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What many people ignore is that we are now in an "Interglacial Period" called the "Holocene".
An "Interglacial Period" is an extent of time where the global temperatures of the earth are higher than usual.
Tipically, during an "Interglacial Period" there are two stages: one first stage where temperatures increase steadily to a certain maximum, and another period similar in length where temperatures decrease until normal levels. After that, the temperatures decrease further, in what it is called a "Glacial Period"
Currently, we are not even close to the heights of the previou Interglacial Period (around 120,000 years ago) where average global temperature was 5 Celsius degrees higher than today!
Usually, Interglacial Period last from 10,000 to 15,000 years, but in the current period, temperatures have been only increasing for about 11,000 years, meaning that we are still in the stage of increasing temperatures.
Human intervention, specifically in terms of CO2 and methane emissions, are one of the culprits of this unusual length. At this moment, we still don't know what to expect, but it is believed that the Holocene could last from a few thousand more years to a few hundred thousand years, with some people believing that I could last up to 150,000 more years.
In addition to this, due to greenhouse effects from gas emissions, temperatures could reach record hights never seen before in the planet.
Please, see the next graph to understand where we are now (5Kb, JPEG, 540x241)
Another problem associated with this unusual length is that tipically, Glacial Periods last anywhere from 7 to 9 times longer that Interglacial Period. So after an Interglacial Period of, let's say, 15,000 years, a glacial period of 105,000 to 135,000 years will follow, so you can understand where the current situation is going to lead us.
Right now 11,000 years have passed during the Holocene. If we double this time until temperatures reach normal levels, we are talking about 22,000 years, that will lead to a glacial period of 154,000 to 198,000 years.
But if predictions for the Holocene to extend another 150,000 years become true (for a total of 161,000 years), we could be living soon a glacial period that could potentially last for 1.5 MILLION years (that is 1,500,000 years!).
