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Sea level is a sensitive index of global climate that has beenlinked to Earth's orbital variations, with a minimum periodicityof about 21,000 years. Although there is ample evidence forclimate oscillations that are too frequent to be explained byorbital forcing, suborbital-frequency sea-level change has beendifficult to resolve, primarily because of problems with uranium/thoriumcoral dating. Here we use a new approach that corrects coralages for the frequently observed open-system behavior of uranium-seriesnuclides, substantially improving the resolution of sea-levelreconstruction. This curve reveals persistent sea-level oscillationsthat are too frequent to be explained exclusively by orbitalforcing.
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) and Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Columbia University, Palisades, NY 10964, USA.
* Present address: Department of Geology and Geophysics, 118 ClarkLab, Mail Stop 23, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, WoodsHole, MA 02543, USA.
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: wthompson{at}whoi.edu
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