Concepts
Milankovitch Cycles
mi-lan-KOH-vitch
Also Known As Astronomical Theory of Climate Change
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The collective effects of cyclical changes in Earth's orbit and axial tilt on its climate over tens of thousands of years, named for the Serbian geophysicist Milutin Milankovic, who gave the theory its definitive quantitative form in the 1920s. The cycles are the accepted pacemaker of the Pleistocene's glacial and interglacial swings.
Facts
Origin YearMilutin Milankovic provided his definitive quantitative analysis during the 1920s. Cross-Tradition Connections
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The timing of Pleistocene glacial cycles follows the orbital variations Milankovitch quantified.
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Open Questions (1 open question)
Why Does the 100,000-Year Ice Age Cycle Dominate When Its Orbital Forcing Is Weak?
Milankovitch's own theory identifies the roughly 41,000-year obliquity cycle as the strongest orbital forcing on high-latitude summer sunlight, yet ice age cycles over the last million years have paced at roughly 100,000 years, matching the far weaker eccentricity cycle instead. This mismatch between the strength of the forcing and the size of the climate response is known as the 100,000-year problem.
What would resolve this A mechanism, such as an internal ice-sheet or carbon-cycle feedback, frequency modulation, or a stochastic-resonance effect, that amplifies the weak eccentricity signal into a full glacial cycle, confirmed against the detailed timing of the ice-core and ocean-sediment record.
PaleoclimatologyMilankovitch Cycles (Wikipedia)
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