Sea-level rise is potentially one of the most devastating impacts of future climate change, but traditional tide gauge records are too short to show whether sea-levels are rising faster today than in the past. This research will apply new approaches to relocate former sea levels in Brittany, France, using high-resolution geological indicators. These geological-based reconstructions will be validated against tide gauge data and historical evidence of coastal change and they will be extended to reconstruct sea-level rise over the last 500 years, and evaluate the evidence for accelerations that may be linked with human activities. The research will address how the modern, instrumental rates of relative sea-level change compare with pre-industrial values, whether regional relative sea-level changes be correlated with climate proxies and whether recent relative sea-level variations had a discernible impact on local coastal environments.
Broader Impacts The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report highlights the large uncertainties associated with our understanding of 20th century sea-level change, and the urgent need to quantify regional variability. This research will provide the first high quality data from the eastern margins of the North Atlantic. Brittany, France is a critical location with one of the longest tide gauge records in the world, but no parallel geological-based sea-level research. The rates of sea-level rise obtained represent the fundamental basis for comparison with the historical and present day changes. They provide data to constrain model development, and provide new information on the manner in which larger scale climate changes are expressed at regional to local scales.
This research fosters international collaboration between the Universite Bretagne Sud, Université d'Angers-UFR Sciences and University of Pennsylvania. Graduate students of the Universities of Pennsylvania and Bretagne Sud will be integrally involved in the research. The experience and training they receive will provide fresh perspectives to students planning to embark on careers with environmental firms or government agencies, while mentoring those going on for advanced degrees to develop interdisciplinary career paths and research programs. The principal scientists will develop and manage a WWW resource to deliver open access to the sea-level data.
