A site poses a question that compelled me to answer:
When is the next glaciation due?https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/12438/when-is-the-next-glaciation-due
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There are two factors determining when the next glacial cycle.
The first concerns the natural cycle that has been at play since the beginning of our present day Ice Age (about 2.6 million years ago). In this case the next glacial period ushers in as temperatures in the worlds oceans rise that in turn increases hurricane activity/force. As hurricane activity eventually extends into winter months they bring blizzard conditions the likes of which are the building blocks of a glacial period. The increase in ocean temperatures is primarily the result of the North American and Eurasian tectonic plate adjusting from the previous glacial period, namely at the ice free peripheries that had bowled upward as a result of the massive glacial weight that covered continents. These outer peripheries today lay mostly in the Oceans and so a resettling means “heat generated friction” as they grind along adjacent plates where the plate boundaries are convergent, and in the case where the boundaries are divergent, heat is generated as magma displaces into the ocean.
The second factor determining when the next glacial period is due, is as a result of man-made global warming. This will certainly change the “natural” game plan. In the past (without man-made global warming), interglacials lasted about 10,000–20,000 years, and so we can extrapolate from this that the next glacial period can begin any time in the near future and before 8,500 years.
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