Geologically, we are living in an ice age right now.

“Ice Age” sounds like mammoths, glaciers over cities, and a frozen past. In geology, the label is broader. NOAA describes Earth as being in the Holocene, an interglacial period within the Quaternary. Britannica describes the Quaternary as a period characterized by repeated glaciations. Because Earth still has major ice sheets, geologists can describe the larger ice-age system as ongoing even though we live in a warmer interglacial. The trick is that everyday speech uses “ice age” for the coldest chapters, while geology uses it for the whole ice-sheet era.

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