GEOG 2RC3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Axial Tilt, Orbital Eccentricity, Homo Sapiens
21 Feb 2017
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Document Summary
Pleistocene is a recent glacial episode that began about 2. 5 million years ago, marking the beginning of the quaternary period. Humanoid species and homo sapiens began to evolve into anatomically modern forms during the. This marks the most recent glacial episode in the northern hemisphere, with ice sheets covering about 30 degrees in latitude (around new york) Global plate distribution is pretty much done and the glaciers have advanced to about 40 degrees. Ice sheets 3 km thick covered parts of canada and europe. There are certain changes to this movement due to the gravitational pull of the sun and moon on the. These contribute to the amount of solar insolation the earth receives and influences about 26,000 year cycles of glaciation. Orbital eccentricity: the departure of the earth"s elliptical orbit from a circular shape. Axial precession: the slow and continuous change in the orientation of earth"s rotational axis.
