The Timing of Interglacials - Granite Grok

The Timing of Interglacials

The timing of interglacials
Source Veizer, et al., 1999 and Wikipedia

Interglacials

The higher sea-level is a result of melting a significant amount of land-ice during the interglacial. We are currently in the “Quaternary Ice Age,” which is either the coldest or the second coldest period in the last 500 million years as can be seen in figures 1 and 2. These are the most popular temperature reconstructions of the past 540 million years. Ice ages (or a collection of closely spaced continental glacial periods) have occurred in the geological record roughly every 150 million years in the Phanerozoic. The cause of these cold periods is not known, but we are clearly in one now.

It’s a bit wonkish but you can read the whole thing.

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