Going back 10,000 years to predict future sea-level rise in Singapore

Climate scientists at the NTU Singapore have extended the known record of Singapore’s sea-level to almost 10,000 years ago, providing a more robust dataset to aid future predictions of sea-level rise.

One of the main challenges in researching climate change is to reconstruct its history over thousands of years. To have a better sense of the potential causes and effects of future changes, scientists need to learn from and understand the past.

Extracting ancient sediments from a depth of up to 40 m underground at a site at Singapore’s Marina South, an international team led by NTU researchers put the samples through rigorous laboratory methods (e.g., identifying microfossils such as foraminifera) and statistical analysis to obtain data to reconstruct Singapore’s sea level history.

The more refined sea-level record offers a strategic guide for Singapore as it moves to adapt to climate change.