Sea Level’s Big Rise Tied to Warming
The sea level has risen from 12 to 20 inches along Maine’s coast and as much as 2 feet in Nova Scotia during the last 250 years, according to a team of international researchers.
It’s the biggest rise in the last millennium, and global warming is to blame, said Roland Gehrels of the University of Plymouth in England.
“Sea level today is rising faster than at any time in the past when it was subject to natural climate change,” the lead researcher said.
The findings were presented at the Geological Society of America’s annual meeting last week in Boston.
A team from the University of Maine, the University of Plymouth and Reading University in England studied sites at Machiasport and Wells in Maine, and at Chezzetcook in Nova Scotia.
Gehrels and his team reconstructed sea levels by using new dating techniques on salt marsh sediments.
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