Which mechanism causes glacial cirques to form on preferred mountain aspects?

💡 Explanation

When mountain aspects face away from the sun, enhanced freeze-thaw weathering cycles occur because repeated freezing/thawing fractures the rock releasing it. This creates the bowl shape of a cirque. Therefore, freeze-thaw weathering causes cirques, rather than wind scouring, solar impacts, or differential rock resistance which rely on other factors.

• Which outcome on land results from aeolian deposition?
• Which atmospheric effect results from collision of air masses along subtropical high-pressure belts?
• Which outcome occurs when excessive agricultural irrigation destabilizes poorly consolidated loess deposits?
• Which effect increases when humid air flows poleward?
• Which outcome occurs when prolonged volcanic fissure eruptions saturate sloping terrain?
• Which process significantly weakens the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) when Arctic ice melt accelerates?