The Earth Isn’t Rising — The Water Was: What Mid-Holocene Sea Levels Say About Earth’s Past
By ruling out land rebound in Chile and Australia, scientists isolate a cleaner picture of past sea levels.
by Kenneth Richard June 19, 2026, 10:15 AM
In a new study, scientists assess that they can now clearly separate “tectonic and climate signals in Holocene sea-level records” by precisely identifying patterns of long-term vertical land motion near coastal regions. [some emphasis, links added]
Meters-higher relative sea levels during the Middle Holocene have often been attributed to land uplift or glacioisostatic rebound — the gradual rising of the Earth’s crust as the weight of glaciers and ice sheets melted away.
This tectonic attribution precluded explanations that sea-level highstands may have been linked to a warmer climate, resulting in smaller ice sheets and glaciers.
In the study, we learn that tectonic signals along 500 km of the Chilean coast have been largely constant over the last 125,000 years. In other words, there has been negligible vertical land motion in this region.
https://climatechangedispatch.com/holocene-sea-level-climate-signal/
