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As we burn more and more fossil fuels, the next global ice age seems to be delayed by at least 100,000 years, says new research that has identified the tipping point that leads the planet into deep freeze mode. That human activity, through climate change, can interfere with the global mechanisms such as ice age is a proof that this planet has reached a new geological period, called Anthropocene, said the scientists. Other recent research gives evidence of how plastic pollution is causing mass extinction of wildlife, another example of Earth entering Anthropocene, reported the Guardian

The new research also reveals that the ice age missed the earth very narrowly, shortly before industrial revolution came in, perhaps because as the agriculture developed, it had pushed the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere above the tipping point. "The bottom line is we are basically skipping a whole glacial cycle, which is unprecedented," said Andrey Ganopolski, at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Germany and who led the research. "It is mind-boggling that humankind is able to interfere with a mechanism that shaped the world as we know it." It is the cycle of ice ages that had been responsible for landscapes that we enjoy today and the fertility of the soils around the world.

The new research, published in the journal Nature, analyzed period of eight global ice-ages in the last 800,000 years and used complicated models of climate to determine critical factors that led to deep freezes. "Like no other force on the planet, ice ages have shaped the global environment and thereby determined the development of human civilisation," Schellnhuber said. "Now human interference is acting as a huge geological force, so this is a defining paper for the Anthropocene idea." If carbon emissions are not restricted, he said, there will no ice-age ever, reported CNN