Origin of spatial variation in US East Coast sea-level trends during 1900-2017.

Identifying the causes of historical trends in relative sea level-the height of the sea surface relative to Earth's crust-is a prerequisite for predicting future changes. Rates of change along the eastern coast of the USA (the US East Coast) during the past century were spatially variable, and relative sea level rose faster along the Mid-Atlantic Bight than along the South Atlantic Bight and the Gulf of Maine. Past studies suggest that Earth's ongoing response to the last deglaciation, surface redistribution of ice and water and changes in ocean circulation contributed considerably to this large-scale spatial pattern.

A TEX₈₆ surface sediment database and extended Bayesian calibration.

Quantitative estimates of past temperature changes are a cornerstone of paleoclimatology. For a number of marine sediment-based proxies, the accuracy and precision of past temperature reconstructions depends on a spatial calibration of modern surface sediment measurements to overlying water temperatures. Here, we present a database of 1095 surface sediment measurements of TEX86, a temperature proxy based on the relative cyclization of marine archaeal glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraether (GDGT) lipids.

Recent temperature extremes at high northern latitudes unprecedented in the past 600 years.

Recently observed extreme temperatures at high northern latitudes are rare by definition, making the longer time span afforded by climate proxies important for assessing how the frequency of such extremes may be changing. Previous reconstructions of past temperature variability have demonstrated that recent warmth is anomalous relative to preceding centuries or millennia, but extreme events can be more thoroughly evaluated using a spatially resolved approach that provides an ensemble of possible temperature histories. Here, using a hierarchical Bayesian analysis of instrumental, tree-ring, ice-core and lake-sediment records, we show that the magnitude and frequency of recent warm temperature extremes at high northern latitudes are unprecedented in the past 600 years.