Sea level changes and vertical land movements in the Mediterranean from paleo-historical indicators, modern instrumental data and model predictions.

Abstract

The Mediterranean basin is a natural laboratory for the reconstruction of the sea level variations since paleo-historical times. Recent results indicate for the central Mediterranean significant variations of relative sea level in the last 2000 years, suggesting that the observed signal can be accounted for by eustatism and isostatic adjustment as well as by land movements in active zones. The average modern eustatic sea level rise recorder by tide-gauges, close to 1 mm/year, has not been constant since the Roman epoch, but it is likely to be representative of the last 100-150 years. Here we show new results on the reconstruction and modeling of sea level changes in the Mediterranean during the Holocene from a combined data set and competing models of glacial isostatic adjustment.