Word: leveler
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...behavior are hazy, but researchers think they could have to do with the environment inside the womb and its long-lasting impact on the growing fetus - a process known as "fetal programming." Maternal influences such as alcohol or drug use, poor nutrition and stress are known to affect the level of hormones in the mother's body. It is thought that biochemical changes in the uterus have an impact on the baby's development, affecting its birth weight and even its future risk of disease, among other things...
...glacial periods, vast ice sheets cover much of the planet, and sea levels are as much as 130 meters lower than they are today (all that extra water is locked up in ice). During interglacial periods - we are enjoying one now, East Coast blizzards notwithstanding - the ice sheets retreat, the glaciers melt and sea level rises. The expansive but quickly melting ice sheets of Greenland, the North Pole and Antarctica are all that is left of our last glacial period, which reached its peak about 20,000 years...
Scientists were then able to infer the approximate sea level at the time the calcite was deposited, and estimate that some 81,000 years ago sea levels were about 1 m higher than they are now - which suggests that global temperatures were at least as high, or higher than they are now, even though CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere were much lower then. The study also indicates that the sea level was changing rapidly around this time period, rising as much as 1 m the century before, as ice melted, and then falling afterward at around the same speed...
...reason that sea levels may have been higher 81,000 years ago than today is that the Earth was receiving stronger solar radiation at that time. That would fit into what's known as the Milankovitch theory of ice-age cycles, which posits that the Earth's orbit around the sun and the planet's axial tilt wobble periodically, increasing or decreasing the amount of solar radiation hitting the planet's surface. "The sea-level high may be considered an exception to the 100,000-year cycle, in which high summer sunlight caused the ice sheets to melt," writes...
...course, Dorale's sea-level measurements are just one point of data that will need to be confirmed by other scientists - along with his own work, which will continue in Mallorca. And because the Earth itself changes shape over tens of thousands of years, responding to the shift of ice and water on its surface, it's impossible to infer the entire geological story from one location at one point of time...