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Antarctic temperature and global sea level closely coupled over the past five glacial cycles

Nature Geoscience volume 2, pages 500–504 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

Ice cores from Antarctica record temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide variations over the past six glacial cycles1,2. Yet concomitant records of sea-level fluctuations—needed to reveal rates and magnitudes of ice-volume change that provide context to projections for the future3,4,5,6,7,8,9—remain elusive. Reconstructions indicate fast rates of sea-level rise up to 5 cm yr−1 during glacial terminations10, and 1–2 cm yr−1 during interglacials11,12 and within the past glacial cycle13. However, little is known about the total long-term sea-level rise in equilibration to warming. Here we present a sea-level record for the past 520,000 years based on stable oxygen isotope analyses of planktonic foraminifera and bulk sediments from the Red Sea. Our record reveals a strong correlation on multi-millennial timescales between global sea level and Antarctic temperature1, which is related to global temperature6,7. On the basis of this correlation, we estimate sea level for the Middle Pliocene epoch (3.0–3.5 Myr ago)—a period with near-modern CO2 levels—at 25±5 m above present, which is validated by independent sea-level data6,14,15,16. Our results imply that even stabilization at today’s CO2 levels may cause sea-level rise over several millennia that by far exceeds existing long-term projections3.

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Figure 1: Composite Red Sea relative sea-level reconstruction (RSL*), development and comparison with other data.
Figure 2: Temperature:RSL* relationship and implications.

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Acknowledgements

This study contributes to UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) project NE/C003152/1, the NERC Response of humans to abrupt environmental transitions consortium (RESET, NE/E01531X/1), and German Science Foundation (DFG) projects He 697/17; Ku 2259/3. M.S. acknowledges support from a fellowship at the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory and an RCUK fellowship from the University of Bristol.

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Author notes

  1. M. Siddall

    Present address: Present address: Department of Earth Science, University of Bristol, Will’s Memorial Building, Queen’s Road, Bristol BS8 1RJ, UK,

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Ocean and Earth Science, National Oceanography Centre, University of Southampton, Southampton SO14 3ZH, UK

    E. J. Rohling, K. Grant, M. Bolshaw & A. P. Roberts

  2. Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, 61 Route 9W—PO Box 1000, Palisades, New York 10964-8000, USA

    M. Siddall

  3. Institute of Geosciences, University of Tübingen, Sigwartstrasse 10, 72076, Tübingen, Germany

    Ch. Hemleben & M. Kucera

Authors
  1. E. J. Rohling
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  3. M. Bolshaw
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  4. A. P. Roberts
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  5. M. Siddall
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  6. Ch. Hemleben
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  7. M. Kucera
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Contributions

All authors contributed extensively to the work presented in this letter.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to E. J. Rohling.

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Supplementary Information, Part S1

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Rohling, E., Grant, K., Bolshaw, M. et al. Antarctic temperature and global sea level closely coupled over the past five glacial cycles. Nature Geosci 2, 500–504 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo557

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