Instructor Materials: Overview Glacier Basin Transformations Module
Module Overview
Module 2 is designed to follow after Module 1. Instructors may choose to use Module 2 independently, but may want to consider some additional introductory materials if they are not beginning with Module 1. Module 2 consists of four units. The units begin by exploring past ice margin retreat and processes of ice margin retreat and elevation change. The material then explores natural climate variability and anthropogenic forcings, and then examines potential future ice margin response to climate change.
Module Goals
Based on specific Driving Questions for each Unit, after completing all 4 Units student will be able to:
- Develop a sense of temporal variation of Greenland glaciers at millennial timescales.
- Describe how glacial history can be reconstructed using proxy data.
- Describe ways in which glacier advance and retreat reshape the bedrock and sediments in regions of recently active ice cover.
- Evaluate the stability of the GrIS based on current rates of retreat .
- Compare how different glacier basin systems respond to a perturbation (natural or man-made).
- Evaluate how the Greenland Ice Sheet future margin depends on the climate scenario path.
- Examine the expected spatial path of Greenland Ice Sheet retreat as it relates to climate, topography, and ice dynamics.
Units
- Unit 1: Past Ice Margin Retreat: Using videos, maps, reading, and a paleo data exercise, students explore longer timescales of landscape transformation. Activities include working together to interpret authentic proxy data and put their findings into the context of broader Northern Hemisphere change.
- Unit 2: Processes of Ice Margin Retreat and Elevation Change: Students examine the landscape surface to make connections between the features they identify and the ice sheet history of advance and retreat.
- Unit 3: Exploring Natural Climate Variability and Anthropogenic Forcings: This unit addresses questions of natural versus human-induced glacial change, and students test ideas using measurements of change and a simple model.
- Unit 4: Future Ice Margin Response to Climate: Students grapple with the scale of the Greenland Ice Sheet and explore the possible futures for the ice sheet, including considering regional differences in ice sheet change and how ice sheet transformations are connected with the wider Earth system.
Assessment
- Unit 1: Through written reflection, students explain how to recognize a glaciated landscape and identify an appropriate proxy tool that would provide relevant data for interpreting the glacial history of a place.
- Unit 2: Using sketch maps and cross-sections, students consider the relationship between glacial advance and retreat and associated landforms over time and space.
- Unit 3: Students use cross-sections and graphs to evaluate whether the changes to glacier length are within the range of natural variability or are a result of anthropogenic forcings.
- Unit 4: Students use QGIS information to envision what the Greenland landscape will look like in the year 2300. Based on this information, they determine locations for future data collection and describe how changes to the physical landscape, as well as to the weather and seasons, will affect the built environment.