Decoding the Space-Time Climate Connection
100,000, 41,000, and 21,000 years
Earth’s history is made up of alternating Glacial and Interglacial Periods.
When ice caps expand inland, the sea levels drop, and the Glacial Period starts.
When ice caps are melting, the sea levels rise, and the Interglacial Period starts.
This alternation is directed by astronomical cycles, operating for millions of years.
They were discovered by a Serbian mathematician and astronomer, Milutin Milankovitch, in the 1920s. He found that astronomical fluctuation controlled climatic variations over Geological Time.
Let’s take a closer look at the key parameters.
Orbital eccentricity
The Earth doesn’t orbit around the sun in a circular path. It’s an eclipse.
But this path isn’t the same over the years. It lengthens (blue) or narrows (black) over a 100,000-year cycle.
Whatever, the distance of the orbit is always the same, so the number of days in a year doesn’t change.
