Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 26, 2025

Author Spotlight: Unveiling Plankton Response to Climate Change Through Time-Series Data and Artistic Expression
Published on: July 28, 2023
Links between climate and sea levels for the past three million years
Kurt Lambeck1, Tezer M Esat, Emma-Kate Potter
1Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra 0200, Australia.
Abstract:
The oscillations between glacial and interglacial climate conditions over the past three million years have been characterized by a transfer of immense amounts of water between two of its largest reservoirs on Earth -- the ice sheets and the oceans. Since the latest of these oscillations, the Last Glacial Maximum (between about 30,000 and 19,000 years ago), approximately 50 million cubic kilometres of ice has melted from the land-based ice sheets, raising global sea level by approximately 130 metres. Such rapid changes in sea level are part of a complex pattern of interactions between the atmosphere, oceans, ice sheets and solid earth, all of which have different response timescales. The trigger for the sea-level fluctuations most probably lies with changes in insolation, caused by astronomical forcing, but internal feedback cycles complicate the simple model of causes and effects.
Related Concept Videos
What is Climate?
Influence of Earth's Curvature and Atmospheric Refraction on Leveling
Global Climate Change
Effect of Sea Water on Concrete
Concrete in areas between tide marks,...
Calculating and Interpreting the Linear Correlation Coefficient
What is Evolutionary History?

