Fossilized beaches along the UK coastline have allowed scientists to demonstrate, for the first time, the impact of melting Antarctic ice sheets on global sea levels over 100,000 years ago.
A study conducted at the University of Plymouth and published in the journal Science Advances analyzed ancient sediments from raised beaches in Cornwall, Devon, and other parts of Western Europe.
The researchers involved in the study believe that these raised beaches, characterized by flat surfaces, fossilized beach sands and stones, and typically found 4-6 meters above current sea levels, can provide valuable insights into the local and global effects of melting ice sheets in the future.
By combining new and existing data with innovative analysis and modeling techniques, a team of researchers from the UK, US, and Canada demonstrated that the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet could have caused a rise in global sea levels of up to 5.7 meters.
They reached this conclusion by determining that the sea level change caused by the melting of northern hemisphere ice sheets was largely offset by the rebound of land near the ice sheets. This means that the recorded sea level change on the beaches could only have originated from Antarctica.
2023-07-05 13:48:02
Article from phys.org