Looking at the last glacial cycle (Wisconsinan), last ca. 150,000 years:
What sorts of proxy evidence are used to understand global responses to ice volume?
E.G. Loess (where?), dust, tree pollen, plankton

What was the relationship between changes in ice volume and carbon dioxide in the atomosphere during this time?

What may have caused abrupt deglaciations (terminations)?

What was the world like during the Last Glacial Maximum (ca. 21,000 years B.P.?)
Think in terms of sea level, sea surface temperatures, ice volume, insolation, CO2
Desert dust, glacial loess, winds, Pleistocene lakes, vegetation
What happened to the Polar Jet Stream during this time?

During Deglaciation,
What happened to Sea level?
What was the Younger Dryas?
Positive feedbacks in ice sheet melting?
Peak in Insolation, why? when?
Enhanced monsoons
Isostatic Rebound of land masses -- effects on local sea level
Eustatic Sea Level rise -- how much, and when?
What are projections for next Glacial?

Possible causes of Millennial Oscillations in Climate
Evidence: Ice rafted glacial debris in North Atlantic, pollen records, ocean plankton
Oscillations of ice margins, see Fig. 15-18, p. 346, Fig. 15-20, p. 348

Little Ice Age, evidence, Little Climatic Optimum
tree rings, delta 18O in ice cores, corals
El Nino-Southern Oscillations
Sunspots? Maunder Minimum

Human Impact on Climate
Origin of Agriculture
Extinctions of Pleistocene megafauna -- theories
Impacts of humans on atmosphere, last 250 years
carbon dioxide, methane, sources & sinks

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