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- DictionaryIce age/ˈīs ˌāj/
noun
- 1. a glacial episode during a past geological period.
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Ice age, any geologic period during which thick ice sheets cover vast areas of land. Such periods of large-scale glaciation may last several million years and drastically reshape surface features of entire continents. A number of major ice ages have occurred throughout Earth history.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Variations Within An Ice Age
- Ice Ages and The Earth's Climate
- How Many Ice Ages Has The Earth Experienced?
Ice ages are not uniformly cold. There can be colder and warmer periods during the overall ice-age period. Colder periods lead to more extensive areas of continental ice sheets, valley glaciers and sea ice, while warmer periods lead to reduced areas of ice. Cold ice-age periods on Earth are called "stadials," while warmer parts of an ice age are kn...
Ice ages change the Earth's climatic belts. Temperate and tropical zones become restricted to the lower equatorial latitudes. A question that follows on from the definition of an ice age is: how cold does Earth have to become to produce one? Earth's average global temperature today is around 16℃. Analysis of proxy temperature data (e.g. from the mo...
Geologists agree Earth has gone through six major global ice ages. The oldest ice age occurred some 2,900–2,780 million years ago. The most recent ice age is the one we are currently experiencing, the late Cainozoic-Quaternary Ice Age, which began around 34 million years ago with the glaciation of Antarctica. Between these two ice-age periods, othe...
- Michael Petterson
Oct 17, 2014 · The most recent ice age ended about 12,000 years ago. In North America, the last four ice-age cycles lasted about 100,000 years each. That includes a roughly 10,000-year warm spell between each ice age. So, the ice ages themselves lasted, on average, about 90,000 years.
Sep 28, 2021 · Ice Age. Ice sheets. Climate Explained. Three things define an ice age: Earth has to be cold enough for a long time, ice grows to cover significant areas, and it lasts for millions of...
- Michael Petterson
Jan 3, 2017 · The most accurate definition would be that ice ages are periods when ice sheets and glaciers expand across the planet, which correspond to significant drops in global temperatures and can...
The Pleistocene ( / ˈplaɪstəˌsiːn, - stoʊ -/ PLY-stə-seen, -stoh-; [5] [6] often referred to colloquially as the Ice Age) is the geological epoch that lasted from c.2.58 million to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations.
Sep 1, 2019 · Ice ages are driven by a complex, interconnected set of factors, involving Earth's position in the solar system and more local influences, like carbon dioxide levels. Scientists are still...
