Ice Ages and Climate Cycles

Comments debate current global warming in the context of historical climate variations, ice ages, interglacials like the Eemian and Little Ice Age, and paleoclimate data suggesting natural cycles.

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e.g LR04 wordpress.com IPCC wikipedia.or www.bbc HN climate.gov climate.nasa nature.com ice age temperature sea climate global warming warmer million years 000 years

Sample Comments

blumomo Nov 17, 2024 View on HN

It’s you who’s simply wrong.You have to look before the ice period, that’s what OP refers to as long term.https://scitechdaily.com/66-million-years-of-earths-climate-...

cobookman Jan 19, 2019 View on HN

We were also in an ice age back then.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age

_0w8t Mar 15, 2022 View on HN

I read an interview with a paleontologist and he pointed out two things. First, climate 9000 years ago was about 1- 1.5 degree warmer than today. Even 1000 years ago it was much milder in Arctic or Northern Atlantic/Pacific. Second, the next ice age should start within the next 1000-2000 years. And for humans an ice age is much worse than global warming even by 2 degrees. So it could be that we should continue to increase CO2 as a protection against the ice age…

DougWebb Jun 17, 2016 View on HN

I've been reading about the Younger Dryas [1] transition recently. This was the ice age that we're still warming up from; before it started the world was at least as warm as it is now. Then, over just a few decades, the global temperature dropped 2-6C and lots of animals went extinct. Humans got hammered badly too. The cold lasted about 1200 years, then over a few decades it warmed up again, and it's continued to warm up ever since.[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.or

danielvf Aug 24, 2017 View on HN

Link for the lazy:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene–Eocene_Thermal_Max...

jncfhnb Sep 18, 2023 View on HN

What would change if you found out there was 100x 350 million years ago and 0 ice 500 million years ago?

version_five Feb 28, 2023 View on HN

Um, haven't we been emerging from an ice age since around then? Did anyone think the climate was a constant thing?

Tagbert May 18, 2023 View on HN

Early on, before climate science developed modern models, there were a few people who thought, based on historical timing of glacial periods, that we would eventually enter a new ice age. More recent data has shown that that is not likely as long as we are pushing the climate to ever warmer levels. Eventually, if that effect fades, we could go back into a glacial cycle again but that would probably take some thousands of years.

jjawssd Oct 17, 2017 View on HN

Not 200y ago. 100ky ago. Earth's temperature naturally oscillates and we are in a colder period.https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/All_pala...

ant6n Dec 1, 2016 View on HN

according to xkcd, it's warmer now than in 3000BC: https://xkcd.com/1732/