Talk:Interglacial

Article name
Shouldn't the article name be Interglacial to be consistent with Naming_conventions? I'm going to move the article unless someone objects. Walter Siegmund (talk) 20:42, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge a glacial and a interglacial both take place during an overall ice age. The time between ice ages may be a non-glacial but it is not an interglacial. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Special:Contributions/ (talk)
 * I don't know what textbooks you've been reading but you're wrong. An interglacial, is the warm period that seperates glacial periods. I suggest you read this book. Also note that the term Ice Age isn't particularly scientific, hence glacial and interglacial are used when referring to the climate record. Also look up stadial and interstadial and you will realise why glacial and interglacial are used. Supposed 02:27, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

End of Ice Age / Start of Interglacial
I've been scanning through the articles on Glacial periods, Pliocene/Pleistocene and this, and none of them agree with each other on the end of the last glacial period (in the Current Ice Age) and the start of the current interglacial (Holocene): I've seen dates varying between 11,900 BC to 8,000 BC. I appreciate geological dating isn't always exact, but some commonality between articles on this issue in wikipedia would clarify things enormously.

Kind regards, Redge (talk) 05:04, 8 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I think thats just life. There is no clear definition as to what "end of glacial" means. The graphs of d-O-18 from the ice cores are, nowadays, the basic reference. Exactly what point on them you pick and call "the end" is up to you William M. Connolley (talk) 08:12, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Well (slightly late), these are different topics. Anyway, the start of the Holocene, or the present interglacial, is clear and fixed now since the last IGC in Oslo where the GSSP of the Holocene was proposed and selected.--Tom Meijer (talk) 14:59, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

How many?
Shouldn't this article say exactly how many interglacials have occurred during the current ice age? (Farawaychris (talk) 14:07, 8 March 2010 (UTC))

Orwellian Erasure of Interglacial Optimum Article
There was formerly an individual article on the Interglacial Maximum (or Interglacial Optimum) of the Holocene, which described in detail the climate history of the period approximately 8000-3000 BC, complete with graph showing temperatures rising out of the last ice age, reaching a maximum much warmer than today, and then wobbling downwards to the conditions of the last 300 years (a modest rise out of the Little Ice Age, overall still within the downward slope to the next ice age). A global warming activist added a "hockey stick" to the end of this chart showing temperatures skyrocketing to infinity -- which seemed fairly distortionary at the time as it was not graphically clear that this was a projection rather than current climate.

But that was nothing compared to the entire article simply being erased and forwarded to this article, which has only a brief mention of interglacial optima and nothing that conveys the accurate scientific information I have described above. Information about a recent period when the Arctic was ice free all summer, the semi-aquatic polar bears didn't drown, and which was much warmer that last year's "Warmest Year on Record". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.180.0.20 (talk) 05:16, 15 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Are you ranting about the still-extant Holocene climatic optimum? It is linked from this article William M. Connolley (talk) 07:47, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Clarify: interglacial is still part of ice age
Normally there is no any permanent ice on Earth. That was the case for most of the time Earth existed and right now we are in ice age. 2A00:1370:8184:1CE9:BFEC:CFF8:E6E4:A4CE (talk) 00:10, 16 March 2023 (UTC)