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A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate between glacial periods. The Last Glacial Period ended about 15,000 years ago. [1]
Last Glacial Period, not to be confused with the Last Glacial Maximum or Late Glacial Maximum below. (The following events also fall into this period.) 48,000–28,000: Mousterian Pluvial wet in North Africa 26,500–19,000: Last Glacial Maximum, what is often meant in popular usage by "Last Ice Age" 16,000–13,000
Glacial history of Minnesota; Glacial period – Interval of time within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances; Ice age – Period of long-term reduction in temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere; Last Glacial Period – Period of major glaciations of the Northern Hemisphere (115,000–12,000 years ago)
Biber or the Biber Complex (German: Biber-Komplex) is a timespan approximately 2.6–1.8 million years ago in the glacial history of the Alps. Biber corresponds to the Gelasian age in the international geochronology, which since 2009 is regarded as the first age of the Quaternary period. Deep sea core samples have identified approximately 20 ...
Initially the glacial/interglacial cycle length was about 41,000 years, but following the Mid-Pleistocene Transition about 1 Ma, it slowed to about 100,000 years, as evidenced most clearly by ice cores for the past 800,000 years and marine sediment cores for the earlier period. Over the past 740,000 years there have been eight glacial cycles. [7]
An illustration of ice age Earth at its glacial maximum. A "greenhouse Earth" is a period during which no continental glaciers exist anywhere on the planet. [6] Additionally, the levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (such as water vapor and methane) are high, and sea surface temperatures (SSTs) range from 28 °C (82.4 °F) in the tropics to 0 °C (32 °F) in the polar regions. [7]
In the Northern Hemisphere, they take the form of rapid warming episodes, typically in a matter of decades, each followed by gradual cooling over a longer period.For example, about 11,500 years ago, averaged annual temperatures on the Greenland ice sheet increased by around 8 °C over 40 years, in three steps of five years, [3] where a 5 °C change over 30–40 years is more common. [4]
Deglaciation is the transition from full glacial conditions during ice ages, to warm interglacials, characterized by global warming and sea level rise due to change in continental ice volume. [1] Thus, it refers to the retreat of a glacier , an ice sheet or frozen surface layer, and the resulting exposure of the Earth 's surface.