| Term: | Interglacials or interglaciations |
| Definition: |
The warm periods between ice age glaciations. Often defined as the periods at which sea levels were close to present sea level. For the Last Interglacial (LIG) this occurred between about 129 and 116 ka (thousand years) before present (defined as 1950) although the warm period started in some areas a few thousand years earlier. In terms of the oxygen isotope record interglaciations are defined as the interval between the midpoint of the preceding termination and the onset of the next glaciation. The present interglaciation, the Holocene, started at 11.65 ka before present although globally sea levels did not approach their present position until about 7 ka before present. IPCC2013
GCW |