The last interglacial: paleotemperatures and chronology

Science (New York, N.Y.)
|February 12, 1971
PubMed
Summary

The last interglacial period, marked by distinct temperature shifts, spanned 100,000 to 70,000 years ago. This period followed a glacial age and its timeline was confirmed using oxygen isotope and radiometric dating methods.

Related Concept Videos

What is Weather?01:07

What is Weather?

Overview
Global Climate Change01:50

Global Climate Change

Throughout its ~4.5 billion year history, the Earth has experienced periods of warming and cooling. However, the current drastic increase in global temperatures is well outside of the Earth’s cyclic norms, and evidence for human-caused global climate change is compelling. Paleoclimatology, the study of ancient climate conditions, provides ample evidence for human-caused global climate change by comparing recent conditions with those in the past.
Heating and Cooling Curves02:44

Heating and Cooling Curves

When a substance—isolated from its environment—is subjected to heat changes, corresponding changes in temperature and phase of the substance is observed; this is graphically represented by heating and cooling curves.
For instance, the addition of heat raises the temperature of a solid; the amount of heat absorbed depends on the heat capacity of the solid (q = mcsolidΔT). According to thermochemistry, the relation between the amount of heat absorbed or released by a substance, q, and its...
Second Law of Thermodynamics02:49

Second Law of Thermodynamics

In the quest to identify a property that may reliably predict the spontaneity of a process, a promising candidate has been identified: entropy. Processes that involve an increase in entropy of the system (ΔS > 0) are very often spontaneous; however, examples to the contrary are plentiful. By expanding consideration of entropy changes to include the surroundings, a significant conclusion regarding the relation between this property and spontaneity may be reached. In thermodynamic models, the...
Thermal Expansion01:22

Thermal Expansion

The expansion of alcohol in a thermometer is one of many commonly encountered examples of thermal expansion, which is the change in size or volume of a given system as its temperature changes. The most visible example is the expansion of hot air. When air is heated, it expands and becomes less dense than the surrounding air, which then exerts an upward force on the hot air to, for example, make steam and smoke rise, and hot air balloons float. The same behavior happens in all liquids and gases,...
Cold Weather Concreting01:27

Cold Weather Concreting

When freshly poured concrete is exposed to freezing temperatures before it has set, the water within the concrete can freeze. This expansion disrupts the setting process, delays chemical reactions necessary for hardening, and increases the volume of pores within the hardened concrete, which weakens its overall structure. If the concrete manages to reach an appreciable strength before it freezes, the damage can be somewhat mitigated.
To counteract the negative impacts of cold weather, ensuring...