SEA LEVEL-CLIMATE CORRELATION DURING THE PAST 1400 YR

We present a new mean-high-water curve for Hammock River marsh, Clinto n, Connecticut, obtained by improving the age model for an existing re cord of relative marsh elevation based on foraminiferal analysis of a 1.8-m-long peat core. Unlike the earlier curve, the new curve confirms trend changes in mean-high-water rise during the past 1400 yr as note d for salt marshes 15 km farther west, suggesting a regional cause. Th ese trend changes and century-scale mean-high-water variations in the Clinton record correlate positively with large-scale regional variatio ns in sea-surface and summer-air temperature, indicating a link betwee n sea level and the climate-ocean system. On the basis of the Clinton mean-high-water curve, we conclude that real sea level oscillated cent imeters to decimeters on a century time scale over the past 1400 yr, w as 25 +/- 25 cm higher ca. A.D. 1050 (Medieval Warm Period) than ca. A .D. 1650 (Little Ice Age), and rose at a mean rate of similar to 1 mm. yr(-1) over the past 350 yr; there was little or no rise during the co ol 1800s.