Salt marshes as archives of recent relative sea level change in West Greenland |
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| Authors: | SA Woodroffe AJ Long |
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| Institution: | 1. Physical Geography Group, Institute of Agriculture and Environment, Massey University, Private Bag 11-222, Palmerston North 4442, New Zealand;2. Department of Geography, Durham University, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK;3. School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Queensland University of Technology, GPO Box 2434, Brisbane Q 4001, Australia;1. Department of Geography, Durham University, Lower Mountjoy, Durham DH1 3LE UK;2. TNO, Geological Survey of the Netherlands, Princetonlaan 6, P.O. Box 80015, 3508 TA Utrecht, The Netherlands;3. Department of Physical Geography, Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University, POBOX 800.115, 3508 TC Utrecht, The Netherlands;4. Environment Department, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK;5. Department of Geography, University of Northumbria, Ellison Place, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST UK;1. Department of Geology, Humboldt State University, 1 Harpst St Arcata, CA, 95521, USA;2. Department of Geoscience, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark;3. Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark;4. Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS), Copenhagen, Denmark;5. Department of Earth Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA;6. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark;7. Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Livermore, USA;8. Department of Geoscience and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen, Denmark;1. Department of Geology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Sem Sælands veg 1, N-7491 Trondheim, Norway;2. Institute of Earth Sciences, University of Iceland, Askja, Sturlugata 7, IS-101 Reykjavík, Iceland;3. Icelandic Institute of Natural History, Borgum við Norðurslóð, IS-602 Akureyri, Iceland;4. Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Øster Voldgade 5-7, DK-1350 Copenhagen K., Denmark;5. The University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS), Box 156, N-9171 Longyearbyen, Norway;6. Geological Survey of Norway, P.O. Box 6315 Sluppen, N-7491 Trondheim, Norway;1. Department of Physics, University of Ottawa, Canada;2. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa, Canada;3. Geodetic Institute, Norwegian Mapping Authority, Hønefoss, Norway;4. Department of Geography, University of Northumbria, UK;5. Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium;6. Department of Physics and Physical Oceanography, Memorial University, Canada;7. Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Denmark;8. Department of Geography, Durham University, UK;9. Geological Survey of Canada, NRCan, Canada;10. Department of Geography, Memorial University, Canada;11. Department of Geoscience, Aarhus University, Denmark |
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| Abstract: | Temperate latitude salt marshes are a proven environment from which high precision (±0.10–0.20 m) relative sea level (RSL) records can be developed over recent decades and centuries. Such records provide an important link between millennial histories of RSL change and instrumental records. The high latitude salt marshes in Greenland have not previously been explored as potential archives of recent RSL change. Here we develop four diatom-based transfer functions using contemporary diatom data collected from three salt marshes located 40 km south of the coastal town of Sisimiut, West Greenland. Our preferred model has a good fit between observed and predicted elevations (r2 = 0.94) and a root mean square error prediction of ±0.19 m. We apply the four models to a short sediment profile collected from one of the marshes that formed between c. 600 cal. year BP and the present. Three of the four models predict the same trend in which RSL rose from ?0.55 ±0.19 m mean tide level (MTL) to ?0.05 ± 0.19 m MTL between c. 600 and 400 cal. year BP at a rate of c. 2.7 mm year?1. After 400 cal. year BP RSL slowed and remained stable until the present day. The results of this study demonstrate that Greenland salt marshes are potentially valuable archives of data for developing quantitative estimates of RSL change during the last few centuries, thereby bridging the gap between existing millennial-scale approaches and more recent direct observations of ice sheet behaviour and associated vertical land motions. |
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