16.6.21

The sea isn’t the steady thing we tend to think it is. It’s usually assumed that global sea level has been stable for around 7,000 years, i.e., throughout the existence of modern human civilization. We also assume that since the world’s oceans are interconnected, when sea level rises, it does so everywhere. But the sea is a prankster, and closer study reveals shows local anomalies in its relative level – some of which beggar explanation. Now an international team of scientists headed by Prof. Assaf Yasur-Landau of the Charney School, reports in PLOS One on indications of such an anomaly on Israel’s Mediterranean coastline: an upward creep between the Mid-Bronze Age to Iron Age and then a sharp rise in the Hellenistic period, apparently by about 2.5 meters (8 feet) in total, to the level we know today. That is some anomaly.