Enquiry question 1: how has climate change influenced the formation of glaciated landscapes over time?

Factors of climate change

glacial landscapes have low level of resilience - sensitive to climate change and physical threats
throughout earth's history, climate fluctuated between greenhouse and icehouse states
- climatic stages last millions of years
- within ice house stage glacial and interglacial periods occur that last for less than 1 million years
long term factors of climate change
- milankovitch cycles - astronomical climate forcing states that global energy alters - forcing global changes due to variation in the earth's orbit
  - stretch/eccentricity: earth's orbit changes from circlular to eclipse - 96000 years - changes the distance between earth and sun
  - tilt: earth's tilt changes between 21.8 and 24.4 degrees - 41000 years - greater tilt = tropics receive more energy and thus become larger
  - wobble/axial precession: earth's seasons change - 22000 years
short term factors of climate change
- variations in solar output
  - energy output of the sun is not constant
  - magnetic storms create sunspots - forms dark areas on the sun that increase solar output
  - during medieval warming period - high numbers of sunspots
  - maunder minimum - fewer sunspots
- volcanic eruptions
  - can block sunlight
  - lower global temperature and trigger mini ice age
  - Mount Tambura - erupted 1815 - lowered global temperatures by 0.5 degrees

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the term given to frozen water on the earth's surface - ice, glaciers and ice caps - vital for stabalising the ocean temperature and climate
periglaciation - describes geomorphic processes - results in the thawing of snow in areas of permafrost (frozen solids) - runoff of melting snow refreezes into ice wedges amd other structures such as patterned ground, pingos and loess
periglacial processes
- nivation: erosion of the ground around a slope due to freezing and thawing
- frost heave: the uplift of soil due to the expansion of groundwater when freezing
- freezethaw: water falls through cracks in rocks, freezes, expands and breaks the rock
- weathering: wear away from the long exposure to the climate and atmosphere
- solifluction: movement of wet soil/material down a slope

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