What is the Ice Age?

The Ice Age is also known as the "Quaternary Ice Age". The climate turned colder at the end of the Tertiary Period, and at the beginning of the Quaternary Period, the cold climate zone migrated to the middle and low latitudes, causing widespread ice caps or glaciers to develop in high latitudes and mountains. This period began approximately 2 to 3 million years ago and ended 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. The scale is huge. The southern edge of the European ice sheet can reach around 50 degrees north latitude; the front edge of the North American ice sheet extends to south of 40 degrees north latitude; the Antarctic ice sheet is also much larger than it is now. Mountain glaciers and foothill glaciers, including those near the equator, once extended downward to lower locations. China's Quaternary glaciers were first discovered by Li Siguang in 1922 in the eastern foothills of the Taihang Mountains and the Datong Basin in Shanxi. The scope of the glaciers includes the Changbai Mountains, Greater and Lesser Hinggan Mountains in the northeast, Laoshan Mountain, Taishan Mountain, Huashan Mountain, Taibai Mountain, Qinling Mountains, etc. in the north and northwest. The Wutai Mountains, Taihang Mountains, Luliang Mountains, Yinshan Mountains, and Helan Mountains, as well as the mountains and plateaus of Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, and Tibet in the south, have also been affected in the eastern mountainous areas and often flow as tongues of ice to the foothill plains. This great glacial period can be divided into four glacial periods, three interglacial periods and one postglacial period. During the largest ice age, 32% of the global continent was covered by glaciers, and a large amount of ice stagnated on the continent, causing the sea level to drop by about 130 meters. It was during the climate changes of the Quaternary glacial and interglacial periods that primitive humans developed into modern humans.