On the origin of late Holocene sea-level highstands within equatorial ocean basins

Abstract

Late Holocene sea-level highstands of amplitude ∼3 m are endemic to equatorial ocean basins. These highstands imply an ongoing and moderate, sub-mm/yr, sea-level fall in the far field of the Late Pleistocene ice cover that has long been linked to the process of glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA; Clark et al., 1978). Mitrovica and Peltier (1991) coined the term ‘equatorial ocean syphoning’ to describe the GIA-induced sea-level fall and they provided the first physical explanation for the process. They argued that water migrated away from far-field equatorial ocean basins in order to fill space vacated by collapsing forebulges at the periphery of previously glaciated regions. We provide a complete physical explanation for the origin of equatorial ocean syphoning, and the associated development of sea-level highstands, using numerical solutions of the equation that governs meltwater redistribution on spherical, viscoelastic Earth models. In particular, we separate the total predicted sea-level change into contributions associated with ice and meltwater loading effects, and, by doing so, isolate a second mechanism that contributes significantly to the ocean syphoning process. Ocean loading at continental margins induces a ‘levering’ of continents and a subsidence of offshore regions that has also long been recognized within the GIA literature (Walcott, 1972). We show that the influx of water into the volume created by this subsidence produces a sea-level fall at locations distant from these margins—indeed over the major ocean basins—that is comparable in amplitude to the syphoning mechanism isolated by Mitrovica and Peltier (1991).