Climate Change - Earth's orbit

This page presents notes on scientific published articles related to Earth's orbit.

Article: "Orbital Forcing of the Marine Isotope Stage 9 Interglacial." Data from coral reefs formed 330,000 and 630,000 years ago confirm the Milankovitch model of climate change: that glacial-interglacial cycles are driven by periodic changes in July solar insolation at 65o N, caused by predictable variations in Earth's orbit. Source: Science, Volume 291, Number 5502. Date: 2001 January 12

Article: "Climate Response to Orbital Forcing Across the Oligocene - Miocene Boundary." Orbital forcing of climate leads, and perhaps drives, changes in the ocean carbon budget. Persistent and strong link between Earth's orbit eccentricity forcing and climatic response. Source: Science, Volume 292, Number 5515. Date: 2001 April 13

Article: "Direct Determination of the Timing of Sea Level Change During Terminiation 11." Sea level 136,000 years ago was 18 metres below present sea level; 168,000 years ago was 38 metres below. These are in conflict with Milankovitch theory predictions of orbital forcing of glacial cycles. Source: Science, Volume 295, Number 5553. Date: 2002 January 11

Article: "El Nino-Like Pattern in Ice Age Tropical Pacific Sea Surface Temperature." Sea surface temperatures of the eastern equatorial Pacific exert powerful controls on global atmospheric circulation patterns. Sea surface temperatures varied consistently with Earth's orbital precession-induced changes in seasonality during past 30,000 years. Source: Science, Volume 297, Number 5579. Date: 2002 July 12

Article: "Links between annual, Milankovitch and continuous temperature variability." Surface temperature variability on an annual cycle scales to monthly and decadal periods. Millenial and longer periods scale with Milankovitch cycles (23,000 and 41,000 years). Oceans may represent a "memory" of high-frequency variability to pregressively larger and longer-period variations. Source: Nature, Volume 441, Number 7091. Date: 2006 May 18

Article: "The Pliocene Paradox (Mechanisms for a Permanent El Nino)." 3 to 5 million years ago, globally averaged temperatures were substantially higher than today, atmospheric carbon dioxide was similar, but surface temperature at poles was higher that Northern Hemisphere had no continental glaciers. Amplification of response of climate to orbital forcing began 3 million years ago, resulting in drastic oscillations between ice ages and warmer periods over the past 1 million years. El Nino was continual rather than intermittent up to 3 million years ago. A persistence of high carbon dioxide concentrations could result in return to globally warm world. Source: Science, Volume 312, Number 5779. Date: 2006 June 9

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Last updated: 2007 Nov 24.
Global Warming and Climate Change
Copyright (C) 2007 Ken Polsson (email: kpolsson@islandnet.com)
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