A-Level Geography: Periglacial Landscapes and Cold Environments

Cold environments are part of the glacial option in A level Geography: AQA's 'Glacial systems and landscapes', for example, includes the distribution of cold environments, periglacial processes and landforms, and human impacts on fragile cold environments. This material covers the periglacial half of that content and its human side.

It starts with permafrost. You learn how continuous permafrost gives way to discontinuous and then sporadic permafrost towards warmer latitudes, what the active layer is and why it matters, and how a talik can survive beneath a deep lake. From there the processes follow: frost heave and frost sorting, frost shattering, and solifluction, which is most active in early summer because the thawed, saturated active layer sits on impermeable frozen ground.

The landform questions describe features in words so you learn their diagnostic evidence. You distinguish open-system pingos, fed by groundwater under pressure in discontinuous permafrost, from closed-system pingos formed in drained lake basins; recognise ice wedges from thermal contraction cracks, patterned ground from sorted stones, blockfields from angular local boulders, and thermokarst from the collapse of ground as ice melts.

The final section turns to people. A heated building on ice-rich ground tilts as the permafrost beneath it thaws; engineering answers include piles with an air gap, gravel pads and thermosyphons, and pipelines raised on supports. You consider how climate change deepens the active layer, damages infrastructure and releases stored carbon, and how international agreements, such as the Antarctic Treaty system with its ban on military activity and mineral resource activities, attempt to protect the most fragile cold environments.

The material offers a quiz with explanations, flashcards for landforms, processes and management techniques, a printable written sheet of explanations and evaluations, and an oral exam in which an examiner asks one question at a time and gives brief feedback at the end. Glacier budgets, ice movement and glacial landforms are covered in a separate material in this category.

• Describe the distribution of continuous, discontinuous and sporadic permafrost
• Explain the active layer, taliks and ground ice
• Explain frost heave, frost shattering and solifluction
• Identify pingos, ice wedges, patterned ground, blockfields and thermokarst from their characteristics
• Explain human impacts on permafrost and the engineering responses
• Evaluate the effects of climate change and the management of fragile cold environments

Practice material written by Zestly, based on board specifications for the glaciated landscapes option, such as AQA A-level Geography 7037, sections 3.1.4.2 (cold environments), 3.1.4.3–3.1.4.4 (periglacial features and processes, periglacial landforms) and 3.1.4.5 (human impacts on cold environments).