The Last Glacial Maximum
Ice sheets reach their greatest extent, sea level drops 120 metres, and the map of the world changes.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 7.5 thousand years
- Known to
- ± 500 years
- Era
- Late Pleistocene, Quaternary
Between about 26,500 and 19,000 years ago global ice volume peaks. The Laurentide sheet covers Canada and reaches New York; the Fennoscandian sheet covers Scandinavia and northern Britain. Global mean temperature runs 4 to 6 degrees below present, carbon dioxide falls to around 180 parts per million, and sea level drops roughly 120 metres — exposing Beringia, Doggerland, Sundaland and the Sahul shelf. Human populations contract into refugia across Eurasia, leaving genetic signatures still visible today.