The latest discovery pushes the dawn of the Jomon era in Japan back 3, 500 years to a period when glaciers were rampant in much of the northern hemisphere.

ECONOMIST: A potted history

"We can say there were times during the warmer periods of the last 10, 000 years when glaciers have been comparable to what they are now, " he told the BBC News website.

BBC: NEWS | Science/Nature | Melting of glaciers 'speeds up'

The 68-mile route to the fishing town of Ullapool is a relatively recent addition to a landscape forged in the Ice Age, when melting glaciers gouged its long, deep valleys and seawater-filled lochs and fjords.

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Too much is locked up in glaciers when we want it in our swimming pools.

FORBES: The Story Of Eau

For example, it has been shown how polar glaciers speed up when the floating ice shelves that block their way to the ocean are removed.

BBC: Under-ice flood speeds up glacier

When the vast ice sheets and glaciers melt, they lose their reflective power, and instead, oceans and land absorb the heat, causing the Arctic waters and the atmosphere to warm faster.

CNN: Ice melting across globe at accelerating rate, NASA says

Snow-pack and glaciers provide a buffer between when the precipitation falls as snow and when it is released as water.

UNESCO: 83e

Since then glaciers have receded slowly, until 60 years ago, when major glacier retreat started.

UNESCO: Dublin Core