wrong. If only humans are causing warming then only humans can be responsible for current sea level rise. Let me know if you don’t understand.
Is it possible that sea level rise and fall is a primary driver of climate change and not just an indicator?
Fair question. It is likely it follows and therefore is a symptom.
Consider the Milankovitch cycles (spanning >100,000 years).
One has to have climate change before 1 mile of ice can pile up on the northern hemisphere. One has to have climate change for that ice to melt.
Note climate change is long term shifts in weather patterns. The 30 years definition in vogue today is not long term.
Real science is fascinating to follow.
There is geological evidence all over the planet that show sea levels 20 feet higher (or more) than today.
There are records from J. Cooks circumnavigation made by Banks and Solander that document it and include the perplexion of those scientists in how it could be.
And evidence of sea levels lower than today, for example the many submerged forests off the Welsh coast.
https://heneb.org.uk/archive/dyfed/lostlandscapes/submergedforests.html
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20200318-how-a-storm-revealed-a-welsh-kingdom
That is also true.
Some findings in other places, too. Egypt comes to mind. Sunken cities.
Funny how natural variations work.
Excellent!
“meltwater contributions from Earth’s ice sheets and glaciers”
-> freezewater contributions to Earth’s ice sheets and glaciers
Was it always this way? Should it always have been this way? Who decides?
I always understood glaciers were snow based.
Ice sheets on water, freezing, not freeze water.
Ice sheets on land, rain and freeze or snow.
Snow packs into ice over time.
So, the narrative from the caterwauling climanitwits seems to be “We don’t know what caused previous warm periods, or the cold periods for that matter. But we do know that man’s CO2 has caused the current warming.” Yeah, sure, of course you do.
I’m waiting for this information to be publicized by the mainstream media, but I’m afraid I won’t live long enough.