Activity One - Describe 

As I am sure you are well aware our climate is slowly warming up but this is not a new phenomenon. This relates to the first subunit of Climate Change in Paper Two. Our planets temperature has fluctuated throughout time and this has helped to cause the ice ages as well as the warm period we are currently experiencing. Watch the short clip below and describe the long term global trend in warming temperatures.

Useful Resource

Activity Two - Glacial Changes

Before we even begin to look at the different types of landforms a glacier can create we need to start with the basics and understand what glacier actually is, how it changes in mass and how it can move. Ultimately a glacier is just a slow moving body of ice very similar to a river just a much larger scale. Answer the questions below.

• • 1. How does a glacier actually form? Use the links in the 'Useful Resources' box to help you.

    2. Watch the youtube clip below and write notes on how glaciers move and how they help to shape the landscape.

    3. You defined what a system is for physical geography at the beginning of the lesson, now draw a systems diagram for a glacier.

    4. Using the image showing glacial mass change, describe the changes in glaical mass that have occurred from 2000 to 2023.

The Data

• "Glaciers lost 5% of their total volume between 2000 and 2023, averaging 273 billion tonnes a year

• The melt rate rose 36% in 2012 to 2023 compared with the first half of the period

• Glaciers contributed 18% more to sea level rise than the Greenland Ice Sheet and more than twice the Antarctic Ice Sheet

• Central Europe lost 39%, the highest of any region. New Zealand lost over a third. Alaska lost the largest absolute volume, 22% of the global total

• The world's glaciers hold enough water to raise sea level by 32 cm" 

• Swiss glaciers lot 10% of their total volume in 2022 and 2023 alone, the worst two years on record. 

• 1,000 Swiss glaciers have already disappeared and the melting is accelerating. 

• 2025 was the UN International Year of Glaciers' Preservation and 21st March is now the World Day for Glaciers. (AI summarised)

Useful Resources

Geology - Glaciers

Glaciers in Retreat - photo images for Switzerland

Activity Three - Desert Changes

As you have seen in the previous activity glaciers can advance and retreat and the same is true for our arid regions. Desertification is the process of desert expansion often due to a lack of rain but humans can also be to blame. Desertification is an important process to study as it could have severe impacts to human habitation and on our levels of malnutrition. "77.6% of Earth's land experienced drier conditions in the three decades to 2020 compared with the previous thirty years. 4.3 million km² of humid land became dryland, an area nearly a third larger than India. 2.3 billion people now live in drylands, up from 1.15 billion in 1990, and this could reach 5 billion by 2100. Europe is among the worst affected, at 95.9% of its land area." (AI summarised).

Answer the questions below: 

• • 1. By watching the youtube clip above and reading the two articles in the 'Useful Resources' box, describe the natural and human causes of desertification.

    2. Using image four, describe which areas of the world are vulnerable to desertification.

 Useful Resources