Holocene Oscillatory Sea Level: Literature Review and Implications for Imminent Anthropogenic Multi-Meter Transgression.

Higgs, R., 2026. Holocene oscillatory sea level: Literature review and implications for imminent anthropogenic multi-meter transgression. Journal of Coastal Research, 42(1), 144–164. Charlotte (North Carolina), ISSN 0749-0208. The famous 1961 "Fairbridge Curve" of Holocene interglacial sea level (SL) shows meter-scale (up to ∼5 m) oscillations, based on a worldwide compilation of carbon-dated geological data points. Dozens of later authors ("wigglers") found further evidence for such fluctuations, while dozens of others ("smoothers"), including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), deny oscillations >50 cm. The debate is settled here by a Holocene SL literature synthesis, exposing (1) flaws in the assumptions and methods used in constructing smooth SL curves, and (2) weaknesses in all five of the SL-proxy types upon which the IPCC bases its claim of smooth SL. At least one Fairbridge-type Holocene SL rise has recently been shown to have been very brief (i.e. rapid), ∼4 m in only ∼ 70 years; a comparably fast rise of 2–3 m in <100 years is known for the previous interglacial (Marine Isotope Stage 5e). Thus, the opinion of the IPCC that global mean SL has risen faster since the year 1900 than over any preceding century in at least the last 3000 years is inaccurate. This vindication of Fairbridge implies that IPCC's supposed worst-case modeled SL rise of 1.75 m by 2100 is, in fact, unexceptional. It is likely that Fairbridge-type SL rises are due to Antarctic ice-cliff-collapse events, each attributable to exceptional warming by a solar surge, apart from the imminent next (anthropogenic) collapse, predicted to raise SL at least 3 m by AD 2100. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]