Scientists have finally resolved a long-standing question about how Earth's orbit controls global ice cycles.
In the first case, this is the angle of the Earth as it moves around the Sun. Because of this, we have different seasons.
Precession is the way the Earth oscillatesrotation. It looks a lot like a slightly off-center spinning top. Depending on the angle, sometimes it turns out that the Northern Hemisphere is closest to the Sun, and in other cases, on the contrary, the Southern Hemisphere. This means that approximately every 10,000 years one hemisphere will have warmer summers, and then vice versa.
Scientists have determined that over the past million years or so, the combined effects of tilt and precession have led to the cycles of ice ages. Their duration is about 100 thousand years.
However, 1 million years ago, during a period known as the early Pleistocene, only the tilt of the Earth controlled the duration of the ice age cycles, and the cycles themselves lasted almost 41,000 years.
The authors of the new work found new evidence,indicating that precession did play a role in the early Pleistocene. Their results show that a more intense precession-driven summer has always led to the melting of the Northern Hemisphere ice sheets, but that 1 million years ago these events were less destructive and did not lead to the complete disappearance of the ice sheets.
The authors note that thanks to this discovery, scientists will finally be able to solve a long-standing problem in paleoclimatology and better understand the dynamics of the Earth's climate.
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