ICE AGE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does ice age mean? 

• ICE AGE (noun)
  The noun ICE AGE has 1 sense:

1. any period of time during which glaciers covered a large part of the earth's surface

  Familiarity information: ICE AGE used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ICE AGE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Any period of time during which glaciers covered a large part of the earth's surface

Classified under:

Nouns denoting time and temporal relations

Synonyms:

glacial epoch; glacial period; ice age

Context example:

the most recent ice age was during the Pleistocene

Hypernyms ("ice age" is a kind of...):

geological period; period (a unit of geological time during which a system of rocks formed)

Holonyms ("ice age" is a part of...):

prehistoric culture; prehistory (the time during the development of human culture before the appearance of the written word)

 Context examples 

The crater’s condition indicates the impact might even have occurred toward the end of the last ice age, which would place the resulting crater among the youngest on the planet.

(Unexpected Discovery Under Greenland Ice, NASA)

These regions remained climatologically stable as the world emerged from the last ice age, allowing such species to persist.

(Nearly 40% of plant species are very rare, and vulnerable to climate change, National Science Foundation)

Yet no computer model has been able to explain why CO2 levels were as much as one-third lower when an ice age settled in.

(Why atmospheric carbon dioxide was lower during ice ages, National Science Foundation)

Many other factors also change the ground level, such as the movement of tectonic plates, volcanic activity, high- and low-pressure weather systems, and Earth's slow rebound from the last ice age.

(Sierras Lost Water Weight, Grew Taller During Drought, NASA)

They confirmed that changes in the ocean conveyor belt preceded abrupt and major climatic changes during the transition out of the last ice age, referred to as the last deglaciation.

(A new study is the first to measure the time lags between changing ocean currents and major climate shifts., University of Cambridge)

At the end of the last ice age around 11,000 years ago, the ice sheet went through a period of rapid, sustained ice loss when changes in global weather patterns and rising sea levels pushed warm water closer to the ice sheet — just as is happening today.

(Hot News from the Antarctic Underground, NASA)

Kane and his team also observed that unlike Earth, which experiences climatic changes such as an ice age because of slow variations in its orbit around the sun, Wolf 1061c's orbit changes at a much faster rate, which could mean the climate there could be quite chaotic.

(Searching for Life on Wolf 1061 Exoplanet, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Schmittner and his colleagues estimate that colder ocean temperatures would account for about half the decrease in CO2 during the last glacial maximum — or peak of the last ice age.

(Why atmospheric carbon dioxide was lower during ice ages, National Science Foundation)

A similar pattern emerged near the end of that cold snap, transitioning out of the ice age; the current started strengthening roughly 400 years before the atmosphere began to heat up dramatically, when Greenland warmed up rapidly — its average temperature climbed by about 8 degrees over just a few decades, causing glaciers to melt and sea ice to drop off considerably in the North Atlantic.

(A new study is the first to measure the time lags between changing ocean currents and major climate shifts., University of Cambridge)