icehouse
AICE-house
Definition
A geological period or climate state characterized by significantly colder global temperatures and the presence of permanent continental ice sheets.
Etymology
Derived from the combination of 'ice' and 'house', the term was traditionally used for a building or pit used for storing ice; in climate science, it is used metaphorically to describe a planet-wide cold state.
In the news
The article uses the term to describe the colder climatic state that Earth transitioned into during the Oligocene epoch, marking a shift from the previous 'greenhouse' conditions.
Antarctica developed a continental-scale ice sheet 34 million years ago while Earth was about 5°C warmer than today — helped by slow-moving mantle waves that had spent more than 100 million years lifting its interior high enough for permanent ice to surviv
Read the full article ↗Space Daily