Deserts, Glaciers and Climate

Glaciers and other polar features have started becoming more and more relevant in modern society due to Global Warming. Global Warming is described as an intense change in the globes climate. At first, most scientist were skeptical about the effects of Global Warming, mostly because of the heavy personal and political impacts that would result in accepting the problematic and troublesome truth, but as time goes on, scientists and normal people alike are beginning to understand just how important the effects of Global Warming are to our planet.

Earths climate is multifaceted and intricate. It has so many different parts working together harmoniously to create the climate that we experience on a daily basis. The Earth's climate could be described as a complex weather network. Because there are so many factors that influence the climate (both natural and human caused), there are numerous variations of weather that occur.

Human beings have played a very large role in the climate changes of the globe. There are many things we do on a daily basis that adversely affect our planet. We use coal burning plants and in some countries there is wide use of coal burning stoves which contributes CO2 emissions as well as other pollutants that trap greenhouse gases and warm the climate. Deforestation is also an important way humans affect the climate. By clearing large areas of trees, especially in the rainforest, we prevent the trees from converting carbon in the atmosphere into oxygen. Therefore it just builds on itself and again creates a greenhouse effect. Landfills and large cattle farms are another way, cattle and landfills give off quite a bit of methane gas which is another greenhouse gas. Car exhaust as well contributes to greenhouse gases. Overpopulation as well, because more land is being cleared to house and feed people which means less land for trees and we also have to supply more energy, which is mostly coal derived energy, to so many people.

It is important to understand how the Earth's climate has changed historically, even when the planet was without human population. Over the last 60 million years, the planets average temperature and overall climate has varied dramatically. Climate change is a normal process for the world that we live in. So who's to say that what we are doing (coal, deforestation, etc) is even having that much of an effect when we look at things in the big picture. In reality, over twenty different ice ages have occurred through-out the history of the planet without the assistance of human beings. It has been predicted that earth will experience an additional ice age in about 50,000 years (Murck, 2008), with or without our help.

Two different places that experience the most extreme results of climate change are the desert and glacial landscapes. These two different landscapes could not seem more different. Visually these landscapes are stunningly dissimilar, glacial landscapes have till, drumlins, moraines, eskers, kames, kettles glacial valleys, hanging valleys, cirques, and horns. Desert landscapes have an abundance sand, alluvial fans, playas, oases, arroyos, and salty deposits. The agent of erosion in the desert areas is mostly Eolian, (wind). Wind moves and forms sand features through surface creep, saltation, and suspension. This free flowing air forms the land with the processes of abrasion and deflation.

The agent of erosion in the glacial landscape is mostly the movement and melting of ice. The advance and retreat of glaciers is a huge factor in the formation of this frozen landscape. As the glaciers move across the landscape, they scrape it and this helps shape the landscape (makes smooth hills and bedrock outcrops like whale backs, makes striations, etc.). The glacier routinely deposits sediments