I just had an idea half an hour ago and I’m still in shock and trying to process it and figure out whether it is true.

First, I need to explain the conventional model of the ice ages.

Basically, as the planet became dryer (since circa 65My ago) and the amount of buffers (CO₂ and others) in the atmosphere was reduced, the seasonality of the climate became more extreme, and the temperature gradient between the equator and the poles more extreme. This part is not questionable. At one point in time, the planet got so cool that ice remained on the poles around the year, and this is formally known as the ice age. This, too, is not questionable.

According to the conventional model, in the ice age the climate became so sensitive to small variations in Earth orbit and tilt, due to the critical lack of climate buffers in the atmosphere, that those small variations became sufficient to throw the planet into a glacial maximum, also known as the “ice age” in common understanding. The geological epoch defined by alterations between glacial minimums and maximums is known as the Pleistocene, and it began circa 2.5My ago. It is usually, but wrongly claimed that it ended 17Ky ago, but this is merely the time when we entered the current glacial minimum. There is no reason to assume any change in the geological and astronomical underlying causes of the Pleistocene climate alterations.

Also, according to the conventional model, the ice age is a northern-hemisphere phenomenon; not much changes in the South. In the North, however, the entire North America is covered by glaciers, Europe is covered by glaciers, and, paradoxically, Siberia was warm enough to be the pasture of the vast megafauna. At some point, however, things very suddenly changed, and the mammoths in Siberia were frozen so instantly, the enzymes in their digestion couldn’t cause the meat to spoil, which means it happened within hours, and to temperatures of around -70°C, which is about the worst weather that happens in Siberia to this day. In Europe and especially in North America, the vast glaciers melted during this transitional period, which eventually caused the global water levels to rise by about 80 meters. This seems to be remembered worldwide by mankind as the great flood, since this massive sea rise took place in the timeframe of less than a year. Discovery of the suddenness of the global melt was quite a shock in the scientific circles, but I don’t know why they were so surprised; I watched the snow and ice melt in the spring, and it’s always a very sudden thing, regardless of the amount of snow. Simply, when it gets warm enough, the snow just collapses, regardless of the fact that it appeared to be an eternal constant of nature only yesterday.

What shocked me today is an idea – I can’t say how true it is – that there might actually be no glacial minimum or maximum, and that it’s merely an artefact of sea and air currents in the northern hemisphere. In one configuration, the one we have today, the polar vortex destabilizes in such a way that it allows the cold arctic air to flow all the way across the Northern America, and for some reason, probably due to a weakened gulf stream, the north of Europe freezes as well, and the glaciers form all the way down to Slovenia. However, this change of polar vortex configuration means that the cold air stops freezing the plains of Northern Asia in the winter, and the climate there becomes quite moderate, which would normally be expected since Vladivostok is at the same geographic latitude as Madrid, and would be expected to have similar climate. For some reason, the cold air flooding North America is combined with great humidity, probably due to to warm sea currents in the Pacific north-west, which creates enormous amounts of snowfall, sufficient to gradually shift lots of water from the ocean to the extended northern ice caps and glaciers. There is no analogous phenomenon in Siberia, which makes the difference in the amount of continental glaciation (wet cold vs. dry cold). This continental glaciation increases the Earth’s albedo, and thus promotes reflection of sunlight into space, creating a global cooling feedback that allows the ice and snow to remain across the year. If the process is significant enough, and perhaps combined with other factors, it promotes absorption of CO₂ in sea water, which is accelerated at low temperatures. If this process is significant enough, it reduces the amount of buffers in the atmosphere. If this reaches a critical point, you get a stable glacial maximum, which persists until something changes significantly enough to start the sudden global melt and initiate the glacial minimum.

So, the question might be what those initial conditions are, with the sea and air currents, that allow the polar vortex to destabilize over North America in the first place? The second question is, what are the conditions that make this a consistent enough phenomenon, and the third question is what are the conditions that make it a permanent state in the 100Ky range?

I don’t see any obvious errors in my analysis, and I would welcome feedback.