Did Fossil Fuels Halt the Next Ice Age?
13th November 2026
Human activities that impact the Earth are often portrayed in a bad light. But a new study in Science gives us reason to be grateful for our newfound powers. Humanity seems to have interrupted the beginnings of the next glaciation—commonly known as an ice age. We have long suspected our activities might postpone the return of continent-sized ice sheets. The extraordinary suggestion now is that the process had already started, and that we stopped it.
Researchers examined the Barnes Ice Cap—the last surviving remnant of the enormous Laurentide Ice Sheet—on Baffin Island, high in the Canadian Arctic, and found that it began expanding again roughly 2,000 years ago. They interpret that renewed growth as the first stage of the next glaciation. Around 1960, however, human-caused atmospheric warming seems to have reversed the trend, and the ice began retreating. In their reading, humanity interrupted the next glaciation in its infancy.