The Eemian interglacial
The last time before now that the world was as warm as today — and the seas were metres higher.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 13 thousand years
- Known to
- ± 2 thousand years
- Era
- Late Pleistocene, Quaternary
From about 129,000 to 116,000 years ago the Earth enters an interglacial slightly warmer than the present, with sea level six to nine metres above today's, implying substantial loss from both Greenland and West Antarctica. Hippopotamus reach the Rhine and the Thames, and forest extends far into the Arctic. It is the most-used analogue for a world about 1 to 2 degrees warmer than pre-industrial, and its sea level is the reason that range is taken seriously as a threshold for ice sheet instability.