The Last Ice Age Ended Why?

Question

I was watching a Discovery Channel show about the geography of America. Of course, many of our features were shaped by the glaciers receeding when the last Ice Age ended. The show repeatedly mentions the receeding glaciers, but they do not explain why the Earth's temperature changed. So, what caused the end of the last Ice Age? Are there many theories or just one?

Answer 1

Solar Cycles, and apogee / perigee orbit in relation to the sun has cycled closer.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3028847519933351566

Answer 2

Volcanic eruptions might have contributed to the inception and/or the top of ice age classes. One suggested clarification of the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal optimal is that undersea volcanoes released methane from clathrates and subsequently led to a great and rapid develop interior the greenhouse effect. There seems to be no geological info for such eruptions on the the terrific option time, yet this would not instruct they did no longer take place. there's a theory that approximately 15000 BC prehistoric guy, with the aid of killing the mammoths, bumped off a considerable grazing element and so permit the North American and Eurasian tundra get overgrown with bushes, which, sticking up above the winter snow, made the land darker and made the spring warming plenty speedier, and so ended the final Ice Age.

Answer 3

The last ice age ended about 10,000 years ago. Temperatures rose to the "Holocene Maximum" of about 5000 years ago when it was about l.5°C higher than now, dropped in the time of Christ, and then rose to the "Medieval Climate Optimum" in the years 600 to 1100, when temperatures. were about 1°C higher than now. This was a golden age for northern European. agriculture and led to the rise of Viking civilisation.What caused these ups and downs of temperature? We do not know. Temperature changes are a fact of nature, and we have no idea if the claimed 0.3C heating over the past 100 years is caused by man's activities or part of a natural cycle.

What we can say, though, is that if Europe heats up by 1°C it would do it a power of good. We can see this from records of 1000 years ago. Moreover, increased carbon dioxide makes plants grow more quickly, so improving crops and forests.

Answer 4

For our time now there are many contributers to the earth heating up. For example cars ; manufacturing plants ; power plants - all of our modern ways of doing things even using all of our household appliances puts out heat, when you add all that stuff together of course its going to heat up the planet.

Something else to consider for the times before the current modern age is - consider the earth's rotation / the axis / maybe the earth is just getting ever closer to the sun, and it could be that after it gets just so close that all the snow / ice is melted that the earth's rotation will start going further away from the sun and start cooling things off again. Which i think is most likely what caused the last ice age of heating and cooling cycle.

Just some things to consider, although knowledge has multiplied in this past 100 years or so, mankind still don't know it all.

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Answer 5

I believe that the Ice Age Began with a world-wide flood that occurred many years ago. Evidence show that the whole world had tropical like conditions at one time, even in the polar regions, probably from some sort of green house effect. A world-wide flood occurred, and one of the results of this flood was large polar ice caps forming on the planet. Notice that they are finding many whole frozen tropical mammals in the Artic and Antartic ice today, undoubtedly frozen almost instantly. Because of the flood, the earth was sort of scoured and most of the pre-flood life was buried. A world-wide flood is the only scientific explanation that can explain the Ice Age, the various fossils that we find, coal, sedimentary rock, and the geological formations that we have today.

Answer 6

That is the $10 million question in Geology. And the answer is: Nobody knows. Just like geoscientists do not understand why the Earth entered into a rare period of glaciation 1.6 million years ago they also don't know why it suddenly stopped 11,000 years ago. Geoscientists also don't know if we are in an inter-stage and another round of glaciation is upcoming. As for theories there is a "rule" in Geology: If you get three geologists together discussing a problem you will come up with six different theories explaining that problem.

Answer 7

Meteors hit the earch in two major spots. One is in Mexico. Solar flares from the sun are a theory as well. Take into consideration that all is theory. Can't prove any of it.

The Bird Dr.