The early Holocene sea level rise (EHSLR) was a significant jump in

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardise ...

by about during the early

Holocene The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togeth ...

, between about 12,000 and 7,000 years ago, spanning the Eurasian Mesolithic. The rapid rise in sea level and associated

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...

, notably the 8.2 ka cooling event (8,200 years ago), and the loss of coastal land favoured by early farmers, may have contributed to the spread of the Neolithic Revolution to Europe in its Neolithic period. During deglaciation since the Last Glacial Maximum, between about 20,000 to 7,000 years ago (20–7 ka), the sea level rose by a total of about , at times at extremely high rates, due to the rapid melting of the British-Irish Sea, Fennoscandian,

Laurentide The Laurentide Ice Sheet was a massive sheet of ice that covered millions of square miles, including most of Canada and a large portion of the Northern United States, multiple times during the Quaternary glacial epochs, from 2.58 million years a ...

, Barents-Kara,

Patagonian Patagonia () refers to a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and g ...

, Innuitian and parts of the Antarctic ice sheets. At the onset of deglaciation about 19,000 years ago, a brief, at most 500-year long, glacio-eustatic event may have contributed as much as to sea level with an average rate of about /yr. During the rest of the early Holocene, the rate of sea level rise varied from a low of about /yr to as high as /yr during brief periods of accelerated sea level rise. Solid geological evidence, based largely upon analysis of deep cores of

coral reefs A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in groups. Co ...

, exists only for three major periods of accelerated sea level rise, called ''meltwater pulses'', during the last deglaciation. The first,

Meltwater pulse 1A Meltwater pulse 1A (MWP1a) is the name used by Quaternary geologists, paleoclimatologists, and oceanographers for a period of rapid post-glacial sea level rise, between 13,500 and 14,700 calendar years ago, during which global sea level rose betw ...

, lasted between c. 14.6–14.3 ka and was a rise over about 290 years centered at 14.2 ka. The EHSLR spans Meltwater pulses 1B and 1C, between 12,000 and 7,000 years ago: *

Meltwater pulse 1B Meltwater pulse 1B (MWP1b) is the name used by Quaternary geologists, paleoclimatologists, and oceanographers for a period of either rapid or just accelerated post-glacial sea level rise that some hypothesize to have occurred between 11,500 and 11 ...

between c. 11.4–11.1 ka, a rise over about 160 years centered at 11.1 ka, which includes the end of

Younger Dryas The Younger Dryas (c. 12,900 to 11,700 years BP) was a return to glacial conditions which temporarily reversed the gradual climatic warming after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, c. 27,000 to 20,000 years BP). The Younger Dryas was the last stag ...

interval of reduced sea level rise at about /yr; *Meltwater pulse 1C between c. 8.2–7.6 ka, centered at 8.0 ka, a rise of in less than 140 years. Such rapid rates of sea level rising during meltwater events clearly implicate major ice-loss events related to ice sheet collapse. The primary source may have been meltwater from the Antarctic ice sheet. Other studies suggest a Northern Hemisphere source for the meltwater in the Laurentide Ice Sheet. The EHSLR left some traces in the mythology and oral history of Australian Aborigines.

References

*Torbjörn E. Törnqvist, Marc P. Hijma, "Links between early Holocene ice-sheet decay, sea-level rise and abrupt climate change", ''Nature Geoscience'' vol. 5 (2012), 601–606. *T. M. Cronin P. R. Vogt D. A. Willard R. Thunell J. Halka M. Berke J. Pohlman, "Rapid sea level rise and ice sheet response to 8,200‐year climate event", ''Geophysical Research Letters'' vol. 34, issue 20 (October 2007), . *Kazuaki Hori Yoshiki Saito, "An early Holocene sea‐level jump and delta initiation", ''Geophysical Research Letters'' vol. 34, issue 18 (September 2007), . *Shi-Yong Yu, Y.-X. Li and T.E. Törnqvist
"Tempo of global deglaciation during the early Holocene: A sea level perspective"
''PAGES News'' vol. 17, no. 2 (June 2009), {{doi, 10.1038/NGEO470. Sea level Holocene Last Glacial Period Mesolithic Neolithic

See also

References