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How many ice ages has the Earth had, and could humans live through one?
Space.com ^ | Denise Su

Posted on 06/29/2022 9:28:45 PM PDT by BenLurkin

Earth has had at least five major ice ages(opens in new tab). 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.

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 46 degrees Fahrenheit...That's 11 degrees F cooler than the global annual average today.

Earth was also much drier, and sea level was much lower(opens in new tab), since most of the Earth's water was trapped in the ice sheets. Steppes(opens in new tab), or dry grassy plains, were common. So were savannas(opens in new tab), or warmer grassy plains and deserts.

Many animals present during the ice age(opens in new tab) would be familiar to you, including brown bears, caribou and wolves. But there were also megafauna that went extinct at the end of the ice age, like mammoths, mastodons, saber-toothed cats(opens in new tab) and giant ground sloths(opens in new tab).

For a long time it was thought that humans did not enter North America until after the ice sheets started to melt. But fossilized footprints(opens in new tab) found at White Sands National Park(opens in new tab) in New Mexico show that humans have been in North America since at least 23,000 years ago — close to the peak of the last ice age.

(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...


TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: algorithm; globalwarming; globullwarming; iceage

1 posted on 06/29/2022 9:28:45 PM PDT by BenLurkin
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To: BenLurkin

There have been many.


2 posted on 06/29/2022 9:32:42 PM PDT by crusty old prospector
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To: BenLurkin

Gonna need heating oil and coal to do it.


3 posted on 06/29/2022 9:34:43 PM PDT by Dalberg-Acton
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To: BenLurkin

Assuredly, this is a rhetorical question given via this article?

Of course humans can live thru or survive one......and have.
There is unquestionable archeological evidence to suggests and supports such.


4 posted on 06/29/2022 9:36:53 PM PDT by cranked
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To: BenLurkin

“Earth was also much drier, and sea level was much lower(opens in new tab), since most of the Earth’s water was trapped in the ice sheets.”

I’d rather have global warming than cooling. Another ice age would vastly reduce the number of places to live in (mile-high ice over Seattle), and the lack of crops would cause mass starvation.

No doubt wars (nuclear war?) would result as nations take over other countries as the ice pushes them out and the cropland is needed to feed their people.

I’m guessing the southern states of America would be a winner with lots of new folks heading south. Still would have to feed them though with a world-wide drought going on for thousands of years.


5 posted on 06/29/2022 9:41:10 PM PDT by 21twelve (Ever Vigilant. Never Fearful.)
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To: BenLurkin
For a real discussion of ice ages...

For a real discussian of how old our planet actually is...

6 posted on 06/29/2022 9:44:46 PM PDT by ganeemead (There is no definition of patriotism that includes stooging or siding with Nazis against Christians.)
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To: crusty old prospector

Yes there have been many. I have lived in Alaska, north Idaho, and presently NW Montana. The evidence of glaciation is everywhere.


7 posted on 06/29/2022 9:45:36 PM PDT by 43north (America doesn't need an election. We need an exorcism.)
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To: BenLurkin

So are we gonna get more rain or moraine?


8 posted on 06/29/2022 10:21:07 PM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear (This is not a tagline.)
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To: BenLurkin

Well duh, of course we can. We are in the middle of a 2 1/2 million-year-old ice age called the Pleistocene and WE ARE STILL HERE. There’s nothing stupider than a government funded climatescientist” (excepting neocon troll Freepers).


9 posted on 06/29/2022 10:34:38 PM PDT by WMarshal (Neocons and leftists are the same species of vicious rat.)
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To: WMarshal

aaaaand White Sands is a National Monument.


10 posted on 06/29/2022 11:25:11 PM PDT by Theophilus (It's fake and defective)
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To: BenLurkin

We are still in one.


11 posted on 06/30/2022 3:16:55 AM PDT by fruser1
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To: anyone

“ could humans live through one?’

Humanity yes, most humans a BIG NO.

Just consider many experts are saying we will have famine on earth next year at a level not seen in our lives. The causes apparently:
1. COVID that killed 1% max of victims
2. Supply chain issues
3. Inept/evil politicians
4. A relatively small war in the Ukraine

Now compare that to a sudden resurgence of an ice age and you suddenly lose the agriculture in all of Canada, most of the US breadbasket, much of Russia and other vast areas will get drier.

Even if unproductive areas like the Sahara suddenly started getting more rain the soil is not ready for how many years or the infrastructure developed for ag.

As far as the idea we would suddenly become motivated to work together and approach the challenge scientifically—-hahaha. We are in a time when some places of higher learning and large numbers of people believe men can give birth. A recent poll showed almost 40% of young Americans ID as LGBTQA+- whatever (generation “Z”?).

I guess it boils down to a question of how fast cooling would develop.

https://www.globalcitizen.org/fr/content/world-running-out-of-food-by-2023/


12 posted on 06/30/2022 4:26:47 AM PDT by Phoenix8
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To: BenLurkin

.....and could humans live through one?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hmmm, sounds like the plot line for a book....

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/we-who-survived_sterling-noel/14469169/#edition=59458361&idiq=52322486

“The snow began on a Saturday. It was a cold, brooding day in September of 2203. The world’s leading scientists-grimly aware of the monstrous new age of ice that would close around the Earth and bury the human race alive-had issued their warnings. But the governments had ignored them, issued bland reassurances and berated the scientists for their alarmist cries of doom. For several years, though the snows started and stopped, the winters grew longer and the days colder. Then one day the snow began to fall-and did not stop.”


13 posted on 06/30/2022 4:38:36 AM PDT by hecticskeptic
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To: BenLurkin

600 human generations ago (20 plus a little more being a generation) sea level was 1,000 feet lower. Some periods the rate of seal level rise was astonishingly rapid - far more so than the advance or retreat of ice sheets. So the author has an interesting hook to get eyeballs, but spends little effort in examining human adaptive behavior or explaining the lack of data that may be examined (Humans like to be near the water and their settlement locations from 11,000 years ago are far down beneath the briney deep.


14 posted on 06/30/2022 4:43:48 AM PDT by frithguild (The warmth and goodness of Gaia is a nuclear reactor in the Earth's core that burns Thorium)
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To: BenLurkin

The glaciers did not cover the entire earth. It was temperate towards the equator. There have been several “ice ages.”

It’s amusing when I hear about how it’s getting warm—as if this never happened before.

A tiny bit of education would help those idiots realize they are not “special.” Eventually, we will go extinct…just like the dinosaurs and Neanderthals.


15 posted on 06/30/2022 6:26:48 AM PDT by Vermont Lt
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To: hecticskeptic

16 posted on 06/30/2022 7:38:48 AM PDT by seowulf (Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty, and dies with chaos...Will Durant)
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To: seowulf

Brought has his eye on you!


17 posted on 06/30/2022 7:42:30 AM PDT by Sawdring
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To: seowulf

Oops, auto correct. But Broud still has his eye on you.


18 posted on 06/30/2022 7:43:19 AM PDT by Sawdring
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To: BenLurkin

We’re about to learn if we can live thru a cold season this Winter, and with the cost of heating fuels I don’t think everyone is going to make it.


19 posted on 06/30/2022 7:44:54 AM PDT by 1Old Pro
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To: BenLurkin

I think humans have never been as capable of adapting to and mitigating an ice age, or “climate change” as we are today. I am not claiming there would be no disruptions, only that we are technologically poised to be able to handle them better than any period of human history that we know of.


20 posted on 06/30/2022 10:53:55 AM PDT by Wuli
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