Mallorcan Caves Show Evidence Of Rapid Sea Level Rise 81,000 BPE - 2 Meters In Kess Than 100 Years

[hatrack]

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Mallorca is a good place to study these changes because the island barely moves, the scientists say. It's tectonically stable, and the buildup or melting of glaciers hasn't raised or lowered the island. The stalactites and stalagmites, moreover, have collected deposits of calcite from the ocean, and these deposits give up secrets like rings in a tree. Dorale's team dated the deposits by measuring the radioactive decay of uranium traces. "We've reconstructed sea levels with a high degree of precision," Dorale told SPIEGEL ONLINE.

Dorale and his co-author, Bogdan Onac at the University of South Florida, realize their work may be controversial. If the scientists are correct, and the sea was really one meter higher 81,000 years ago than it is today, a number of questions present themselves. In those days the atmosphere would not have contained so much carbon dioxide. So how important is CO2 in global warming? "Our work does not say anything directly about global temperature," says Dorale.

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But the fall may not have been steady. Dorale says his results show a sudden spike in sea levels 81,000 years ago, while the glaciers should have been growing and the seas receding. the seas around Mallorca rose perhaps by as much as two meters in 100 years, according to Dorale's team. Even half that rate, Dorale says, "would be a major finding."

There could be a number of reasons for the spike, including the so-called Milankovic cycle, related to a wobble in earth's orbit around the sun. But is it good news or bad news? Is it a hint that CO2 is less important for global warming than scientists currently believe -- or a suggestion that current sea levels may rise faster than anyone has predicted?

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http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,677613,00.html

[BrklynLiberal]

1. but...but...global weather change is just a lie perpetrated by the liberal media!!!!

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. Serious skeptics admit that climate change (even global warming) happens

Their major question seems to regard anthropomorphic climate change.

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. See also

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=229926&mesg_id=229926