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Embarrassed-Mouse-49 OP t1_j52ofth wrote

Reply to comment by badwolfdad in TIL researchers found that the global average temperature from 19,000 to 23,000 years ago was about 46 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s about 11 degrees Fahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius) colder than the global average temperature of the 20th century, per a University of Michigan statement. by Embarrassed-Mouse-49

I’d just thought it would be a lot colder considering it’s an ice age.

Guess I’m getting downvoted for not knowing how cold it was during the ice age. Well I do now

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Jd20001 t1_j52q11g wrote

The glaciers only reached about the middle of Pennsylavania, they didn't cover everything

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Dakens2021 t1_j538inw wrote

Interestingly enough there is the hypothesized snowball Earth period which was about 700 million years ago where it is thought the average temperature for the planet was between -50C.

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il_duomino t1_j547qep wrote

Between -50c and what????

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zoratoune t1_j548na0 wrote

Yea you can't be doing that start and not

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rdrckcrous t1_j53644i wrote

But if Pennsylvania was 11 degrees cooler, most people wouldn't intuitively think that means glaciers

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certain_people t1_j53855q wrote

Global average was that much cooler. Not everywhere cools by the same amount. The further away from the equator, approximately, the more intense the cooling.

Same thing in reverse now. Global average up 1°C since 1880, but parts of the Arctic are over 4°C warmer.

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Totally_Not_A_Bot_55 t1_j52oxbr wrote

The difference between covered in glaciers and no glaciers is very little. 6 degrees. Some think we're in the beginning of an ice age now and only global warming is holding it at bay.

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Peter_deT t1_j531nzf wrote

We are in a cooling phase radiatively. But that is a slow process - some thousands of years before we go into an ice age. Global warming is not only counter-acting that, it's going well past to temperatures not seen for a million years or so.

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MentalityofWar t1_j54zcgj wrote

An interesting proposition would be what happens geologically when the earth heats up. Will we see a rise in volcanic activity again? What will happen if a super massive volcano erupts and leads to significant rapid cooling. The CO2 in the atmosphere won't dissipate in any relatively short amount of time so I would expect the Earth maybe enter a vicious cycle of rapid cooling and heating as both cycles feed into each other until the carbon dioxide is finally expunged. Just a conjecture though and would probably only happen on a longer timescale like 500-1000 years per cycle

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gutterbrain73 t1_j554fw2 wrote

Not sure how an increase in atmospheric temperature would cause an increase in volcanism...

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MentalityofWar t1_j5571rz wrote

I am not saying they would be correlated. Its purely conjecture. I can't say that there wont be geological affects on the earth though there certainly will be. I am just proposing if that the earths crust heated up it became a little more leaky to put it as basically as possible. More energetic. More tension between tectonic plates. Hell maybe the increased acidity in the ocean starts dissolving shit at the bottom of the ocean and causing steam pockets under massive pressure to literally push on earths magma with pressure unfathomable to us. Just conjecture.

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NnyBees t1_j52p5ye wrote

The real crazy numbers come from when the entire Earth froze over (Snowball Earth) and the average temp at the equator was -10°F and global mean temperature would be -50°F.

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