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Predictable ice ages on a chaotic planet

Nature volume 542, pages 419–420 (2017)Cite this article

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Statistical analysis has revealed a simple rule for the occurrence of warm periods during the Quaternary, whereas on much longer timescales geological data have confirmed that the Solar System is chaotic. See Article p.427 & Letter p.468

Ice ages are paced by astronomical changes. However, a persistent difficulty has been to explain the dominant 100,000-year climate cycle observed1 during the past million years. On page 427, Tzedakis et al.2 report a model that links variations in Earth's orbit to the observed sequence of interglacials. On page 468, Ma et al.3 demonstrate that astronomical imprints on Earth's past climate can be used to probe the long-term evolution of the Solar System.

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Figure 1: Melting an ice sheet.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Didier Paillard is in the Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences, Centre d'Etudes de Saclay, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France.,

    Didier Paillard

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  1. Didier Paillard
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Correspondence to Didier Paillard.

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Paillard, D. Predictable ice ages on a chaotic planet. Nature 542, 419–420 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/542419a

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