Date:
Wednesday, February 7, 2007.
4:30 PM.


Location: Archaeology Center - Building 500 Seminar Room

Glaciers provide a unique record of climate change.  Ice cores reveal histories of temperature, precipitation, and other environmental variables.  At the timescale of relevance to most historical problems, the interpretation of these records is generally not precise. Glacier advance and retreat provides another sort of climate sensor. The famous "ice man" of the Alps was exposed by glacier retreat due to warming climate, for example.  Ice records are most compelling and dramatic at the longer timescales of the glacial-interglacial climate cycles.  Humans are creatures of the ice-ages.  This long context is an essential aspect of deep-time history.