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Palaeoclimate

Into an ice age

Nature volume 431, pages 133–134 (2004)Cite this article

Analyses of a new ice core from Greenland yield the first high-resolution picture of the start of the last ice age in the Northern Hemisphere, and of the onset of climate instability as our planet cooled.

The relatively warm and stable climate that humanity has enjoyed for the past 10,000 years will inevitably give way to a new ice age — a tremendous environmental transformation that is destined to bury the sites of Boston, Edinburgh and Stockholm under glacial ice. In The Day After Tomorrow, the Hollywood movie most notable for its public abuse of thermodynamics, a new ice age starts in only one week. What does such a transition look like in reality?

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Figure 1: Core territory — the Greenland ice cap, which holds a climate record going back to the last interglacial, the Eemian.

B. & C. ALEXANDER WWW.GLACIOLOGY.GFY.KU.DK/NGRIP

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  1. the Department of Geography, 507 McCone Hall, University of California, Berkeley, 94720-4740, California, USA

    Kurt M. Cuffey

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  1. Kurt M. Cuffey
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Cuffey, K. Into an ice age. Nature 431, 133–134 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/431133a

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