News tagged with ice age
Russians revive Ice Age flower from frozen burrow
It was an Ice Age squirrel's treasure chamber, a burrow containing fruit and seeds that had been stuck in the Siberian permafrost for over 30,000 years. From the fruit tissues, a team of Russian scientists ...
Feb 20, 2012 |
4.9 / 5 (39) |
31
Carbon cycling was much smaller during last ice age than in today's climate: study
Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of the most important greenhouse gases and the increase of its abundance in the atmosphere by fossil fuel burning is the main cause of future global warming. In past ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Nov 20, 2011 |
3.6 / 5 (11) |
14
|
Climate played big role in Vikings' disappearance from Greenland
The end of the Norse settlements on Greenland likely will remain shrouded in mystery. While there is scant written evidence of the colony's demise in the 14th and early 15th centuries, archaeological remains ...
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
May 30, 2011 |
4.3 / 5 (7) |
4
|
Study debunks theory on end of 'Snowball Earth' ice age
A team of scientists led by researchers from Caltech report in this week's issue of the journal Nature that the rocks on which much of a theory on how the "Snowball Earth" ice age ended was based were formed ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
May 25, 2011 |
4.6 / 5 (14) |
25
|
Glaciers melting faster than originally thought: study
(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of scientists from Aberystwyth University, the University of Exeter and Stockholm University, led by Welsh scientist and Professor Neil Glasser, have released at study published in ...
Sunspots could soon disappear for decades: study
(PhysOrg.com) -- Sunspot formation is triggered by a magnetic field, which scientists say is steadily declining. They predict that by 2016 there may be no remaining sunspots, and the sun may stay spotless ...
New theory of why midcontinent faults produce earthquakes
A new theory developed at Purdue University may solve the mystery of why the New Madrid fault, which lies in the middle of the continent and not along a tectonic plate boundary, produces large earthquakes such as the ones ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jul 30, 2010 |
4.6 / 5 (14) |
1
|
The North Pacific, a global backup generator for past climate change
Toward the end of the last ice age, a major reorganization took place in the current system of the North Pacific with far-reaching implications for climate, according to a new study published in the July 9, ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jul 08, 2010 |
4.5 / 5 (17) |
1
|
Scientists detect huge carbon 'burp' that helped end last ice age
(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have found the possible source of a huge carbon dioxide 'burp' that happened some 18,000 years ago and which helped to end the last ice age.
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
May 27, 2010 |
3.7 / 5 (31) |
18
|
Deepest core drilled from Antarctic Peninsula; may contain glacial stage ice
Researchers here are hopeful that the new core they drilled through an ice field on the Antarctic Peninsula will contain ice dating back into the last ice age. If so, that record should give new insight into ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Apr 12, 2010 |
4.5 / 5 (6) |
1
|
NASA Study Finds Atlantic 'Conveyor Belt' Not Slowing
(PhysOrg.com) -- New NASA measurements of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, part of the global ocean conveyor belt that helps regulate climate around the North Atlantic, show no significant ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Mar 26, 2010 |
4.6 / 5 (18) |
27
|
Cave reveals Southwest's abrupt climate swings during Ice Age
Ice Age climate records from an Arizona stalagmite link the Southwest's winter precipitation to temperatures in the North Atlantic, according to new research.
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jan 20, 2010 |
4.7 / 5 (14) |
28
|
Underground gases tell the story of ice ages -- and America's split jet stream
(PhysOrg.com) -- Deep underground aquifers in the American Southwest contain gases that tell of the region's ancient climate, and support a growing consensus that the jet stream over North America was once ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jan 12, 2010 |
4.1 / 5 (7) |
2
|
'Super-river' formed the English Channel
(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of Anglo-French scientists studying sedimentary deposits in the Bay of Biscay have concluded that Britain and France were separated by a "super-river" during three periods of glaciations, ...
Supervolcano eruption -- in Sumatra -- deforested India 73,000 years ago
A new study provides "incontrovertible evidence" that the volcanic super-eruption of Toba on the island of Sumatra about 73,000 years ago deforested much of central India, some 3,000 miles from the epicenter, ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Nov 23, 2009 |
4.5 / 5 (17) |
3
Ice age
The general term "ice age" or, more precisely, "glacial age" denotes a geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in an expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Within a long-term ice age, individual pulses of extra cold climate are termed "glaciations". Glaciologically, ice age implies the presence of extensive ice sheets in the northern and southern hemispheres; by this definition we are still in an ice age (because the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets still exist).
More colloquially, when speaking of the last few thousand years, "the" ice age refers to the most recent colder period (or freezing period) with extensive ice sheets over the North American and Eurasian continents: in this sense, the most recent ice age peaked, in its Last Glacial Maximum about 20,000 years ago. This article will use the term ice age in the former, glaciological, sense: glacials for colder periods during ice ages and interglacials for the warmer periods.
For more information about Ice age, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.