Theme 2: Key Idea 2.4 Climate change - cause and effect — Eduqas GCSE Geography B
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Theme 2: Key Idea 2.4 Climate change - cause and effect explained
Climate has not stayed the same across Earth's long history.
Read the full explanation
Over hundreds of thousands of years the climate has alternated between cold glacial periods, when ice sheets expanded far beyond their present limits and global temperatures fell, and warmer inter-glacial periods, when ice retreated and temperatures rose. The present inter-glacial, the Holocene, has lasted roughly the last 11,700 years and has allowed farming and settled civilisations to develop. Within these long cycles there are shorter fluctuations, such as the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age, showing climate varies naturally at several scales. A good answer distinguishes the long-term glacial-interglacial pattern from shorter-term change and uses evidence such as ice cores, which trap air bubbles recording past atmospheric composition and temperature.
Your focus
- Define glacial and inter-glacial periods accurately.
- Explain that climate has alternated between glacial and inter-glacial phases over long timescales.
- Identify at least one source of evidence for past climate change.
Theme 2: Key Idea 2.4 Climate change - cause and effect exam tips
Marking Points
- Identifies glacial periods as colder phases when ice sheets expanded and global temperatures fell.
- Identifies inter-glacial periods as warmer phases when ice retreated and temperatures rose.
- Describes the alternation between glacial and inter-glacial periods as a long-term natural cycle.
- Recognises that the current warm phase is an inter-glacial period and that shorter fluctuations occur within it.
- Cites a form of evidence, such as ice cores, that records past climate change.
Examiner Tips
- 💡Read the question stem carefully to check whether it asks about glacial, inter-glacial or both.
- 💡Use the terms glacial and inter-glacial precisely rather than writing only 'cold' and 'warm'.
- 💡Link your answer to a named piece of evidence such as ice cores to strengthen it.
Common Mistakes
- Confuses glacial with inter-glacial; remember glacial means colder with more ice and inter-glacial means warmer with less ice.
- Treats climate change as only a recent human-caused event; recognise that natural long-term cycles occurred long before human influence.
- Assumes the whole of Earth's history was uniformly cold; recall that warm inter-glacial phases repeatedly interrupted the cold glacial phases.