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19….ICE AGES, the Last and effects on our PLANET

During the last 2.6 million years or so in the Quaternary Period, ice ages, also called glacial ages, were times of extreme cooling of the EARTH’S climate, where ice sheets and other types of Glacier expanded to cover large areas of land. Between ice ages there were warmer interglacial periods. We are now living in one.  

There have been many ice ages during the last 2.6 million years but when people talk about the Ice Age, they are often  referring to the most recent glacial period, which peaked about 21,000 years ago and ended about 11,500 years ago.

What causes ice ages is not completely understood. The composition of the atmosphere, changes in the position of our planet around the Sun, and changes in ocean currents are some of the important factors that control the climate.

An ice age is a period of long-term 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. Within a long-term ice age, individual pulses of cold climate are termed "glacial periods" (or alternatively "glacials" or "glaciations" or colloquially as "ice age"), and intermittent warm periods are called "interglacials". Glaciologically, ice age implies the presence of extensive ice sheets in the northern and southern hemispheres. By this definition, we are in an interglacial period—the Holocene—of the ice age that began 2.6 million years ago at the start of the Pleistocene epoch, because the Greenland, Arctic, and Antarctic ice sheets still exist.

The last ice age hasn't ended, the climate has just warmed up a bit causing the ice sheets to retreat. When the ice was more extensive, our climate was very different.

WHAT ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING  EFFECT??  Agriculture and emissions etc. !!

Firstly, lots of the world's water was turned to ice, so precipitation was low: Europe received roughly half the rainfall it gets today, mostly in the summer months. Globally, summer temperatures were 4-8 Celsius colder than today. In some places, the winter temperatures were 15-20 Celsius cooler than today's, making ice age Florida more like modern Quebec.

Wind speeds were higher and dust storms were common as the wind picked up material from enlarged deserts and glacier margins. The ice age was at its most extreme - and the climate at its most severe - 18,000 years ago. Mankind survived and also animals like Horses, Bison and Deer.


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