Knowledge Survey Questions - Glaciers

Bloom's Taxonomy Level - 2

• Describe the difference between weather and climate, and explain which contributes more to glacier health.
• Explain why ice streams are of potential concern to climate scientists.
• Describe how eccentricity, obliquity, and precession are important to climate variability in the last 2 million years.
• What evidence has been used to determine the magnitude and extent of past glaciations, and how has this evidence changed on geologic timescales?
• Calculate the temperature of the earth in the absence of greenhouse gases.

Bloom's Taxonomy Level - 3

• How does ice thickness play a role in both internal deformation and sliding of glaciers?

Bloom's Taxonomy Level - 4

• Explain why there are unlikely to be glacial erosional features in Minnesota.
• Detail the relationship between climate and glacier behavior.
• Explain the two primary erosional processes that occur underneath glaciers, and explain how they control the roughness of subglacial environments.
• Explain the process of fractionation of oxygen isotopes and describe at least two ways in which we can use it to determine past climate.

Bloom's Taxonomy Level - 5

• Describe at least two important feedbacks between ice sheets and rapid climate change in the North Atlantic.
• Describe at least 5 paleoclimate proxies geologists use to determine past terrestrial climates, and explain how they work.