Trigger for past rapid sea level rise discovered

[University of Bristol]  Towards the end of the last ice age, at the time of mammoths and primitive humans, the climate naturally warmed. This started to melt ice at increasingly high elevations, eventually reaching and melting the saddle area between the ice domes. This triggered a vicious circle in which the melting saddle would lower, reach warmer altitudes and melt even more rapidly until the saddle had completely melted. In just 500 years, the saddles disappeared and only the ice domes remained.