The world's sea levels fell in 2011 and it's all Australia's fault.
New US research shows Australia's dry soil and mountainous coastline soaked up heavy rainfall in 2010 and 2011 and stopped it from flowing back into the ocean.
That effectively halted a long-term trend of rising sea levels which have been caused by higher temperatures and melting ice sheets.
"No other continent has this combination of atmospheric set-up and topography," scientist John Fasullo, who worked on the study, said in a statement.
"Only in Australia could the atmosphere carry such heavy tropical rains to such a large area, only to have those rains fail to make their way to the ocean."
The world's oceans have been rising in recent decades by around three millimetres every year.
This is partly because heat has caused water to expand, and partly because run-off from retreating glaciers and ice sheets has made its way into the oceans.
But for an 18-month period beginning in 2010, the oceans mysteriously dropped by about seven millimetres, more than offsetting the annual rise, the study says.
The US scientists say this was mainly caused by Australia's uniquely dry soil and land surface.
While some of the water evaporated in the desert sun, much of it sank into the dry, granular soil of the Western Plateau or filled the Lake Eyre basin in the east.
Since 2011, sea levels have been rising at a faster pace of about ten millimetres per year.
