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Open-system coral ages reveal persistent suborbital sea-level cycles.

Thompson WG, Goldstein SL

Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) and Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Columbia University, Palisades, NY 10964, USA. wthompson@whoi.edu

Sea level is a sensitive index of global climate that has been linked to Earth's orbital variations, with a minimum periodicity of about 21,000 years. Although there is ample evidence for climate oscillations that are too frequent to be explained by orbital forcing, suborbital-frequency sea-level change has been difficult to resolve, primarily because of problems with uranium/thorium coral dating. Here we use a new approach that corrects coral ages for the frequently observed open-system behavior of uranium-series nuclides, substantially improving the resolution of sea-level reconstruction. This curve reveals persistent sea-level oscillations that are too frequent to be explained exclusively by orbital forcing.

Published 15 April 2005 in Science, 308(5720): 401-4.
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