Definition
The long-term variations of climate display periods characteristic of three astronomical parameters which are the eccentricity (which fixes the shape of the Earth’s orbit), obliquity (the tilt of the equatorial plane on the plane of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun), and climatic precession (a measure of the distance from the Earth to the Sun at the summer solstice). Their main periods of variations are 400 and 100 kyr for eccentricity, 41 kyr for obliquity, and 23 and 19 kyr for precession.
Introduction
As in the astronomical theory of paleoclimates the glacial-interglacial cycles are of primary interest, this entry focuses on the long-term variations of the astronomical parameters which are involved in the calculation of the energy received by the Earth from the Sun (here called incoming solar radiation or insolation) at time scales of tens to hundreds of thousands of years.
These are the eccentricity, e, obliquity, ε, and climatic precession, \( e\ \sin \tilde{\omega} \),...
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Berger, A. (2015). Astronomical Frequencies in Paleoclimates. In: Harff, J., Meschede, M., Petersen, S., Thiede, J. (eds) Encyclopedia of Marine Geosciences. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6644-0_215-2
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Astronomical Frequencies in Paleoclimates- Published:
- 09 March 2015
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6644-0_215-2
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Astronomical Frequencies in Paleoclimates- Published:
- 12 February 2014
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6644-0_215-1