WALIS - Towards a global database of Last Interglacial sea-level proxies.

Abstract

<p>The standardization of geological data, and their compilation into geodatabases, is essential to allow more coherent regional and global analyses. In sea-level studies, the compilation of databases containing details on geological paleo sea-level proxies has been the subject of decades of work. This was largely spearheaded by the community working on Holocene timescales. While several attempts were also made to compile data from older interglacials, a truly comprehensive approach was missing. Here, we present the ongoing efforts directed to create the World Atlas of Last Interglacial Shorelines (WALIS), a project spearheaded by the PALSEA (PAGES/INQUA) community and funded by the European Research Council (ERC StG 802414). The project aims at building a sea-level database centered on the Last Interglacial (Marine Isotope Stage 5e, 125 ka), a period of time considered as an "imperfect analog" for a future warmer climate. The database is composed of 17 tables embedded into a mySQL framework with a total of more than 500 single fields to describe several properties related to paleo sea-level proxies, dated samples and metadata. In this presentation, we will show the first results of the global compilation, which includes nearly 2000 data points and will discuss its relevance in answering some of the most pressing questions related to sea-level changes in past warmer worlds. </p>