An ice age, is a period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence

or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Within a longterm ice age, individual pulses of cold climate are termed "glacial periods" and intermittent warm periods are called "interglacials".

ice scratches

In 1840, Louis Agassiz observed unique glacial features in Scotland. He found scratches on a rocky hillside near Edinburgh like those made by glaciers. He argued that Scotland had recently been covered in a thick ice sheet.

Parallel marks sh former level of a ice-dammed lake

Glen Roy, Scotland

Agassiz amassed more evidence from landforms and boulder clays to support his idea of a Great Ice Age in recent times.

Pollen

Fossil discoveries also suggested that climate had recently been much colder. Beetles and pollen grains found in sediments associated with the boulder clays were identified as types known only from the Arctic tundra today. Woolly mammoths found deep frozen in Siberia had fur adapted to tundra life.

Beetles

Mammoth

When the Last Ice Age was at its maximum, ice sheets covered much of Europe and North America. So what actually caused it?

Milutin Milankovid (1879-1958) In the 1940s, Milankovid wondered whether wobbles in the Earths orbit around the Sun could explain multiple Ice Ages by changing the amount of heating reaching the Earth

Milankovid added up all the orbital wobbles and predicted that ice ages should occur in regular cycles - probably happening every hundred thousand years or so.

 The Oil Drum

cold

hot

1000s of years before present In 1960s, deep sea records showed that Milankovid was right!

The Earths climate had repeatedly blown hot and cold with ice age cycles happening every hundred thousand years just as Milankovid had predicted.

Greenhouse Gas levels dropped during Ice Ages

The second idea is tha changes in greenhouse gas levels were to blame. Greenhouse gases hel soak up sunlight and keep the Earth warm. Air bubbles in ice core show that levels fell during Ice Ages so this may have sped up cooling.

NOAA

Last Ice Age = Low Greenhouse Gas

Gulf Stream warms the Arctic

Some scientists believe that ocean currents like the Gulf Stream were important. This current helps warm up the Arctic. If it switched off this would cool the Arctic further and increase the likelihood of an Ice Age

Drilling cores Annual layers in ice

In the early 1980s, there was another major breakthrough. Cores were drilled in the polar icecaps revealing annual layers of snow going back thousands of years.