• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Ice; permafrost
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.122.2009; http://www.jaea.go.jp/04/tisou/english/h12report/s01/pdf/02-06-01.pdf

2.6 Climatic and sea-level changes Global changes in climate and sea-level have been repeated cyclically, taking the form of expansion and reduction of ice-sheets throughout the Quaternary period. Climatic and sealevel changes affect geological environments in various ways, such as a change in rock properties exemplified by the formation of permafrost caused by low temperatures in glacial epochs. Water recharge will be changed by fluctuations in temperature and precipitation. Denudation processes are also affected by varying temperature, precipitation and vegetation. In addition, the migration of coastlines is expected to bring about a shift of the saltwaterfreshwater interface. It is important to predict the extent to which these climate-related effects may affect the stability of the deep geological environment in the future. This section summarizes the past rate and magnitude of climatic and sea-level changes around the Japanese islands. At the same time it evaluates the periodicity of these changes to provide a basis for predicting future changes. In addition, some specific cases of geological environmental changes due to climatic and sea-level fluctuations are discussed.