Sea level may have been higher than it is now just 6000 years ago

by


ANTARCTICA - FEBRUARY 15: Melting icebergs are seen on Horseshoe Island as Turkish scientists conduct fieldwork on Horseshoe Island within 7th National Antarctic Science Expedition under the coordination of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkiye (TUBITAK) MAM Polar Research Institute with the joint responsibilities of the Turkish Presidency and Turkish Ministry of Industry and Technology in Antarctica, on February 15, 2023. Turkish scientists sailed with the 80-meter Chilean-flagged research ship 'Betanzos' for nearly a month as part of the 7th National Antarctic Science Expedition. During the voyage, Turkish scientists arrived at Horseshoe Island via a new transit channel developed in the Gullet and Barlas Channel, which was previously covered in ice due to melting sea ice caused by global climate change. The minimum width of sea ice in Antarctica for 2023 fell to 1.79 million square kilometers, the lowest level on record, on February 21. While this data is 1.05 million square kilometers below the 1981-2010 average, it also points out that a new record decrease is experienced every year. (Photo by Sebnem Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Melting icebergs in Antarctica in 2023

Sebnem Coskun/Anadolu Company through Getty Photographs

The oceans could have been greater than they’re now between 4000 and 8000 years in the past. Understanding how the traditional local weather led to these excessive seas might enhance projections of how local weather change will have an effect on sea degree on this century.

There are three factors in Earth’s latest geologic historical past the place the planet was heat sufficient to considerably resemble as we speak’s local weather, says Roger Creel at Columbia College in New York. The newest of those was across the center of the Holocene Epoch, …

Article amended on 26 July 2023

We’ve clarified when previous common sea ranges in the course of the Holocene had been almost definitely to have been highest, the kind of measurements used to estimate previous relative sea ranges and why Antarctic ice could have been much less intensive than at current.