Interglacial

Carrie Morrill of the National Climatic Data Center explains, "You'd have to go back to the last interglacial about 125,000 years ago to find temperatures significantly higher than temperatures of today."

The last interglacial period ended around 115,000 years ago when temperatures were less than one degree Celsius warmer than today, and sea levels were six meters higher.

Palaeoenvironmental evidence from northwest Europe indicates that the oligocratic phase of the interglacial cycle (Fig. 3.1) had begun by ca. 5K years BP.

The climatic recession which produced Britain's last glaciers came rapidly to an end about 10,000 bp, as temperatures rose during the end of the protocratic phase of the present interglacial.