Earth continues to move out of its last ice age. Global warming caused by humans is helping speed up the destruction of the last of the telltale signs of the ice age – the glaciers. Scientists believe the mountain glaciers in the Alps in Europe will completely disappear by 2050, most by 2037. They are currently shrinking by 3% a year. Polar ice is decreasing in thickness on an average of 23.5 inches. Flooding and rising sea levels are direct results of glacial melting.