glaciation

At regular intervals polar ice caps expand, causing widespread glaciation and causing widespread devastation to the planet's ecosystems.

You may be referring to the ice sheet, but there have been many periods of alpine glaciation in Utah.

However, the adjacent Canadian provinces (Nunavut & Northern Labrador) share many of the same geologic provinces, also without significant glaciation.

Pollen studies carried out within 10 years of the publication of the hypothesis shows that the Arctic was colder during glaciation.

There's also a theory that a period of non-standard warming at the beginning of a glaciation period will possibly cause a faster eventual cooling, and possibly a more severe glaciation, especially in Europe.

However, at peak glaciation during the last ice age, sea levels were only about 130 meters lower than they are today.

Are there any systems out there that simulate the processes that go into forming real landscapes - geology, volcanoes, glaciation, water flow?

We are now in the Pliocene-Quaternary glaciation, which started 2.5 million years ago.

Either the interglacial period is not over yet, or we are actively preventing the next glaciation.

If they don't return to the ocean for a long time due to freezing and glaciation, the ocean has a higher ratio of heavy to light isotopes.

If you surveyed 1,000 climate researchers tomorrow, I'd be surprised if even 1 said that imminent glaciation is more likely than imminent warming.

One could argue that we should push warming to prevent the coming glaciation.

Wikipedia, first hit on Google: "Global cooling was a conjecture during the 1970s of imminent cooling of the Earth's surface and atmosphere culminating in a period of extensive glaciation.

So the landscape that these people would have been living in was still "recovering" from glaciation and may have been quite different to what we see today - which I find fascinating.