Ice Age and Climate Change

The apex of the most recent of these ice ages glaciations was reached about twenty thousand years ago. The average world temperature fluctuated between 5° and 15° Fahrenheit (5° to 8° Celsius) over the length of these cycles. The Earth’s orbit slowly varies over time, beginning and ending these ice ages. However, shifting CO2 levels in the atmosphere also have a significant impact on how quickly ice ages drop off and then warm up.

The next glacial epoch, which would otherwise start in around fifty thousand years, is anticipated to be postponed by one hundred thousand to five hundred thousand years due to the amount of greenhouse gases that humans have released into the Earth’s atmosphere and seas.

From roughly 1300 to 1850 CE, the world experienced widespread cooling, with average temperatures falling by up to 2°C (3.6°F), especially in Europe and North America. This period of time is known as the Little Ice Age.

The Earth’s surface is significantly altered during ice ages. The relentless push of glaciers, whose sheer weight on the Earth’s crust, reshapes the terrain by accumulating rocks and dirt and destroying slopes. Over tens of thousands of years, the total quantity of sunlight that reaches Earth fluctuates significantly, especially in the northern hemisphere, or the region close to and surrounding the North Pole. An ice age is brought on by a decrease in temperature and a greater amount of water freezing into ice at northern latitudes due to reduced sunlight.

The earliest means of human survival throughout the Ice Age was foraging and harvesting food from various plants, including nuts and berries. Because herds of animals offered a consistent source of food, humans started hunting them. They frequently followed migrating herds of animals and birds.

The formation of the land bridge connecting North and South America (the isthmus of Panama), which stopped the flow of tropical water through the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and dramatically changed ocean currents, is thought to be the trigger for the current ice age. Interglacials and glacial periods occur in relatively predictable, recurring patterns.

The tilt in Earth’s axis toward the sun, which occurred around twenty thousand years ago and caused the huge ice sheets in the northern hemisphere to melt, was the primary cause of the end of the last ice age. The Gulf Stream shrank as fresh meltwater entered the North Atlantic Ocean, plunging the north into another ice age.

There were at least 60 documented extinct species in North America at the close of the most recent Ice Age, which occurred around twelve thousand years ago. As a result, animals including the mammoth, mastodon, stag-moose, big beaver, and giant ground sloth disappeared from the region that is now New York State.

The onset of the following ice age has reportedly been delayed due to human activity, according to recent studies. The scientists hypothesize that even minimal human intervention with the planet’s organic carbon balance, such as fossil fuel burning, might cause the next glaciation cycle to be delayed by one hundred thousand years.

Humans have endured two ice eras in the last two hundred thousand years. Although this information demonstrates that humans have endured dramatic temperature shifts in the past, nothing like what is happening now has ever been experienced by mankind.

The climate on Earth is constantly changing, but the current era of human-caused climate change is unique compared to all other eras. Over the past 4.5 billion years, the climate and atmosphere of the Earth have undergone significant change. Will there be another ice age? No. Even if the sun’s radiation output decreased as it has in the past, this would not have a substantial impact on the global warming caused by long-lived greenhouse gases released by humans.