Sea levels are rising as climate change rapidly melts glaciers and ice sheets and the water within the oceans expands in a warming world. But have sea levels ever been higher than they are today? And when were they the highest?
In short, sea levels have easily been higher than they are today. But it’s still unclear exactly when they were at their highest, although scientists have a few ideas.
Within the past half-billion years, sea levels likely peaked 117 million years ago, during the Aptian age. At this time, which was part of the Cretaceous period (145 million to 66 million years ago), sea levels were around 700 feet (200 meters) higher than they are today, according to a 2022 study in the journal Gondwana Research.
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