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In retrospect

Forty years of linking orbits to ice ages

Nature volume 540, pages 208–209 (2016)Cite this article

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In 1976, it was demonstrated that tiny wobbles in Earth's orbit led to the great ice-age cycles of the past few million years. This finding had wide implications for climate science and the details remain hotly debated today.

Forty years ago, Hays, Imbrie and Shackleton1 published one of the most influential papers in the study of Earth's past climate. The authors showed that variations in Earth's orbital path around the Sun were the pacemaker of the great ice ages in the Quaternary period (the current geological period, which began about 2.6 million years ago). Their study is a beautiful example of how three exceptional scientists worked together to robustly test a controversial theory, thereby allowing us to understand the fundamental causes of the ice ages and to peer into the future to see whether humanity has disrupted these natural cycles.

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Figure 1: Milankovitch cycles.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mark Maslin is in the Department of Geography, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK.,

    Mark Maslin

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Correspondence to Mark Maslin.

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Maslin, M. Forty years of linking orbits to ice ages. Nature 540, 208–209 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/540208a

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