Ice Age

PHILADELPHIA - It may be hot now, but it's never too early to start thinking about the next ice age. Based on Earth's historical cycle of warm and cold periods, we're due for a big freeze any millennium now. If the next cold spell is like the last one, which ended 10,000 years ago, glaciers would cover much of North America, creeping as far south as New York City. Over the whole planet, ice ages reduce temperatures by only about 5 to 9 degrees, but the chill is more pronounced in temperate zones - such as most of the United States.

The relentlessly gimmicky use of 3-D in Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs helps reduce what could have been a genial piece of slapstick into a cartoon that's not just in-your-face, but in-your-eyeballs. You should have been able to treat this film as a grab-bag and pull out some plums. Instead it goes grabbing after you. The film doesn't hurl things at the camera in the manner of Monsters vs. Aliens. But any snout, tongue or tail that lends itself to stretching and snapping gets quite a workout in this movie.

SEATTLE -- A sheet of ice half the size of Alaska is on schedule to raise sea levels about 20 feet in 7,000 years, and there's nothing that can be done about it.Scientists from the University of Washington and the University of Maine reported in Friday's edition of Science that the 360,000-square-mile West Antarctic ice sheet has been melting for 15,000 years and should be gone in 7,000.A lingering effect of the Ice Age, the ice sheet's disintegration should raise sea levels nearly 1 centimeter a decade for a total of 6 meters, or nearly 20 feet.

The most engaging character in the animated feature Ice Age is Scrat, a half-squirrel, half-rat creature. He scrambles across frigid prehistoric North America, trying to locate a stable piece of ice into which he can jam an acorn for storage. With curved fangs, enormous googly eyes, and hands and feet that alternately extend like a ballerina's or claw frozen surfaces like rusty ice picks, Scrat perfectly embodies hysteria. Desperation is his emotional base; any respite he wins is momentary.

As the music of Mendelssohn fills the rink, seven world-class skaters glide toward the center of the ice, braiding themselves, then separating, and braiding again as if they were genetic strands of the sound. As they move, they seem to breathe the same breath, pursue the same thought, spring from the same curve.They arch in effortless arabesques. They jump and spin in a way that is both fearless and hopeful. They are all the things you once thought you could be.Suddenly Nathan Birch calls a halt to the magic.

The Next Ice Age has come home. The innovative ice dancing troupe is practicing at the Columbia Ice Rink for its performances June 16 and 17 at the Columbia Festival of the Arts. The company began its unusual blend of ensemble skating 12 years ago with a performance at the rink. "We are so excited," said Nathan Birch, artistic director for the company. "We started in Columbia, and to be presented in this festival really helps to legitimize us in our minds." Based in Baltimore, the Next Ice Age began with an ending.

The good news about Ice Age: The Meltdown is that the nut-nutty, saber-toothed squirrel of the first Ice Age - the best, funniest thing in the movie - is back for the sequel. He fights off Ice Age vultures and piranhas for his beloved acorn this time. He takes his lumps, Wile E. Coyote, fashion. He turns ninja, when need be. And his every wordless entrance and ignominious exit is a hoot. Ice Age: The Meltdown (20th Century Fox) Starring the voices of Ray Romano, Queen Latifah, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary.

MILLERSVILLE -- Cheeks flushed from the cold, hips bruised from her falls, skater Samantha Huntt confronts her next double axel. Her 14-year-old face a scrunch of concentration, she skates ... jumps ... falls ... and tries it again. Over and over and over.Coach Denise Cahill stands on the ice at Benfield Pines Ice Rink, analyzing every angle of every movement that can produce the two successful revolutions in the air.There are glory moments when the teen-ager nails it, like a soprano harnessing a tricky passage of high notes.