Questions to put to the LIG

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Mark Siddall

Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, UK (mark.siddall@bristol.ac.uk)

I will review recent advances in our understanding of sea level during the LIG and T2 using Holocene sea level as a bench mark. Modeling studies indicate a mixed source for the increase in LIG sea level compared to the Holocene. Multi-millennial trends in sea level at the start of the LIG are similar to Holocene trends. However, there is evidence for millennial sea-level variability during the LIG which is not a feature of Holocene records. How confident are we that this variability is eustatic and not an artifact of isostasy, mirroring the decades long debate around fluctuations in Holocene relative sea level records? How might our current understanding of ice-sheet dynamics account for evidence of sea-level variability during the LIG? If sea level did vary then does this indicate that the WAIS is unstable for sea levels a few meters higher than today? This presentation will consider these questions and ways to resolve them.

Last updated: September 9, 2009