What is the temperature difference between the last ice age and now?

Question

What is the temperature difference between the last ice age and now?

Answer 1

where still in an ice age because ther are still ice caps.

Answer 2

How should I know?

Answer 3

Don't listen to malfoon. We are not in an ice age as during the ice age, the majority of the earth was covered with ice. It was probably cold enough for prehistoric humans wearing furs to survive the harsh cold environments.

Answer 4

Reconstructions for glacial temperatures are based on very sparse data from Greenland/Antarctica ice cores, and other magical sources like tree rings.

There are models that approximate ocean and/or atmosphere at the last glacial maximum (approximately 20,000 years ago), when there were large ice-sheets over North America and Western Europe. (see for example http://pmip.lsce.ipsl.fr/pmip/).

These simulations are based on effects of changes in solar insolation/sea-level & topographic changes/ice-sheet cover/sea surface temperature reconstructions etc. with respect to present day conditions.

The whole of the earth was almost certainly not covered in ice-sheets during this last glacial stage, and the temperature changes varied geographically.

Broadly speaking the approximations of surface air temperatures say that the mean cooling in the northern regions (>60 degrees latitude) was over 20 degrees Celcius, while the tropical regions were warmer (due to changes in ocean and atmospheric circulation which affect meridional heat transport) by maybe over 10 degrees.

Note: These are all approximations!

Answer 5

We are in an inter glacial period, depends where you measure the temperature from - for example you could measure it from the Serengeti where early man tried to dodge lions or the icy part where they hunted the mammoths.  These 2 contrasting images was at the same time, something to do with the ice sucking up the moisture that caused the desert and heat.