Würm glaciationThe Würm glaciation or Würm stage (Würm-Kaltzeit or Würm-Glazial, colloquially often also Würmeiszeit or Würmzeit; cf. ice age), usually referred to in the literature as the Würm (often spelled "Wurm"), was the last glacial period in the Alpine region. It is the youngest of the major glaciations of the region that extended beyond the Alps themselves. Like most of the other ice ages of the Pleistocene epoch, it is named after a river, in this case the Würm in Bavaria, a tributary of the Amper.
Saale glaciationThe Saale glaciation or Saale Glaciation, sometimes referred to as the Saalian glaciation, Saale cold period (Saale-Kaltzeit), Saale complex (Saale-Komplex) or Saale glacial stage (called the Wolstonian Stage in Britain), covers the middle of the three large glaciations in Northern Europe and the northern parts of Eastern Europe, Central Europe and Western Europe by the Scandinavian Inland Ice Sheet. It follows the Holstein interglacial (Hoxnian Stage in Britain) and precedes the Eemian interglacial (Ipswichian in Britain).
Milankovitch cyclesMilankovitch cycles describe the collective effects of changes in the Earth's movements on its climate over thousands of years. The term was coined and named after Serbian geophysicist and astronomer Milutin Milanković. In the 1920s, he hypothesized that variations in eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession combined to result in cyclical variations in the intra-annual and latitudinal distribution of solar radiation at the Earth's surface, and that this orbital forcing strongly influenced the Earth's climatic patterns.
Greenland ice sheetThe Greenland ice sheet (Grønlands indlandsis, Sermersuaq) is a vast body of ice covering , roughly near 80% of the surface of Greenland. It is sometimes referred to as an ice cap, or under the term inland ice, or its Danish equivalent, indlandsis. The acronym GIS is frequently used in the scientific literature. It is the second largest ice body in the world, after the Antarctic ice sheet. The ice sheet is almost long in a north–south direction, and its greatest width is at a latitude of 77°N, near its northern margin.
EburonianThe Eburonian (Eburon or Eburonium), or, much less commonly, the Eburonian Stage, is a glacial complex in the Calabrian age of the Pleistocene epoch and lies between the Tegelen and the Waalian interglacial. The transition from the Tegelen to the Eburonian started about 1.78 million years ago, lasted 480,000 years (to 1.3 million years ago). In geologic strata, at its base, from its startpoint, the Neogene underlies different Gelasian deposits starkly in much of the Netherlands.
Ice ageAn ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and greenhouse periods, during which there are no glaciers on the planet. Earth is currently in the ice age called Quaternary glaciation. Individual pulses of cold climate within an ice age are termed glacial periods (or, alternatively, glacials, glaciations, glacial stages, stadials, stades, or colloquially, ice ages), and intermittent warm periods within an ice age are called interglacials or interstadials.
Holocene climatic optimumThe Holocene Climate Optimum (HCO) was a warm period that occurred in the interval roughly 9,500 to 5,500 years ago BP, with a thermal maximum around 8000 years BP. It has also been known by many other names, such as Altithermal, Climatic Optimum, Holocene Megathermal, Holocene Optimum, Holocene Thermal Maximum, Hypsithermal, and Mid-Holocene Warm Period. The warm period was followed by a gradual decline, of about 0.1 to 0.3 °C per millennium, until about two centuries ago.
