Denise Su is an associate professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change and research scientist in the Institute of Human Origins. Her research explores the environments in which our early ancestors lived to provide insight into how environmental factors shaped the trajectory of human evolution. She was previously the Curator of Paleobotany and Paleoecology and Chief Academic Engagement Officer at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, integrating research with public outreach and education and leading initiatives to increase access to and diversify participation in science.
has cold temperatures for a long time — millions to tens of millions of years — that lead to ice sheets and glaciers covering large areas of its surface.. The first one happened about 2 billion years ago and lasted about 300 million years. The most recent one started about 2.6 million years ago, and in fact, we are still technically in it.
So why isn't the Earth covered in ice right now? It's because we are in a period known as an"interglacial." In an ice age, temperatures will fluctuate between colder and warmer levels. Ice sheets and glaciers melt during warmer phases, which are called interglacials, and expand during colder phases, which are called glacials.
Right now we are in the most recent ice age's warm interglacial period, which began about 11,000 years ago.When most people talk about the"ice age," they are usually referring to the last glacial period, which began about 115,000 years ago and ended about 11,000 years ago with the start of the current interglacial period.
During that time, the planet was much cooler than it is now. At its peak, when ice sheets covered most of North America, the average global temperature was about That difference might not sound like a lot, but it resulted in most of North America and Eurasia being covered in ice sheets. Earth was also much drier, and
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