From NoTricksZone

By Kenneth Richard 

Modern relative sea levels are near the lowest in the last 7,000 years.

Two studies, independently published, identify Mid-Holocene sea levels in northern Norway (north of the Arctic circle) as 7 to 9 meters higher than today before declining to the present (Balascio et al., 2024, Nielsen et al., 2024).

This region of the Arctic was warm enough to support human settlements and boat harbors during the Medieval Warm Period. As the climate deteriorated into the Little Ice Age cooling centuries after the Medieval warmth, the accompanying sea level fall led to abandoned residences, ships, and harbors. The seas had become to shallow to sail in.

It is sometimes assumed that these much higher Holocene relative sea levels are merely a function of tectonics, or post-glacial uplift. But sea levels in the tropics (for example the Malaysia-Thailand region), unaffected by ice-loading vertical land motions, were also anywhere from 2 to 5 meters higher than today during this Mid-Holocene period before declining to present levels (Punwong et al., 2024).

“The Malay-Thai Peninsula is tectonically stable and remote from isostatic ice-loading effects.”

The recent sea level rise in recent centuries is thus well within the range of natural sea level variations.

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