The impact of orbital variations on the ice age #

Liam Wheen

10:50 Tuesday in 4Q07.

Part of the Geophysics and climate session.

Abstract #

Earth’s glaciers have been oscillating in volume for millions of years. The exact cause of this is still in question, but it is believed to rely, in some part, on the slow changes in Earth’s orbital parameters changing the incoming solar radiation. We investigate if these variations are enough to cause the glacial cycles on their own, through only simple responses from the ocean and atmosphere to varying solar radiation. To explore this, we produce a linear model of global ice volume and fit the coefficients to ice volume proxy data over the past 800,000 years. This is then compared with other models that require more complex dynamics to produce similar results, supporting the notion that orbital parameters alone could explain the glacial cycles.