【英语时差8，16】生活在冰川时代

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D: Well, it is winter.

Y: Actually, it's an ice age.

D: Oh, c'mon. It's not that cold.

Y: No, I'm serious, we're in the middle of an ice age.

D: The last ice age ended 20,000 years ago.

Y: That's what most people think, but actually we're just in a relatively¹ warm period during the current ice age.

D: I don't know. It gets pretty warm here during the summer. It's hard to believe we're experiencing an ice age when it's 95 degrees outside.

Y: But it's true. See, ice ages have occurred for roughly two-hundred of the past six- hundred million years, with each ice age lasting² up to ten million years at a stretch. During an ice age the polar regions of the earth are cold, there's a big temperature difference between the equator and the poles, and at times ice sheets cover huge chunks³ of the earth's land mass.

D: Ok, we've got the first two, but I don't see ice covering most of the world.

Y: That's because, like I said, there can be large fluctuations⁴ in temperature during an ice age. During the current ice age glaciers⁵ have advanced and retreated over twenty times. We're living during one of the warmer periods when the glaciers have retreated.

D: So at some point the glaciers will advance again and we'll be covered in ice.

Y: Right.

D: I'd better invest in some good boots.

Y: I wouldn't worry about it quite yet, Don. But there's one thing we can do right now.

D: What?

Y: Get inside!  

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