Abrupt changes and the astronomical theory of climate?

Denis-Didier Rousseau (1, 2, 3) , Witold Bagniewski (2) , Michael Ghil (2)

1 LDEO - Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
2 LMD - Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (UMR 8539)
3 Géosciences Montpellier

The past 3.2 Myr have seen drastic climate changes with the development, waxing and waning of huge continental ice sheets over the Northern Hemisphere. These striking phenomena have been observed in various records from ice cores, as well as marine and terrestrial sediments. These proxy records showed periodicities associated with the three orbital parameters that affect our planet's insolation, namely eccentricity, obliquity and precession. Until recently, these periodicities were considered as the canonical ones for the Quaternary Period and beyond. However, the improvement of the time resolution of available records has allowed one to describe climate changes occurring abruptly and with periodicities that are not related to those of the orbital parameters. In this paper, we show that, in fact, these abrupt climate changes may still be related, albeit indirectly, to the astronomical theory of climate.

Keywords: Abrupt climate changes; Astronomical theory; ice sheets; Dansgaard-Oeschger events; Bond cycles

Domains: Environmental Sciences; Global Changes

Denis-Didier Rousseau, Witold Bagniewski, Michael Ghil. Abrupt changes and the astronomical theory of climate?. 2021. ⟨insu-03299662v1⟩