Скачать или смотреть ice age

An ice age is a period of colder global temperatures and recurring glacial expansion capable of lasting hundreds of millions of years. Thanks to the efforts of geologist Louis Agassiz and mathematician Milutin Milankovitch, scientists have determined that variations in the Earth’s orbit and shifting plate tectonics spur the waxing and waning of these periods. 

There have been at least five significant ice ages in Earth’s history, with approximately a dozen epochs of glacial expansion occurring in the past 1 million years. Humans developed significantly during the most recent glaciation period, emerging as the dominant land animal afterward as megafauna such as the wooly mammoth went extinct.

During an ice age, colder global temperatures lead to recurring glacial expansion across the Earth’s surface. Capable of lasting hundreds of millions of years, these periods are interspersed with regular warmer interglacial intervals in which at least one major ice sheet is present. Earth is currently in the midst of an ice age, as the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets remain intact despite moderate temperatures.

These global cooling periods begin when a drop in temperature prevents snow from fully melting in some areas. The bottom layer turns to ice, which becomes a glacier as the weight of accumulated snow causes it to slowly move forward. A cyclical pattern emerges in which the snow and ice traps the Earth’s moisture, fueling the growth of these ice sheets as the sea levels simultaneously drop.