Milankovitch Cycles

Milankovitch cycles are the periodic variations in Earth's orbital eccentricity, axial tilt and precession that, over tens to hundreds of thousands of years, change the amount and distribution of sunlight Earth receives and are believed to be a major driver of the timing of ice ages. Named for the Serbian geophysicist Milutin Milanković, who worked out the mathematics of these cycles in the early twentieth century, the theory links three distinct orbital rhythms, roughly 100,000 years for eccentricity, 41,000 years for axial tilt, and about 26,000 years for precession, to the pattern of glacial and interglacial periods recorded in ice cores and ocean sediments. While the cycles set the pacing of climate change over these timescales, the resulting temperature swings are amplified by feedback effects such as changes in ice cover and greenhouse gas concentrations.