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Reply to: Climate did not drive Common Era Maldivian sea-level lowstands

Nature Geoscience volume 14, pages 276–277 (2021)Cite this article

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The Original Article was published on 22 April 2021

replying to C. G. Piecuch et al. Nat. Geosci. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-021-00731-2 (2021)

The primary aim of our paper1 was to present the first robust field evidence, to our knowledge, of two low sea-level episodes in the Maldives, Indian Ocean, in the past two millennia, based on elevation and dating of fossil coral microatolls. The evidence of relative sea levels (RSL) markedly lower than present is not challenged by Piecuch et al.2. Nor do they challenge the timing of the low sea levels coincident with the Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA) and Little Ice Age (LIA), two periods of substantial climate cooling and lower sea-surface temperature (SST). Piecuch et al.2 consider whether climate forcing is the most likely mechanism responsible for the RSL lowering (to a maximum of −0.89 m) and the rates of sea-level rise and fall (ranging from +4.34 to −2.75 mm yr−1). They suggest that both pre-industrial radiative forcing and SST changes are of insufficient magnitude to account solely for the observed sea-level change.

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Fig. 1: Smoothed radiative forcing (time series from Supplementary Fig. 1c of ref. 2) with a 50-year running mean smoother (blue) applied after the method by Piecuch et al.2.

Data availability

All data are available within the Supplementary Information of ref. 2 and tide data are available from the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level database on 30 March 2020 (https://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/).

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Acknowledgements

We thank G. C. Piecuch et al. for stimulating this discussion on mechanisms forcing the millennial scale sea-level variations in the Indian Ocean. X.W. acknowledges funding support from the National Research Foundation of Singapore (grant no. NRF2017NRF-NSFC001–047) and the Earth Observatory of Singapore.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada

    Paul S. Kench

  2. School of Science, University of New South Wales Canberra, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

    Roger F. McLean

  3. Asian School of the Environment, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Xianfeng Wang, Kyle M. Morgan & Keven Roy

  4. Earth Observatory of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Xianfeng Wang & Ke Lin

  5. School of Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada

    Susan D. Owen

  6. School of Environment, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    Emma Ryan

  7. Hiscox Group, London, UK

    Keven Roy

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  1. Paul S. Kench
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Contributions

P.K., R.M and X.W. led the analysis and writing of this reply. All authors contributed to revisions.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Paul S. Kench.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Peer review information Nature Geoscience thanks Anthony Purcell and Alex Thomas for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editor: James Super.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Average rate of RSL change from tide-gauge data.

Average rate of RSL change (trends as in Piecuch et al.2) from tide-gauge data vary substantially, depending on time windows. Rates at Cochin, India AD 1940–2013 (a), AD 1940–1960 (b), AD 1961–1990 (c) and AD 1990–2013 (d). Rates vary from −0.70 mm yr−1 to +6.95 mm yr−1. Hence, it is not appropriate that Piecuch et al.2 use tide-gauge data with different durations to argue against our observational data. Tide-gauge data were obtained from the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL) (https://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/). Following Piecuch et al.2, trends estimated from the slope of a least-square linear fit to available data (ignoring data gaps). Cochin tide-gauge data are plotted with respect to the average value during 1990–2013 CE.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Discussion and Fig. 1.

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Kench, P.S., McLean, R.F., Wang, X. et al. Reply to: Climate did not drive Common Era Maldivian sea-level lowstands. Nat. Geosci. 14, 276–277 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-021-00732-1

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