6,000 years of sea level variations measured to the centimetre!

N. Hallmann, G. Camoin, A. Eisenhauer, A. Botella, G. A. Milne, C. Vella, E. Samankassou, V. Pothin, P. Dussouillez, J. Fleury & J. Fietzke

doi:10.1038/s41467-017-02695-7

Geologists are today anticipating a rise in ocean levels of between 80 and 180 centimetres by 2100. But to fine-tune this prediction and upgrade the models underpinning it, we need to know about the recent past in greater detail – on a scale of a few thousand years instead of the millions of years that geologists usually work with. This tour de force was achieved by an international team of researchers that included the University of Geneva (UNIGE). The scientists succeeded in reconstructing the sea-level curve over the last 6,000 years in French Polynesia with unmatched accuracy: to within one centimetre. The research, which is based on analysing coral microatolls, is published in Nature Communications.