Last Interglacial (MIS 5e) sea level proxies in the glaciated Northern Hemisphere

• Because global sea level during the last interglacial (LIG; 130–115 ka) was higher than today, the LIG is a useful analogue for improving predictions of future sea level rise. Here, we synthesize sea level proxies for the LIG in the glaciated Northern Hemisphere for inclusion in the World Atlas of Last Interglacial Shorelines (WALIS) database. We describe 82 sites from Russia, northern Europe, Greenland and North America from a variety of settings, including boreholes, riverbank exposures and along coastal cliffs. Marine sediments at these sites were constrained to the LIG using a variety of radiometric methods (radiocarbon, U-Series dating, K-Ar dating), non-radiometric methods (amino acid dating, luminescence methods, and electron spin resonance, tephrochronology) as well as various stratigraphic and palaeoenvironmental approaches. As the areas in this database were covered by ice sheets from the penultimate glaciation and were affected by glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA), most of the proxies show that sea level was much higher than present during the LIG. Many of the sites show evidence of regression due sea level fall due to GIA uplift, and some also show fluctuations that may reflect regrowth of continental ice or increased influence of the global sea level signal. The database is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5602212 (Dalton et al., 2021).

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Klimatforskning (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Climate Research (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Geologi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Geology (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences (hsv//eng)

Keyword

last interglacial

paleo sea level

MIS 5e

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

ovr (subject category)