Ice age

This article is about glacial periods in general. For specific recent glacial periods often referred to as the "Ice Age", see Last Glacial Period, Pleistocene, and Quaternary glaciation. For other uses, see Ice age (disambiguation).

An artist's impression of ice age Earth at Pleistocene glacial maximum

An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages, and greenhouse periods during which there are no glaciers on the planet. Earth is currently in the ice age called Quaternary glaciation.[1] Individual pulses of cold climate within an ice age are termed glacial periods (glacials, glaciations, glacial stages, stadials, stades, or colloquially, ice ages), and intermittent warm periods within an ice age are called interglacials or interstadials.[2]

In glaciology, the term ice age is defined by the presence of extensive ice sheets in the northern and southern hemispheres.[3] By this definition, the current Holocene period is an interglacial period of an ice age. The accumulation of anthropogenic greenhouse gases is projected to delay the next glacial period.[4][5][6]

  1. ^ Ehlers, Jürgen; Gibbard, Philip (2011). "Quaternary Glaciation". Encyclopedia of Snow, Ice and Glaciers. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. pp. 873–882. doi:10.1007/978-90-481-2642-2_423. ISBN 978-90-481-2641-5.
  2. ^ Cohen, K .M.; Finney, S. C.; Gibbard, P. L.; Fan, J.-X. "International Chronostratigraphic Chart 2013" (PDF). stratigraphy.org. ICS. Archived (PDF) from the original on 17 July 2013. Retrieved 7 January 2019.
  3. ^ Imbrie, J.; Imbrie, K. P. (1979). Ice ages: solving the mystery. Short Hills NJ: Enslow Publishers. ISBN 978-0-89490-015-0.
  4. ^ Thomson, Andrea (2007). "Global Warming Good News: No More Ice Ages". LiveScience. Archived from the original on 2020-11-12. Retrieved 2019-01-07.
  5. ^ "Human-made climate change suppresses the next ice age". Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. 2016. Archived from the original on 2020-08-18. Retrieved 2019-01-07.
  6. ^ Archer, David; Ganopolski, Andrey (May 2005). "A movable trigger: Fossil fuel CO2 and the onset of the next glaciation". Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems. 6 (5). Bibcode:2005GGG.....6.5003A. doi:10.1029/2004GC000891. S2CID 18549459.