ABSTRACT
The rise of world sea level over the last 10 000 years, seen already in fig. 13.27, gives an overall view of the course of deglaciation. 1 It is, however, a trend which must have been lagged on the trend of world temperature in such a way that the highest sea level 2 — which probably occurred around 4000 years ago — should coincide with the end of the period of highest temperature, which reduced the glaciers and ice sheets to their postglacial minimum. It was after 2000–1500 B.c. that most of the present glaciers in the Rocky Mountains south of 57°n were formed ( Matthes 1939) and that major readvance of those in the Alaskan Rockies first took place. And at their subsequent advanced positions — probably around 500 B.c. 3 as well as between A.d. 1650 and 1850 — the glaciers in the Alps regained an extent estimated in the Glockner region at about five times their Bronze Age minimum, when all the smaller ones had disappeared ( Gams 1937, p. 168).
