We are at the mercy of autumn and it's getting colder. Are we moving towards an ice age, one of the readers wonders.

The fleeting Danish summer is behind us. The leaves are falling from the trees, the birds are flying south, it's getting darker and, of course, colder too.

Our reader Lars Petersen from Copenhagen has begun to prepare for the cold days. And he wants to know how seriously he needs to prepare.

“When does the next ice age begin? I learned that glacial and interglacial periods alternate regularly. Since we live in an interglacial period, it is logical to assume that the next ice age is ahead of us, right? he writes in a letter to the Ask Science section (Spørg Videnskaben).

We in the editorial office shudder at the thought of the cold winter that lies in wait for us at that end of autumn. We, too, would love to know if we are on the verge of an ice age.

The next ice age is still far away

Therefore, we addressed Sune Olander Rasmussen, lecturer at the Center for Basic Ice and Climate Research at the University of Copenhagen.

Sune Rasmussen studies the cold and gets information about past weather, storms, Greenland glaciers and icebergs. In addition, he can use his knowledge in order to fulfill the role of "foreteller of ice ages."

“In order for an ice age to occur, several conditions must coincide. We cannot accurately predict when the ice age will begin, but even if humanity did not further influence the climate, our forecast is that the conditions for it will develop in the best case in 40-50 thousand years,” Sune Rasmussen reassures us.

Since we are still talking to the “Ice Age predictor”, we can get some more information about what these “conditions” are in question in order to understand a little more about what the Ice Age actually is.

What is an ice age

Sune Rasmussen says that during the last ice age, the average temperature on earth was a few degrees cooler than it is today, and that the climate at higher latitudes was colder.

Much of the northern hemisphere was covered in massive ice sheets. For example, Scandinavia, Canada and some other parts of North America were covered with a three-kilometer ice sheet.

The enormous weight of the ice cover pressed the earth's crust a kilometer into the Earth.

Ice ages are longer than interglacials

However, 19 thousand years ago, changes in the climate began to occur.

This meant that the Earth gradually became warmer, and over the next 7,000 years, freed itself from the cold grip of the Ice Age. After that, the interglacial period began, in which we are now.

Context

New ice age? Not soon

The New York Times June 10, 2004

ice Age

Ukrainian truth 25.12.2006 In Greenland, the last remnants of the shell came off very abruptly 11,700 years ago, or to be precise, 11,715 years ago. This is evidenced by the studies of Sune Rasmussen and his colleagues.

This means that 11,715 years have passed since the last ice age, and this is a completely normal interglacial length.

“It's funny that we usually think of the Ice Age as an 'event', when in fact it's just the opposite. The middle ice age lasts 100 thousand years, while the interglacial lasts from 10 to 30 thousand years. That is, the Earth is more often in an ice age than vice versa.

“The last couple of interglacials lasted only about 10,000 years each, which explains the widely held but erroneous belief that our current interglacial is nearing its end,” says Sune Rasmussen.

Three Factors Influence the Possibility of an Ice Age

The fact that the Earth will plunge into a new ice age in 40-50 thousand years depends on the fact that there are small variations in the orbit of the Earth around the Sun. Variations determine how much sunlight hits which latitudes, and thereby affects how warm or cold it is.

This discovery was made by the Serbian geophysicist Milutin Milanković almost 100 years ago and is therefore known as the Milanković cycle.

Milankovitch cycles are:

1. The orbit of the Earth around the Sun, which changes cyclically about once every 100,000 years. The orbit changes from nearly circular to more elliptical, and then back again. Because of this, the distance to the Sun changes. The farther the Earth is from the Sun, the less solar radiation our planet receives. In addition, when the shape of the orbit changes, so does the length of the seasons.

2. The tilt of the earth's axis, which fluctuates between 22 and 24.5 degrees relative to the orbit of rotation around the sun. This cycle spans approximately 41,000 years. 22 or 24.5 degrees - it seems not such a significant difference, but the tilt of the axis greatly affects the severity of the different seasons. The more the Earth is tilted, the greater the difference between winter and summer. The Earth's axial tilt is currently at 23.5 and is decreasing, which means that differences between winter and summer will decrease over the next thousand years.

3. The direction of the earth's axis relative to space. The direction changes cyclically with a period of 26 thousand years.

“The combination of these three factors determines whether there are prerequisites for the beginning of the ice age. It is almost impossible to imagine how these three factors interact, but with the help of mathematical models we can calculate how much solar radiation receives certain latitudes at certain times of the year, as well as received in the past and will receive in the future,” says Sune Rasmussen.

Snow in summer leads to ice age

Summer temperatures play a particularly important role in this context.

Milankovitch realized that for the ice age to start, summers in the northern hemisphere would have to be cold.

If the winters are snowy and most of the northern hemisphere is covered in snow, then the temperatures and hours of sunshine in the summer determine whether the snow is allowed to stay all summer.

“If the snow does not melt in the summer, then little sunlight penetrates the Earth. The rest is reflected back into space in a snow-white veil. This exacerbates the cooling that began due to a change in the orbit of the Earth around the Sun,” says Sune Rasmussen.

“Further cooling brings even more snow, which further reduces the amount of absorbed heat, and so on, until the ice age begins,” he continues.

Similarly, a period of hot summers leads to the end of the Ice Age. The hot sun then melts the ice enough so that sunlight can again reach dark surfaces like soil or the sea, which absorb it and warm the Earth.

Humans are delaying the next ice age

Another factor that is relevant to the possibility of an ice age is the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Just as snow that reflects light increases the formation of ice or accelerates its melting, the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from 180 ppm to 280 ppm (parts per million) helped bring the Earth out of the last ice age.

However, ever since industrialization began, people have been pushing the CO2 share further all the time, so it's almost 400 ppm now.

“It took nature 7,000 years to raise the share of carbon dioxide by 100 ppm after the end of the ice age. Humans have managed to do the same in just 150 years. This is of great importance for whether the Earth can enter a new ice age. This is a very significant influence, which means not only that an ice age cannot begin at the moment,” says Sune Rasmussen.

We thank Lars Petersen for the good question and send the winter gray T-shirt to Copenhagen. We also thank Sune Rasmussen for the good answer.

We also encourage our readers to submit more scientific questions to [email protected]

Did you know?

Scientists always talk about the ice age only in the northern hemisphere of the planet. The reason is that there is too little land in the southern hemisphere on which a massive layer of snow and ice can lie.

With the exception of Antarctica, the entire southern part of the southern hemisphere is covered with water, which does not provide good conditions for the formation of a thick ice shell.

The materials of InoSMI contain only assessments of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the editors of InoSMI.

Hello readers! I have prepared a new article for you. I would like to talk about the ice age on Earth.Let's figure out how these ice ages come, what are the causes and consequences ...

Ice Age on Earth.

Imagine for a moment that the cold has shackled our planet, and the landscape has turned into an icy desert (more about deserts), over which ferocious northern winds rage. Our Earth looked like this during the ice age - from 1.7 million to 10,000 years ago.

About the process of formation of the Earth keeps memories of almost every corner of the globe. Hills running like a wave beyond the horizon, mountains touching the sky, a stone that was taken by man to build cities - each of them has his own story.

These clues, in the course of geological research, can tell us about a climate (about climate change) that was significantly different from today.

Our world was once bound by a thick sheet of ice that carved its way from the frozen poles to the equator.

Earth was a gloomy and gray planet in the grip of cold, carried by snowstorms from the north and south.

Frozen planet.

From the nature of the glacial deposits (deposited clastic material) and the surfaces worn away by the glacier, geologists concluded that there were in fact several periods.

Back in the Precambrian period, about 2300 million years ago, the first ice age began, and the last, and best studied, took place between 1.7 million years ago and 10,000 years ago in the so-called. Pleistocene epoch. It is simply called the Ice Age.

thaw.

These ruthless clutches were avoided by some lands, where it was usually also cold, but winter did not reign on the whole Earth.

Vast areas of deserts and tropical forests were located in the region of the equator. For the survival of many species of plants, reptiles and mammals, these warm oases played a significant role.

In general, the climate of the glacier was not always cold. Glaciers, before receding, crawled several times from north to south.

In some parts of the planet, the weather between ice advances was even warmer than today. For example, the climate in southern England was almost tropical.

Paleontologists, thanks to the fossilized remains, claim that elephants and hippos once roamed the banks of the Thames.

Such periods of thaw - also known as interglacial stages - lasted several hundred thousand years until the cold returned.

Ice streams moving south again left behind destruction, thanks to which geologists can accurately determine their path.

On the body of the Earth, the movement of these large masses of ice left "scars" of two types: sedimentation and erosion.

When a moving mass of ice wears away the soil along its path, erosion occurs. Entire valleys in the bedrock were hollowed out by rock fragments brought by the glacier.

Like a gigantic grinding machine that polished the ground beneath it and created large furrows called glacial shading, the movement of crushed stone and ice acted.

The valleys widened and deepened over time, acquiring a distinct U-shape.

When a glacier (about what glaciers are) dumped the rock fragments that it carried, deposits formed. This usually happened when the ice melted, leaving piles of coarse gravel, fine-grained clay and huge boulders scattered over a vast area.

Causes of glaciation.

What is called glaciation, scientists still do not know exactly. Some believe that the temperature at the Earth's poles, for the past millions of years, is lower than at any time in the history of the Earth.

Continental drift (more on continental drift) could be the cause. About 300 million million years ago there was only one giant supercontinent - Pangea.

The split of this supercontinent occurred gradually, and as a result, the movement of the continents left the Arctic Ocean almost completely surrounded by land.

Therefore, now, unlike in the past, there is only a slight mixing of the waters of the Arctic Ocean with warm waters to the south.

It comes down to this situation: the ocean never warms up well in summer, and is constantly covered with ice.

Antarctica is located at the South Pole (more about this continent), which is very far from warm currents, which is why the mainland sleeps under the ice.

The cold is returning.

There are other reasons for global cooling. According to assumptions, one of the reasons is the degree of inclination of the earth's axis, which is constantly changing. Together with the irregular shape of the orbit, this means that the Earth is further from the Sun at some periods than at others.

And if the amount of solar heat changes even by a percentage, this can lead to a difference in temperature on Earth by a whole degree.

The interaction of these factors will be enough to start a new ice age. It is also believed that the ice age may cause the accumulation of dust in the atmosphere as a result of its pollution.

Some scientists believe that when a giant meteor collided with the Earth, the age of dinosaurs ended. This led to the fact that a huge cloud of dust and dirt rose into the air.

Such a catastrophe could block the receipt of the rays of the Sun (more about the Sun) through the atmosphere (more about the atmosphere) of the Earth and cause it to freeze. Similar factors may contribute to the beginning of a new ice age.

In about 5,000 years, some scientists predict a new ice age will begin, while others argue that the ice age never ended.

Considering that the last Pleistocene Ice Age stage ended 10,000 years ago, it is possible that we are now experiencing an interglacial stage, and the ice may return some time later.

On this note, I end this topic. I hope that the story about the ice age on Earth did not “freeze” you 🙂 And finally, I suggest you subscribe to the mailing list of fresh articles so as not to miss their release.

Ecology

The ice ages that have taken place more than once on our planet have always been covered in a mass of mysteries. We know that they shrouded entire continents in cold, turning them into uninhabited tundra.

Also known about 11 such periods, and all of them took place with regular constancy. However, we still don't know much about them. We invite you to get acquainted with the most interesting facts about the ice ages of our past.

giant animals

By the time the last ice age arrived, evolution had already mammals appeared. Animals that could survive in harsh climatic conditions were quite large, their bodies were covered with a thick layer of fur.

Scientists have named these creatures "megafauna", which was able to survive at low temperatures in areas covered with ice, for example, in the region of modern Tibet. Smaller animals couldn't adjust to new conditions of glaciation and perished.

Herbivorous representatives of the megafauna have learned to find food even under layers of ice and have been able to adapt to the environment in different ways: for example, rhinos ice age had spatulate horns, with the help of which they dug up snowdrifts.

Predatory animals, for example, saber-toothed cats, giant short-faced bears and dire wolves, perfectly survived in the new conditions. Although their prey could sometimes fight back due to their large size, it was in abundance.

ice age people

Although modern man Homo sapiens could not boast at that time of large size and wool, he was able to survive in the cold tundra of the ice ages for many millennia.

Living conditions were harsh, but people were resourceful. For example, 15 thousand years ago they lived in tribes that were engaged in hunting and gathering, built original dwellings from mammoth bones, and sewed warm clothes from animal skins. When food was plentiful, they stocked up in the permafrost - natural freezer.

Mostly for hunting, such tools as stone knives and arrows were used. To catch and kill the large animals of the Ice Age, it was necessary to use special traps. When the beast fell into such traps, a group of people attacked him and beat him to death.

Little Ice Age

Between major ice ages, there were sometimes small periods. It cannot be said that they were destructive, but they also caused famine, disease due to crop failure, and other problems.

The most recent of the Little Ice Ages began around 12th-14th centuries. The most difficult time can be called the period from 1500 to 1850. At this time in the Northern Hemisphere, a fairly low temperature was observed.

In Europe, it was common when the seas froze, and in mountainous areas, for example, in the territory of modern Switzerland, the snow did not melt even in summer. Cold weather affected every aspect of life and culture. Probably, the Middle Ages remained in history, as "Time of Troubles" also because the planet was dominated by a small ice age.

periods of warming

Some ice ages actually turned out to be quite warm. Despite the fact that the surface of the earth was shrouded in ice, the weather was relatively warm.

Sometimes a sufficiently large amount of carbon dioxide accumulated in the atmosphere of the planet, which is the cause of the appearance greenhouse effect when heat is trapped in the atmosphere and warms the planet. In this case, the ice continues to form and reflect the sun's rays back into space.

According to experts, this phenomenon led to the formation giant desert with ice on the surface but quite warm weather.

When will the next ice age start?

The theory that ice ages occur on our planet at regular intervals goes against theories about global warming. There's no doubt about what's happening today global warming which may help prevent the next ice age.

Human activity leads to the release of carbon dioxide, which is largely responsible for the problem of global warming. However, this gas has another strange side effect. According to researchers from University of Cambridge, the release of CO2 could stop the next ice age.

According to the planetary cycle of our planet, the next ice age should come soon, but it can take place only if the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will be relatively low. However, CO2 levels are currently so high that no ice age is out of the question any time soon.

Even if humans abruptly stop emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere (which is unlikely), the existing amount will be enough to prevent the onset of an ice age. at least another thousand years.

Plants of the Ice Age

The easiest way to live in the Ice Age predators: they could always find food for themselves. But what do herbivores actually eat?

It turns out that there was enough food for these animals. During the ice ages on the planet many plants grew that could survive in harsh conditions. The steppe area was covered with shrubs and grass, which fed mammoths and other herbivores.

Larger plants could also be found in great abundance: for example, firs and pines. Found in warmer regions birches and willows. That is, the climate by and large in many modern southern regions resembled the one that exists today in Siberia.

However, the plants of the Ice Age were somewhat different from modern ones. Of course, with the onset of cold weather many plants died. If the plant was not able to adapt to the new climate, it had two options: either move to more southern zones, or die.

For example, the present-day state of Victoria in southern Australia had the richest variety of plant species on the planet until the Ice Age most of the species died.

Cause of the Ice Age in the Himalayas?

It turns out that the Himalayas, the highest mountain system of our planet, directly related with the onset of the ice age.

40-50 million years ago the land masses where China and India are today collided to form the highest mountains. As a result of the collision, huge volumes of "fresh" rocks from the bowels of the Earth were exposed.

These rocks eroded, and as a result of chemical reactions, carbon dioxide began to be displaced from the atmosphere. The climate on the planet began to become colder, the ice age began.

snowball earth

During different ice ages, our planet was mostly shrouded in ice and snow. only partially. Even during the most severe ice age, ice covered only one third of the globe.

However, there is a hypothesis that at certain periods the Earth was still completely covered in snow, which made her look like a giant snowball. Life still managed to survive thanks to the rare islands with relatively little ice and with enough light for plant photosynthesis.

According to this theory, our planet turned into a snowball at least once, more precisely 716 million years ago.

Garden of Eden

Some scientists are convinced that garden of eden described in the Bible actually existed. It is believed that he was in Africa, and it is thanks to him that our distant ancestors survived the ice age.

About 200 thousand years ago came a severe ice age, which put an end to many forms of life. Fortunately, a small group of people were able to survive the period of severe cold. These people moved to the area where South Africa is today.

Despite the fact that almost the entire planet was covered with ice, this area remained ice-free. A large number of living beings lived here. The soils of this area were rich in nutrients, so there was abundance of plants. Caves created by nature were used by people and animals as shelters. For living beings, it was a real paradise.

According to some scientists, in the "Garden of Eden" lived no more than a hundred people, which is why humans do not have as much genetic diversity as most other species. However, this theory has not found scientific evidence.

One of the mysteries of the Earth, along with the emergence of Life on it and the extinction of dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period, is - Great Glaciations.

It is believed that glaciations are repeated on Earth regularly every 180-200 million years. Traces of glaciation are known in deposits that are billions and hundreds of millions of years ago - in the Cambrian, in the Carboniferous, in the Triassic-Permian. The fact that they could be, "say" the so-called tillites, breeds very similar to moraine last one, to be exact. last glaciations. These are the remains of ancient deposits of glaciers, consisting of a clay mass with inclusions of large and small boulders scratched during movement (hatched).

Separate layers tillites, found even in equatorial Africa, can reach power of tens and even hundreds of meters!

Signs of glaciation have been found on different continents - in Australia, South America, Africa and India which is used by scientists to reconstruction of paleocontinents and are often cited as evidence theories of plate tectonics.

Traces of ancient glaciations indicate that continental-scale glaciations- this is not at all a random phenomenon, it is a natural phenomenon that occurs under certain conditions.

The last of the ice ages began almost a million years ago, in the Quaternary time, or the Quaternary period, the Pleistocene was marked by the extensive distribution of glaciers - Great Glaciation of the Earth.

Under thick, many kilometers of ice covers were the northern part of the North American continent - the North American ice sheet, reaching a thickness of up to 3.5 km and extending to about 38 ° north latitude and a significant part of Europe, on which (ice cover up to 2.5-3 km thick) . On the territory of Russia, the glacier descended in two huge tongues along the ancient valleys of the Dnieper and Don.

Partially, the glaciation also covered Siberia - there was mainly the so-called "mountain-valley glaciation", when glaciers did not cover the entire space with a powerful cover, but were only in the mountains and foothill valleys, which is associated with a sharply continental climate and low temperatures in Eastern Siberia . But almost all of Western Siberia, due to the fact that the rivers were springing up and their flow into the Arctic Ocean stopped, turned out to be under water, and was a huge sea-lake.

In the Southern Hemisphere, under the ice, as now, was the entire Antarctic continent.

During the period of maximum distribution of Quaternary glaciation, glaciers covered over 40 million km 2–about a quarter of the entire surface of the continents.

Having reached the greatest development about 250 thousand years ago, the Quaternary glaciers of the Northern Hemisphere began to gradually decrease, as the glacial period was not continuous throughout the Quaternary period.

There are geological, paleobotanical and other evidence that glaciers disappeared several times, replaced by epochs. interglacial when the climate was even warmer than today. However, the warm epochs were replaced by cold spells, and the glaciers spread again.

Now we live, apparently, at the end of the fourth epoch of the Quaternary glaciation.

But in Antarctica, glaciation arose millions of years before the time when glaciers appeared in North America and Europe. In addition to climatic conditions, this was facilitated by the high mainland that existed here for a long time. By the way, now, due to the fact that the thickness of the glacier of Antarctica is huge, the continental bed of the "ice continent" is in some places below sea level ...

Unlike the ancient ice sheets of the Northern Hemisphere, which disappeared and reappeared, the Antarctic ice sheet has changed little in its size. The maximum glaciation of Antarctica was only one and a half times greater than the modern one in terms of volume, and not much more in area.

Now about the hypotheses ... There are hundreds, if not thousands, of hypotheses why glaciations occur, and whether they were at all!

Usually put forward the following main scientific hypotheses:

• Volcanic eruptions, leading to a decrease in the transparency of the atmosphere and cooling throughout the Earth;
• Epochs of orogeny (mountain building);
• Reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which reduces the "greenhouse effect" and leads to cooling;
• The cyclical activity of the Sun;
• Changes in the position of the Earth relative to the Sun.

But, nevertheless, the causes of glaciation have not been finally clarified!

It is assumed, for example, that glaciation begins when, with an increase in the distance between the Earth and the Sun, around which it rotates in a slightly elongated orbit, the amount of solar heat received by our planet decreases, i.e. Glaciation occurs when the Earth passes the point in its orbit that is farthest from the Sun.

However, astronomers believe that changes in the amount of solar radiation hitting the Earth alone are not enough to start an ice age. Apparently, fluctuations in the activity of the Sun itself also matter, which is a periodic, cyclic process, and changes every 11-12 years, with a cycle of 2-3 years and 5-6 years. And the largest cycles of activity, as established by the Soviet geographer A.V. Shnitnikov - approximately 1800-2000 years.

There is also a hypothesis that the emergence of glaciers is associated with certain parts of the Universe through which our solar system passes, moving with the entire Galaxy, either filled with gas, or “clouds” of cosmic dust. And it is likely that "space winter" on Earth occurs when the globe is at the point furthest from the center of our Galaxy, where there are accumulations of "cosmic dust" and gas.

It should be noted that usually periods of warming always “go” before cooling epochs, and there is, for example, a hypothesis that the Arctic Ocean, due to warming, is sometimes completely freed from ice (by the way, this is happening now), increased evaporation from the surface of the ocean , currents of humid air are directed to the polar regions of America and Eurasia, and snow falls over the cold surface of the Earth, which does not have time to melt in a short and cold summer. This is how ice sheets form on the continents.

But when, as a result of the transformation of part of the water into ice, the level of the World Ocean drops by tens of meters, the warm Atlantic Ocean ceases to communicate with the Arctic Ocean, and it gradually becomes covered with ice again, evaporation from its surface stops abruptly, less and less snow falls on the continents and less, the "feeding" of glaciers is deteriorating, and the ice sheets begin to melt, and the level of the World Ocean rises again. And again the Arctic Ocean connects with the Atlantic, and again the ice cover began to gradually disappear, i.e. the cycle of development of the next glaciation begins anew.

Yes, all these hypotheses quite possible, but so far none of them can be confirmed by serious scientific facts.

Therefore, one of the main, fundamental hypotheses is climate change on the Earth itself, which is associated with the above hypotheses.

But it is quite possible that the processes of glaciation are associated with the combined impact of various natural factors, which could act jointly and replace each other, and it is important that, having begun, glaciations, like “wound clocks”, are already developing independently, according to their own laws, sometimes even “ignoring” some climatic conditions and patterns.

And the ice age that began in the Northern Hemisphere about 1 million years back, not finished yet, and we, as already mentioned, live in a warmer period of time, in interglacial.

Throughout the epoch of the Great Glaciations of the Earth, the ice either receded or advanced again. On the territory of both America and Europe, there were, apparently, four global ice ages, between which there were relatively warm periods.

But the complete retreat of the ice occurred only about 20 - 25 thousand years ago, but in some areas the ice lingered even longer. The glacier retreated from the area of ​​modern St. Petersburg only 16 thousand years ago, and in some places in the North small remnants of the ancient glaciation have survived to this day.

Note that modern glaciers cannot be compared with the ancient glaciation of our planet - they occupy only about 15 million square meters. km, i.e. less than one-thirtieth of the earth's surface.

How can you determine whether there was a glaciation in a given place on the Earth or not? This is usually quite easy to determine by the peculiar forms of geographical relief and rocks.

Large accumulations of huge boulders, pebbles, boulders, sands and clays are often found in the fields and forests of Russia. They usually lie directly on the surface, but they can also be seen in the cliffs of ravines and in the slopes of river valleys.

By the way, one of the first who tried to explain how these deposits were formed was the outstanding geographer and anarchist theorist, Prince Peter Alekseevich Kropotkin. In his work "Investigations on the Ice Age" (1876), he argued that the territory of Russia was once covered by huge ice fields.

If we look at the physical and geographical map of European Russia, then in the location of hills, hills, basins and valleys of large rivers, we can notice some patterns. So, for example, the Leningrad and Novgorod regions from the south and east are, as it were, limited Valdai Upland, which has the form of an arc. This is exactly the line where, in the distant past, a huge glacier, advancing from the north, stopped.

To the southeast of the Valdai Upland is the slightly winding Smolensk-Moscow Upland, stretching from Smolensk to Pereslavl-Zalessky. This is another of the boundaries of the distribution of sheet glaciers.

Numerous hilly winding uplands are also visible on the West Siberian Plain - "manes", also evidence of the activity of ancient glaciers, more precisely glacial waters. Many traces of stops of moving glaciers flowing down the mountain slopes into large basins have been found in Central and Eastern Siberia.

It is difficult to imagine ice several kilometers thick on the site of the current cities, rivers and lakes, but, nevertheless, the glacial plateaus were not inferior in height to the Urals, the Carpathians or the Scandinavian mountains. These gigantic and, moreover, mobile masses of ice influenced the entire natural environment - relief, landscapes, river flow, soils, vegetation and wildlife.

It should be noted that in Europe and the European part of Russia from the geological epochs preceding the Quaternary period - the Paleogene (66-25 million years) and the Neogene (25-1.8 million years) practically no rocks were preserved, they were completely eroded and redeposited during the Quaternary, or as it is often called, Pleistocene.

Glaciers originated and moved from Scandinavia, the Kola Peninsula, the Polar Urals (Pai-Khoi) and the islands of the Arctic Ocean. And almost all the geological deposits that we see on the territory of Moscow are moraine, more precisely moraine loams, sands of various origins (water-glacial, lake, river), huge boulders, as well as cover loams - all this is evidence of the powerful impact of the glacier.

On the territory of Moscow, traces of three glaciations can be distinguished (although there are many more of them - different researchers distinguish from 5 to several dozen periods of advances and retreats of ice):

• Okskoe (about 1 million years ago),
• Dnieper (about 300 thousand years ago),
• Moscow (about 150 thousand years ago).

Valdai the glacier (disappeared only 10 - 12 thousand years ago) "did not reach Moscow", and the deposits of this period are characterized by water-glacial (fluvio-glacial) deposits - mainly the sands of the Meshchera lowland.

And the names of the glaciers themselves correspond to the names of those places to which the glaciers reached - to the Oka, the Dnieper and the Don, the Moscow River, Valdai, etc.

Since the thickness of the glaciers reached almost 3 km, one can imagine what a colossal work he did! Some elevations and hills on the territory of Moscow and the Moscow region are powerful (up to 100 meters!) Deposits that the glacier “brought”.

The best known, for example Klinsko-Dmitrovskaya moraine ridge, separate hills on the territory of Moscow ( Vorobyovy Gory and Teplostan Upland). Huge boulders weighing up to several tons (for example, the Maiden's Stone in Kolomenskoye) are also the result of the work of the glacier.

Glaciers smoothed out uneven terrain: they destroyed hills and ridges, and the resulting rock fragments filled depressions - river valleys and lake basins, transferring huge masses of stone fragments over a distance of more than 2 thousand km.

However, huge masses of ice (considering its colossal thickness) pressed so hard on the underlying rocks that even the strongest of them could not withstand and collapsed.

Their fragments were frozen into the body of a moving glacier and, like emery, scratched rocks composed of granites, gneisses, sandstones and other rocks for tens of thousands of years, making depressions in them. Until now, numerous glacial furrows, "scars" and glacial polishing on granite rocks, as well as long hollows in the earth's crust, subsequently occupied by lakes and swamps, have been preserved. An example is the countless depressions of the lakes of Karelia and the Kola Peninsula.

But glaciers did not plow out all the rocks on their way. The destruction was mainly those areas where the ice sheets originated, grew, reached a thickness of more than 3 km and from where they began their movement. The main center of glaciation in Europe was Fennoscandia, which included the Scandinavian mountains, the plateaus of the Kola Peninsula, as well as the plateaus and plains of Finland and Karelia.

Along the way, the ice was saturated with fragments of destroyed rocks, and they gradually accumulated both inside the glacier and under it. When the ice melted, masses of debris, sand and clay remained on the surface. This process was especially active when the movement of the glacier stopped and the melting of its fragments began.

At the edge of glaciers, as a rule, water flows arose, moving along the surface of the ice, in the body of the glacier and under the ice layer. Gradually, they merged, forming whole rivers, which, over thousands of years, formed narrow valleys and washed away a lot of clastic material.

As already mentioned, the forms of glacial relief are very diverse. For moraine plains many ridges and ridges are characteristic, indicating the stops of moving ice and the main form of relief among them are shafts of terminal moraines, usually these are low arched ridges composed of sand and clay with an admixture of boulders and pebbles. The depressions between the ridges are often occupied by lakes. Sometimes among the moraine plains one can see outcasts- blocks hundreds of meters in size and weighing tens of tons, giant pieces of the glacier bed, transferred by it over great distances.

Glaciers often blocked the flow of rivers and near such "dams" huge lakes arose, filling the depressions of river valleys and depressions, which often changed the direction of river flow. And although such lakes existed for a relatively short time (from a thousand to three thousand years), they managed to accumulate on their bottom lake clays, layered precipitation, counting the layers of which, one can clearly distinguish the periods of winter and summer, as well as how many years these precipitations accumulated.

In the era of the last Valdai glaciation arose Upper Volga glacial lakes(Mologo-Sheksninskoe, Tverskoe, Verkhne-Molozhskoe, etc.). At first, their waters had a flow to the southwest, but with the retreat of the glacier, they were able to flow to the north. Traces of the Mologo-Sheksninskoye Lake remained in the form of terraces and coastlines at an altitude of about 100 m.

There are very numerous traces of ancient glaciers in the mountains of Siberia, the Urals, and the Far East. As a result of ancient glaciation, 135-280 thousand years ago, sharp peaks of mountains appeared - "gendarmes" in Altai, in the Sayans, the Baikal and Transbaikalia, in the Stanovoy Highlands. The so-called "reticulate type of glaciation" prevailed here, i.e. if one could look from a bird's eye view, one could see how ice-free plateaus and mountain peaks rise against the background of glaciers.

It should be noted that during the periods of glacial epochs, rather large ice massifs were located on part of the territory of Siberia, for example, on Severnaya Zemlya archipelago, in the Byrranga mountains (Taimyr Peninsula), as well as on the Putorana Plateau in northern Siberia.

Extensive mountain-valley glaciation was 270-310 thousand years ago Verkhoyansk Range, Okhotsk-Kolyma Highlands and in the mountains of Chukotka. These areas are considered glaciation centers of Siberia.

Traces of these glaciations are numerous bowl-shaped depressions of mountain peaks - circuses or karts, huge moraine shafts and lake plains in place of melted ice.

In the mountains, as well as on the plains, lakes arose near ice dams, periodically the lakes overflowed, and giant masses of water rushed at incredible speed through low watersheds into neighboring valleys, crashing into them and forming huge canyons and gorges. For example, in Altai, in the Chuya-Kurai depression, “giant ripples”, “boilers of drilling”, gorges and canyons, huge outlier blocks, “dry waterfalls” and other traces of water streams escaping from ancient lakes “only - just "12-14 thousand years ago.

"Intruding" from the north on the plains of Northern Eurasia, the ice sheets either penetrated far to the south along the depressions of the relief, or stopped at some obstacles, for example, hills.

Probably, it is not yet possible to determine exactly which of the glaciations was the “greatest”, however, it is known, for example, that the Valdai glacier was sharply inferior in area to the Dnieper glacier.

The landscapes at the borders of the sheet glaciers also differed. So, in the Oka epoch of glaciation (500-400 thousand years ago), to the south of them there was a strip of Arctic deserts about 700 km wide - from the Carpathians in the west to the Verkhoyansk Range in the east. Even further, 400-450 km to the south, stretched cold forest-steppe, where only such unpretentious trees as larches, birches and pines could grow. And only at the latitude of the Northern Black Sea region and Eastern Kazakhstan did comparatively warm steppes and semi-deserts begin.

In the era of the Dnieper glaciation, the glaciers were much larger. Tundra-steppe (dry tundra) with a very harsh climate stretched along the edge of the ice cover. The average annual temperature approached minus 6°C (for comparison: in the Moscow region, the average annual temperature is currently about +2.5°C).

The open space of the tundra, where in winter there was little snow and severe frosts, cracked, forming the so-called "permafrost polygons", which in plan resemble a wedge in shape. They are called "ice wedges", and in Siberia they often reach a height of ten meters! Traces of these "ice wedges" in ancient glacial deposits "speak" of the harsh climate. Traces of permafrost, or cryogenic impact, are also visible in the sands, these are often disturbed, as if “torn” layers, often with a high content of iron minerals.

Water-glacial deposits with traces of cryogenic impact

The last "Great Glaciation" has been studied for over 100 years. Many decades of hard work of outstanding researchers were spent on collecting data on its distribution on the plains and in the mountains, on mapping terminal moraine complexes and traces of glacier-dammed lakes, glacial scars, drumlins, and “hilly moraine” areas.

True, there are researchers who generally deny the ancient glaciations, and consider the glacial theory to be erroneous. In their opinion, there was no glaciation at all, but there was “a cold sea on which icebergs floated”, and all glacial deposits are just bottom sediments of this shallow sea!

Other researchers, "recognizing the general validity of the theory of glaciations", however, doubt the correctness of the conclusion about the grandiose scales of the glaciations of the past, and the conclusion about the ice sheets that leaned on the polar continental shelves is especially strong distrust, they believe that there were "small ice caps of the Arctic archipelagos”, “bare tundra” or “cold seas”, and in North America, where the largest “Laurentian ice sheet” in the Northern Hemisphere has long been restored, there were only “groups of glaciers merged at the bases of domes”.

For Northern Eurasia, these researchers recognize only the Scandinavian ice sheet and isolated "ice caps" of the Polar Urals, Taimyr and the Putorana Plateau, and in the mountains of temperate latitudes and Siberia - only valley glaciers.

And some scientists, on the contrary, “reconstruct” “giant ice sheets” in Siberia, which are not inferior in size and structure to the Antarctic.

As we have already noted, in the Southern Hemisphere, the Antarctic ice sheet extended to the entire continent, including its underwater margins, in particular, the regions of the Ross and Weddell seas.

The maximum height of the Antarctic ice sheet was 4 km, i.e. was close to modern (now about 3.5 km), the area of ​​ice increased to almost 17 million square kilometers, and the total volume of ice reached 35-36 million cubic kilometers.

Two more large ice sheets were in South America and New Zealand.

The Patagonian Ice Sheet was located in the Patagonian Andes, their foothills and on the adjacent continental shelf. Today it is reminded of by the picturesque fjord relief of the Chilean coast and the residual ice sheets of the Andes.

"South Alpine Complex" New Zealand- was a reduced copy of the Patagonian. It had the same shape and also advanced to the shelf, on the coast it developed a system of similar fjords.

In the Northern Hemisphere, during periods of maximum glaciation, we would see huge arctic ice sheet resulting from the union North American and Eurasian covers into a single glacial system, and an important role was played by floating ice shelves, especially the Central Arctic ice shelf, which covered the entire deep-water part of the Arctic Ocean.

The largest elements of the Arctic ice sheet were the Laurentian Shield of North America and the Kara Shield of Arctic Eurasia, they had the form of giant plano-convex domes. The center of the first of them was located over the southwestern part of the Hudson Bay, the peak rose to a height of more than 3 km, and its eastern edge extended to the outer edge of the continental shelf.

The Kara ice sheet occupied the entire area of ​​the modern Barents and Kara Seas, its center lay over the Kara Sea, and the southern marginal zone covered the entire north of the Russian Plain, Western and Central Siberia.

Of the other elements of the Arctic cover, the East Siberian Ice Sheet which spread on the shelves of the Laptev, East Siberian and Chukchi seas and was larger than the Greenland ice sheet. He left traces in the form of large glaciodislocations New Siberian Islands and the Tiksi region, are also associated with grandiose glacial-erosion forms of Wrangel Island and the Chukotka Peninsula.

So, the last ice sheet of the Northern Hemisphere consisted of more than a dozen large ice sheets and many smaller ones, as well as of the ice shelves that united them, floating in the deep ocean.

The periods of time in which glaciers disappeared, or were reduced by 80-90%, are called interglacials. The landscapes freed from ice in a relatively warm climate were transformed: the tundra retreated to the northern coast of Eurasia, and the taiga and broad-leaved forests, forest-steppes and steppes occupied a position close to the modern one.

Thus, over the past million years, the nature of Northern Eurasia and North America has repeatedly changed its appearance.

Boulders, crushed stone and sand, frozen into the bottom layers of a moving glacier, acting as a giant “file”, smoothed, polished, scratched granites and gneisses, and peculiar strata of boulder loams and sands formed under the ice, characterized by high density associated with the impact of glacial load - the main, or bottom moraine.

Since the dimensions of the glacier are determined balance between the amount of snow that falls on it annually, which turns into firn, and then into ice, and what does not have time to melt and evaporate during the warm seasons, then as the climate warms, the edges of the glaciers recede to new, “equilibrium boundaries”. The end parts of the glacial tongues stop moving and gradually melt, and the boulders, sand and loam included in the ice are released, forming a shaft that repeats the outlines of the glacier - terminal moraine; the other part of the clastic material (mainly sand and clay particles) is carried out by melt water flows and is deposited around in the form fluvioglacial sand plains (zandrov).

Similar flows also act in the depths of glaciers, filling cracks and intraglacial caverns with fluvioglacial material. After the melting of glacial tongues with such filled voids on the earth's surface, chaotic heaps of hills of various shapes and compositions remain on top of the melted bottom moraine: ovoid (when viewed from above) drumlins, elongated like railway embankments (along the axis of the glacier and perpendicular to the terminal moraines) ozes and irregular shape kamy.

All these forms of the glacial landscape are very clearly represented in North America: the boundary of ancient glaciation is marked here by a terminal moraine ridge with heights of up to fifty meters, stretching across the entire continent from its eastern coast to its western one. To the north of this "Great Ice Wall" glacial deposits are represented mainly by moraine, and to the south of it - by a "cloak" of fluvioglacial sands and pebbles.

As for the territory of the European part of Russia, four epochs of glaciation have been identified, and for Central Europe, four glacial epochs have also been identified, named after the corresponding alpine rivers - gunz, mindel, riss and wurm, and in North America Nebraska, Kansas, Illinois and Wisconsin glaciations.

Climate periglacial(surrounding the glacier) territories was cold and dry, which is fully confirmed by paleontological data. In these landscapes, a very specific fauna appears with a combination of cryophilic (cold-loving) and xerophilic (dry-loving) plants – tundra-steppe.

Now similar natural zones, similar to periglacial ones, have been preserved in the form of so-called relic steppes- islands among the taiga and forest-tundra landscape, for example, the so-called alasy Yakutia, the southern slopes of the mountains of northeastern Siberia and Alaska, as well as the cold, arid highlands of Central Asia.

tundrosteppe differed in that it the herbaceous layer was formed mainly not by mosses (as in the tundra), but by grasses, and it was here that formed cryophilic version herbaceous vegetation with a very high biomass of grazing ungulates and predators - the so-called "mammoth fauna".

In its composition, various types of animals were fancifully mixed, both characteristic of tundra – reindeer, caribou, musk ox, lemmings, for steppes - saiga, horse, camel, bison, ground squirrels, as well as mammoths and woolly rhinos, saber-toothed tiger - smilodon, and giant hyena.

It should be noted that many climatic changes were repeated as if "in miniature" in the memory of mankind. These are the so-called "Little Ice Ages" and "Interglacials".

For example, during the so-called "Little Ice Age" from 1450 to 1850, glaciers everywhere advanced, and their size exceeded modern ones (snow cover appeared, for example, in the mountains of Ethiopia, where it is not now).

And in the preceding "Little Ice Age" Atlantic optimum(900-1300) glaciers, on the contrary, decreased, and the climate was noticeably milder than the current one. Recall that it was at that time that the Vikings called Greenland the “Green Land”, and even settled it, and also reached the coast of North America and the island of Newfoundland on their boats. And the Novgorod merchants-Ushkuiniki passed through the "Northern Sea Route" to the Gulf of Ob, founding the city of Mangazeya there.

And the last retreat of the glaciers, which began over 10 thousand years ago, is well remembered by people, hence the legends of the Flood, so a huge amount of melt water rushed down to the south, rains and floods became frequent.

In the distant past, the growth of glaciers occurred in epochs with low air temperature and increased humidity, the same conditions developed in the last centuries of the last era, and in the middle of the last millennium.

And about 2.5 thousand years ago, a significant cooling of the climate began, the Arctic islands were covered with glaciers, in the countries of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea at the turn of the eras, the climate was colder and more humid than now.

In the Alps in the 1st millennium BC. e. glaciers moved to lower levels, cluttered mountain passes with ice and destroyed some high-lying villages. It was during this era that glaciers in the Caucasus became sharply activated and grew.

But by the end of the 1st millennium, climate warming began again, mountain glaciers retreated in the Alps, the Caucasus, Scandinavia and Iceland.

The climate began to seriously change again only in the 14th century, glaciers began to grow rapidly in Greenland, the summer thawing of the soil became more and more short-lived, and by the end of the century permafrost was firmly established here.

From the end of the 15th century, the growth of glaciers began in many mountainous countries and polar regions, and after the relatively warm 16th century, severe centuries came, and were called the Little Ice Age. In the south of Europe, severe and long winters often repeated, in 1621 and 1669 the Bosporus froze, and in 1709 the Adriatic Sea froze off the coast. But the "Little Ice Age" ended in the second half of the 19th century and a relatively warm era began, which continues to this day.

Note that the warming of the 20th century is especially pronounced in the polar latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, and the fluctuations of glacial systems are characterized by the percentage of advancing, stationary and retreating glaciers.

For example, for the Alps there are data covering the entire past century. If the proportion of advancing alpine glaciers in the 40-50s of the XX century was close to zero, then in the mid-60s of the XX century, about 30% of the surveyed glaciers advanced here, and in the late 70s of the XX century - 65-70%.

Their similar state indicates that the anthropogenic (technogenic) increase in the content of carbon dioxide, methane and other gases and aerosols in the atmosphere in the 20th century did not affect the normal course of global atmospheric and glacial processes. However, at the end of the last, twentieth century, glaciers began to retreat everywhere in the mountains, and the ice of Greenland began to melt, which is associated with climate warming, and which especially intensified in the 1990s.

It is known that the increased amount of technogenic emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, freon and various aerosols into the atmosphere seems to be helping to reduce solar radiation. In this regard, “voices” appeared, first of journalists, then of politicians, and then of scientists about the beginning of a “new ice age”. Ecologists "sounded the alarm", fearing "the coming anthropogenic warming" due to the constant growth of carbon dioxide and other impurities in the atmosphere.

Yes, it is well known that an increase in CO 2 leads to an increase in the amount of retained heat and thereby increases the air temperature near the Earth's surface, forming the notorious "greenhouse effect".

Some other gases of technogenic origin have the same effect: freons, nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides, methane, ammonia. But, nevertheless, far from all carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere: 50-60% of industrial CO 2 emissions end up in the ocean, where they are quickly assimilated by animals (corals in the first place), and of course, assimilated by plants–remember the process of photosynthesis: plants absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen! Those. the more carbon dioxide - the better, the higher the percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere! By the way, this has already happened in the history of the Earth, in the Carboniferous period ... Therefore, even a multiple increase in the concentration of CO 2 in the atmosphere cannot lead to the same multiple increase in temperature, since there is a certain natural control mechanism that sharply slows down the greenhouse effect at high concentrations of CO 2.

So all the numerous “scientific hypotheses” about the “greenhouse effect”, “rising the level of the World Ocean”, “changes in the course of the Gulf Stream”, and of course the “coming Apocalypse” are mostly imposed on us “from above”, by politicians, incompetent scientists, illiterate journalists, or simply science swindlers. The more you intimidate the population, the easier it is to sell goods and manage ...

But in fact, a normal natural process is taking place - one stage, one climatic epoch is replaced by another, and there is nothing strange in this ... And the fact that natural disasters occur, and that there are supposedly more of them - tornadoes, floods, etc. - so another 100-200 years ago, vast areas of the Earth were simply uninhabited! And now there are more than 7 billion people, and they often live where exactly floods and tornadoes are possible - along the banks of rivers and oceans, in the deserts of America! Moreover, remember that natural disasters have always been, and even ruined entire civilizations!

And as for the opinions of scientists, which both politicians and journalists like to refer to so much ... Back in 1983, American sociologists Randall Collins and Sal Restivo wrote in plain text in their famous article “Pirates and Politicians in Mathematics”: “... There is no fixed set of norms that guide the behavior of scientists. Only the activity of scientists (and other types of intellectuals related to them) is unchanged, aimed at acquiring wealth and fame, as well as gaining the opportunity to control the flow of ideas and impose their own ideas on others ... The ideals of science do not predetermine scientific behavior, but arise from the struggle for individual success in various conditions of competition ... ".

And a little more about science ... Various large companies often provide grants for so-called "research" in certain areas, but the question arises - how competent is the person conducting the research in this area? Why was he chosen out of hundreds of scientists?

And if a certain scientist, a “certain organization”, for example, orders “some research on the safety of nuclear energy”, then it goes without saying that this scientist will be forced to “listen” to the customer, since he has “quite certain interests”, and it is understandable that he, most likely, will “adjust” “his conclusions” for the customer, since the main question is already not a question of scientific research–what does the customer want to get, what result. And if the result of the customer not satisfied, then this scientist will no longer be invited, and not in any "serious project", i.e. "monetary", he will no longer participate, as they will invite another scientist, more "compliant" ... Much, of course, depends on the citizenship, and professionalism, and reputation as a scientist ... But let's not forget how much they "receive" in Russia scientists... Yes, in the world, in Europe and in the USA, a scientist lives mainly on grants... And any scientist also "wants to eat."

In addition, the data and opinions of one scientist, albeit a major specialist in his field, are not a fact! But if the research is confirmed by some scientific groups, institutes, laboratories, t only then can research be worthy of serious attention.

Unless of course these "groups", "institutes" or "laboratories" were not funded by the customer of this study or project ...

A.A. Kazdym,
candidate of geological and mineralogical sciences, member of MOIP

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Prior to this, scientists for decades predicted the imminent onset of global warming on Earth, due to industrial human activity, and assured that "there would be no winter." Today, the situation seems to have changed dramatically. Some scientists believe that a new ice age is beginning on Earth.

This sensational theory belongs to an oceanologist from Japan - Mototake Nakamura. According to him, starting from 2015, the Earth will begin to cool. His point of view is also supported by a Russian scientist, Khababullo Abdusammatov from the Pulkovo Observatory. Recall that the last decade was the warmest for the entire period of meteorological observations, i.e. since 1850.

Scientists believe that already in 2015 there will be a decrease in solar activity, which will lead to climate change and its cooling. The temperature of the ocean will decrease, the amount of ice will increase, and the overall temperature will drop significantly.

Cooling will reach its maximum in 2055. From this moment, a new ice age will begin, which will last 2 centuries. Scientists have not specified how severe the icing will be.

There is a positive point in all this, it seems that polar bears are no longer threatened with extinction)

Let's try to figure it all out.

1 Ice Ages can last hundreds of millions of years. The climate at this time is colder, continental glaciers are formed.

For example:

Paleozoic Ice Age - 460-230 Ma
Cenozoic Ice Age - 65 million years ago - present.

It turns out that in the period between: 230 million years ago and 65 million years ago, it was much warmer than now, and we live in the Cenozoic Ice Age today. Well, we figured out the eras.

2 The temperature during the ice age is not uniform, but also changes. Ice ages can be distinguished within an ice age.

ice Age(from Wikipedia) - a periodically repeating stage in the geological history of the Earth lasting several million years, during which, against the background of a general relative cooling of the climate, repeated sharp growths of continental ice sheets - ice ages occur. These epochs, in turn, alternate with relative warmings - epochs of glaciation reduction (interglacials).

Those. we get a nesting doll, and inside the cold ice age, there are even colder segments, when the glacier covers the continents from above - ice ages.

We live in the Quaternary Ice Age. But thank God during the interglacial.

The last ice age (Vistula glaciation) began ca. 110 thousand years ago and ended around 9700-9600 BC. e. And this is not so long ago! 26-20 thousand years ago, the volume of ice was at its maximum. Therefore, in principle, there will definitely be another glaciation, the only question is when exactly.

Map of the Earth 18 thousand years ago. As you can see, the glacier covered Scandinavia, Great Britain and Canada. Note also the fact that the level of the ocean has dropped and many parts of the earth's surface have risen out of the water, now under water.

The same card, only for Russia.

Perhaps the scientists are right, and we will be able to observe with our own eyes how new lands protrude from under the water, and the glacier takes the northern territories for itself.

Come to think of it, the weather has been pretty stormy lately. Snow fell in Egypt, Libya, Syria and Israel for the first time in 120 years. There was even snow in tropical Vietnam. In the USA for the first time in 100 years, and the temperature dropped to a record -50 degrees Celsius. And all this against the backdrop of positive temperatures in Moscow.

The main thing is to prepare well for the ice age. Buy a site in the southern latitudes, away from big cities (there are always full of hungry people during natural disasters). Make an underground bunker there with food supplies for years, buy weapons for self-defense and prepare for life in the style of Survival horror))