英语口语课ppt 第四纪冰河时代.ppt

The Last Glaciation Bella,Jane,sherry,Stark Content Introduction of ice age and the time of the last glaciation Glacial climate and sea level Flora and Fauna The influence of quaternary ice age Introduction of ice age and the time of the last glaciation  What is an ice age? An ice age is a long interval of time when global temperatures are relatively cold and large areas of the Earth are covered by continental ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Within an ice age are multiple shorter-term periods of warmer temperatures when glaciers retreat and colder temperatures when glaciers advance . fig1:At least five major ice ages have occurred throughout Earth’s history: the earliest was over 2 billion years ago, and the most recent one began approximately 3 million years ago and continues today (yes, we live in an ice age!). When was the last ice glaciation? There has been a series of ice ages over the past million years or so. Sometimes this whole period is referred to as the ‘ice age’, although it has included many individual glacial periods that alternated, every hundred thousand years or so, with warm periods called interglacials. More accurately, the ‘last ice age’ refers to the most recent of these glacial episodes. The coldest part, when massive glaciers extended as far south as Britain, happened between 25,000 and 20,000 years ago; we call it the last glacial maximum. fig2:The congruent relationship between the changes of CO2 and the temperature Glacial climate and sea level Since 2 million years ago, Earth’s climate has undergone a significant and complex evolution. The global weather became hugely unstable during that time. It dramatically switch its warming to cooling and back again. As the last glacial period progressed leading up to the LGM, sea levels worldwide dropped as water became stored in the ice sheets covering the world’s continents. Sea levels went down about 164 feet (50 meters) in 1,000 years. The warmer portions of the globe also experienced a c