This aspect of palaeoclimatology is particularly difficult to attack with confidence. The expression of climate in landforms and earth materials splits conveniently into a range of phenomena involving ice and those which do not. This overwhelming concern with ice can become a little trying to those of us who live in landscapes where ice has had aminimal role to play at timescales relevant to this course. Nevertheless there are areas of ice affected landscape in Australia and it is as well not ignore ice entirely. The ice is usually clean and blueish with little included sediment, reflecting a relative lack of scouring ability .
Polar glaciers have a very gentle relationship with the landscape.
Generate large amounts of outwash material. Survival requires temperatures below 0 o C but insufficent mass balance to travel far from source. Melted cirque glaciers leave behind a distinctive hollow morphology which can be recognised in a landscape. Provide good indication of position of 0 o C isotherm at the time thre cirque was occupied by ice. See temperature reconstructions from PNG and southeastern Australia.