When ice ages end, ocean circulation fine-tunes ocean heat

Much of Earth's heat uptake is passed to the ocean, making ocean heat content key for understanding long-term climate patterns. Ocean heat content is typically lower during ice ages and rises during warmer periods of glacier retreat. Over the past 1.2 million years, ice ages and interglacials have occurred in cycles lasting about 100,000 years, and we are currently in an interglacial period after the Last Glacial Maximum occurred about 20,000 years ago.