The holocene interglacial is what we are living in now. It started 12000 years ago, at the end of the last glacial period. This extended period of glaciations a

The holocene interglacial is what we are living in now. It started 12000 years ago, at the end of the last glacial period. This extended period of glaciations and interglacials together is called the quarternary ice age, also known as the current ice age. Ice ages are the periods in earth's geological history when permanent ice caps and glaciers existed at the poles and in mountain ranges. We think of that situation as normal, but it has only existed for the last 2 to 2.5 million years. The high albedo (reflection of sunlight) of the ice sheets at the poles cools the planet down further, so an ice age reinforces itself. In other words, we are now living in a warmer period inside an ice age. There have been other ice ages before, but the last one before the current ended about 100 million years before the first dinosaurs evolved.