Authors: Lin Y, Whitehouse PL, Hibbert FD, Woodroffe SA, Hinestrosa G and Webster JM
Members of the PALSEA working group, Lin Y et al. have published a new paper on "Relative sea level response to mixed carbonate-siliciclastic sediment loading along the Great Barrier Reef margin" in Earth and Planetary Science Letters.
The authors argue that neglecting sediment-induced sea-level rise can cause an overestimate of global ice volume. In their study, the authors used a GIA (glacial isostatic adjustment) model "to develop an ensemble-based sediment loading history for the GBR since Marine Isotope Stage 2 (MIS 2)."
The authors found that the amount of sediment that has been deposited across the GBR since MIS 2 has caused "spatially variable relative sea-level change with the highest magnitude (0.9-1.1 m) found in the outer shelf of the southern central GBR (18.4-S)." They posit that because ice mass loss and the SIA-induced RSL rise are unrelated, not correcting for this signal inevitably leads to systematic overestimation of grounded ice volume during the Last Glacial Maximum.
Their paper provides a "spatially and temporally complete RSL reconstruction that is well-suited to be used as a boundary condition to study the evolution of the GBR shelf and slope sedimentary system."