If you have ever dreamed of just chucking it all in and going to live on a Greek Island far away from the madding crowds, spending your days relaxing in the sun, sipping retsina and nibbling on souvlaki at some pleasant seaside taverna, and all that’s held you back is the fear that rising sea levels will drown your idyllic hideaway, start packing. The gods continue to smile on those blessed isles, such as Siros shown here, and there’s no sign that Poseidon in particular has it in for humans just yet.

The trend is downward so the estimate of how long before the waters rise by one meter is eternity. And you’ll notice there are a lot of gaps in the sea level record. The Mediterranean is one of many regions where it is surprisingly difficult to find long term continuous sea level data, and even when long records exist they have some rather dubious entries that suggest quality problems. But what we do have from Siros, at least, has just enough plausible detail to establish the pattern, namely that there is no pattern, or at least no upward trend.