Yes, technically we are still in an ice age, but we’re in a warm phase of it called an interglacial , not a deep-freeze “Ice Age movie” world.

What “ice age” actually means

In geology, an ice age is any long period when Earth has permanent ice sheets at the poles or on continents. Today, Antarctica and Greenland both hold massive ice sheets, so by that definition we are still in an ice age.

Within an ice age, climate swings between:

  • Glacial periods: cold phases with huge ice sheets spreading far over North America, Europe, and Asia.
  • Interglacials: warmer breaks when ice sheets retreat and global temperatures rise.

Right now, we’re in the interglacial known as the Holocene , which started about 11,700 years ago, after the last big glacial period ended.

Where we are in that cycle

Over the last 2.6 million years (the Quaternary), Earth has cycled through many glacials and interglacials, driven mainly by slow changes in Earth’s orbit and tilt (Milankovitch cycles).

Without human influence:

  • Some studies suggest the next glacial period would likely have started tens of thousands of years from now.
  • Other recent work estimates that, under pre‑industrial conditions, a new major glaciation might have begun roughly within the next 10,000–50,000 years.

Because humans have pumped so much CO₂ into the atmosphere, multiple climate studies now argue that:

  • Human-made greenhouse gases are strong enough to delay or even suppress the next ice age for tens of thousands to possibly 100,000+ years.
  • At current or higher emissions, Earth could even skip several future glacial cycles , staying unusually warm for a very long time.

In other words: we’re still in a long-term ice age (there’s still polar ice), but our current warm interglacial has been pushed into an unusually long and hot state by human activity.

Why people say “we’re leaving the ice age”

In everyday language, people often say “the last ice age ended” when they mean the last glacial ended. That’s when:

  • Huge ice sheets over North America and northern Europe melted back.
  • Sea levels rose and climates warmed into the relatively stable conditions that allowed agriculture and modern civilizations to develop.

Geologists, however, still consider the presence of those big polar ice sheets as proof that the broader ice-age state has not fully ended.

What this means for climate change debates

You’ll sometimes see forum or social media arguments like:

“Earth is just naturally coming out of an ice age, so warming is normal.”

The science does not support that as the main explanation for current rapid warming:

  • Natural orbital cycles change climate slowly over tens of thousands of years.
  • The sharp increase in global temperatures and CO₂ over the past 150 years is far faster than those natural background changes.
  • Recent modeling suggests that without human CO₂, Earth would be on track for a very slow trend toward the next glaciation, not the rapid warming we see now.

So:

  • Yes, Earth is in a long-term ice age but in a warm interglacial.
  • No, that does not explain the speed and magnitude of modern global warming, which is primarily driven by human emissions.

Quick recap

  • We still have large, permanent ice sheets at the poles → scientifically, we are still in an ice age.
  • We’re living in a warm interglacial (the Holocene), not a “full-glacial” deep-freeze.
  • Natural cycles would very likely bring another glacial in tens of thousands of years, but human CO₂ is delaying or suppressing that.

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Are we still in an ice age? Learn why scientists say yes, we’re in a warm interglacial within a long-term ice age—and how human-driven climate change is delaying the next glacial period.

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