Are We Really in a Postglacial World?

He points to a subtle but critical shift in how we frame our current epoch. The term postglacial carries an implicit assumption: that the age of ice is behind us, finished, relegated to deep history. But the evidence from glacial cycles over the past two million years tells a different story. Interglacials like ours are brief warm intervals, not permanent departures from the ice. The last major glacial advance ended roughly 12,000 years ago, and we speak of it as the last glacial time, as if no more will follow. Yet orbital mechanics, solar variability, and the cyclical nature of climate over deep time suggest otherwise. If we are honest with the data, we might be living not in a postglacial world but in an interglacial one, a temporary warmth between ice ages. The framing matters because it shapes how we understand climate variability and what the future may hold.