Shake It Off: Earth's Wobble May Have Ended Ice Age

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http://www.wbur.org/npr/150000446/shake-it-off-earth-s-wobble-may-have-ended-ice-age

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A wobbling of the Earth on its axis about 20,000 years ago may have kicked off a beginning to the end of the last ice age. Glaciers in the Arctic and Greenland began to melt, which resulted in a warming of the Earth, a new study says. Above, Greenland's Russell Glacier, seen in 1990. (Veronique Durruty / Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images)

The last big ice age ended about 11,000 years ago, and not a moment too soon — it made a lot more of the world livable, at least for humans.

But exactly what caused the big thaw isn't clear, and new research suggests that a wobble in the Earth kicked off a complicated process that changed the whole planet.

Ice tells the history of the Earth's climate: Air bubbles in ice reveal what the atmosphere was like and what the temperature was. And scientists can read this ice, even if it's been buried for thousands of years.

But when it comes to the last ice age, ice has a mixed message.