The Attacking Ocean: The Past, Present, and Future of Rising Sea Levels

By Brian Fagan

The past fifteen thousand years - the entire span of human civilization - have witnessed dramatic sea level changes, which began with rapid global warming at the end of the Ice Age, when sea levels were more than 700 feet below modern levels. Over the next eleven millennia, the oceans climbed in fits and starts. These rapid changes had little effect on those humans who experienced them, partly because there were so few people on earth, and also because they were able to adjust readily to new coastlines.

Global sea levels stabilised about six thousand years ago except for local adjustments that caused often quite significant changes to places like the Nile Delta. So the curve of inexorably rising seas flattened out as urban civilizations developed in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and South Asia. The earth's population boomed, quintupling from the time of Christ to the Industrial Revolution. The threat from the oceans increased with our crowding along shores to live, fish, and trade.

Since 1860, the world has warmed significantly and the ocean's climb has speeded. The sea level changes are cumulative and gradual; no one knows when they will end. The Attacking Ocean tells a tale of the rising complexity of the relationship between humans and the sea at their doorsteps, a complexity created not by the oceans, which have changed but little. What has changed is us, and the number of us on earth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Jun 6, 2013
• ISBN: 9781408836040

Brian Fagan

Brian Fagan was born in England and spent several years doing fieldwork in Africa. He is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of New York Times bestseller The Great Warming and many other books, including Fish on Friday: Feasting, Fasting, and the Discovery of the New World, and several books on climate history, including The Little Ice Age and The Long Summer.

Reviews for The Attacking Ocean

[joefreedom_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An interesting archeological perspective on climate change, its effect on sea levels and the consequent effect on human civilizations. Makes one think about what the current changing climate will mean for the present world.

[sylviac_43 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It told me what I wanted to know, although I will admit, I dozed off more than once while reading the first half of the book. I had no problem staying awake through the second half, though. My super-short synopsis is: Sea levels have risen before, but there have never been so many millions of people living in permanent communities so close to the water, and the outlook is not good.