  Relative sea level records climatic change as well as vertical land movement.
In Barbados, uplift variation is necessary to interpret one of the most
complete coral reef records. Here we show that an abrupt mass unloading of 30
km3 caused an uplift variation of ~0.45 mm/yr using a modelling approach.
Simulations have been conducted for different volumes and elastic thicknesses.
Isostatic adjustment in relation with an abrupt mass unloading explains the
observed uplift rate increased from 0.34 mm/yr to 0.8 mm/yr that occurred 11.2
kyr ago. The reconstructed sea-level curve highlights a sea-level jump of 4.8
m, with a delay of 150 yr from the termination of Younger Dryas cold event and
300 yr before the abrupt mass unloading. This sea-level jump corresponds to
meltwater pulse MWP-1B and is not an artefact. A stagnation of 500 yr occurred
from 12 to 11.5 kyr BP. Relative sea level records are useful to detect past
landslides and erosion. Accurate analysis and reconstruction of sea-level
permits to determine sea-level abrupt rise caused by climate warming during the
last thousand years.
