The last Ice Age ended around 11,500 years ago and it had been predicted that the next one would begin in around 1,500 years time.

However, it is now thought that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will delay this next Ice Age.

Carbon dioxide is made by humans when we burn fossil fuels in our cars, power plants and buildings. The gas causes global warming because it traps heat in the atmosphere. It is thought that this has disrupted the Earth’s natural cycle of warming and cooling.

The findings were made by Jim Channell, a professor of geology from the University of Florida, who studied over one million years of the Earth’s geological history.

A delayed Ice Age may seem like a good thing, but it could mean that the effects of global warming are even greater than first thought. The polar ice caps are already melting and, if they melt even quicker, a huge volume of water would enter the world’s oceans. This would cause massive flooding.

Channell says the study shows just how much humans have changed planet Earth. He said: ” We haven’t seen this high concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere for several million years.”