Christof Koch describes a large-scale effort to understand how the cerebral cortex functions. March 26, 2018 | Running Time: 5:57
New Research In
Physical Sciences
Featured Portals
Articles by Topic
Biological Sciences
Featured Portals
Articles by Topic
Edited* by Anny Cazenave, Center National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), Toulouse Cedex 9, France, and approved March 25, 2011 (received for review October 29, 2010)
Abstract
We present new sea-level reconstructions for the past 2100 y based on salt-marsh sedimentary sequences from the US Atlantic coast. The data from North Carolina reveal four phases of persistent sea-level change after correction for glacial isostatic adjustment. Sea level was stable from at least BC 100 until AD 950. Sea level then increased for 400 y at a rate of 0.6 mm/y, followed by a further period of stable, or slightly falling, sea level that persisted until the late 19th century. Since then, sea level has risen at an average rate of 2.1 mm/y, representing the steepest century-scale increase of the past two millennia. This rate was initiated between AD 1865 and 1892. Using an extended semiempirical modeling approach, we show that these sea-level changes are consistent with global temperature for at least the past millennium.
Footnotes
- ↵1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: bphorton{at}sas.upenn.edu.
Author contributions: A.C.K., B.P.H., J.P.D., M.V., and S.R. designed research; A.C.K., B.P.H., J.P.D., M.V., and S.R. performed research; A.C.K. and M.V. prepared figures; A.C.K., B.P.H., J.P.D., M.E.M., M.V., and S.R. analyzed data; and B.P.H., M.V., and S.R. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
*This Direct Submission article had a prearranged editor.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1015619108/-/DCSupplemental.
Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.
Climate related sea-level variations over the past two millennia
More Articles of This Classification
Physical Sciences
Related Content
Cited by...
- RECORDS FROM MARSH FORAMINIFERA AND GRAPEVINE GROWING SEASON TEMPERATURES REVEAL THE HYDRO-CLIMATIC EVOLUTION OF THE MINHO REGION (NW PORTUGAL) FROM 1856-2009
- CONTEMPORARY SALT-MARSH FORAMINIFERAL DISTRIBUTION FROM THE ADRIATIC COAST OF CROATIA AND ITS POTENTIAL FOR SEA-LEVEL STUDIES
- Temperature-driven global sea-level variability in the Common Era
- Sea-level rise due to polar ice-sheet mass loss during past warm periods
- Palaeohurricane reconstructions from sedimentary archives along the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea and western North Atlantic Ocean margins
- Coastal response to late-stage transgression and sea-level highstand
- Chapter 3 History of continental shelf and slope sedimentation on the US middle Atlantic margin
- Constraints on Antarctic Ice Sheet configuration during and following the Last Glacial Maximum and its episodic contribution to sea-level rise
- Testing the use of microfossils to reconstruct great earthquakes at Cascadia
- Palaeoceanography: motivations and challenges for the future
- Reply to Grinsted et al.: Estimating land subsidence in North Carolina
- Comment on the subsidence adjustment applied to the Kemp et al. proxy of North Carolina relative sea level
Similar Articles
You May Also be Interested in
PNAS Profile of NAS member Michael Strand.
Researchers used genomic analyses to explore demographic processes in the 5th and 6th centuries AD in southern Germany.
Image courtesy of State collection for Anthropology and Paleoanatomy Munich, Germany.)
A study examines the human health effects of the Great Recession (GR) of 2008.
Image courtesy of Pixabay/Mediamodifier.
Researchers identified genetic variants linked to synesthesia, a rare neurological phenomenon connecting different sensory experiences, in three multigenerational families.
Image courtesy of Pixabay/GDJ.
