What is the eccentricity cycle?

What is the eccentricity cycle?

Eccentricity describes the degree of variation of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun from circular to more elliptical. Eccentricity has two main periodicities, one cycle with an average of ~100,000 years and a longer cycle with a periodicity of ~413,000 years.

What caused the ice age to happen?

Over thousands of years, the amount of sunshine reaching Earth changes by quite a lot, particularly in the northern latitudes, the area near and around the North Pole. When less sunlight reaches the northern latitudes, temperatures drop and more water freezes into ice, starting an ice age.

What are the names of the Milankovitch cycles?

The Milankovitch cycles include:

• The shape of Earth’s orbit, known as eccentricity;
• The angle Earth’s axis is tilted with respect to Earth’s orbital plane, known as obliquity; and.
• The direction Earth’s axis of rotation is pointed, known as precession.

What is precession cycle?

Such a motion is called precession and consists of a cyclic wobbling in the orientation of Earth’s axis of rotation with a period of 25,772 years. Precession was the third-discovered motion of Earth, after the far more obvious daily rotation and annual revolution.

What is the Earth’s eccentricity?

The present eccentricity of Earth is e ≈ 0.01671. In the past, it has varied between 0 and ∼0.06. The eccentricity value can be used to compute the difference in the distance from Earth to the Sun between their closest and furthest approaches (perihelion and aphelion); presently, this amounts to 2e ≈ 3.3%.

What causes glacial and interglacial periods?

What causes glacial–interglacial cycles? Variations in Earth’s orbit through time have changed the amount of solar radiation Earth receives in each season. Interglacial periods tend to happen during times of more intense summer solar radiation in the Northern Hemisphere.

Which period is known as ice age?

The Pleistocene Epoch is typically defined as the time period that began about 2.6 million years ago and lasted until about 11,700 years ago, according to Britannica. The most recent Ice Age occurred then, as glaciers covered huge parts of the planet Earth.

What is the cycle of ice ages?

The Earth has been alternating between long ice ages and shorter interglacial periods for around 2.6 million years. For the last million years or so these have been happening roughly every 100,000 years – around 90,000 years of ice age followed by a roughly 10,000 year interglacial warm period.

What happens during an ice age?

Within an ice age are multiple shorter-term periods of warmer temperatures when glaciers retreat (called interglacials or interglacial cycles) and colder temperatures when glaciers advance (called glacials or glacial cycles).

What are the different periods of ice ages called?

Within the ice ages (or at least within the current one), more temperate and more severe periods occur. The colder periods are called glacial periods, the warmer periods interglacials, such as the Eemian Stage.

What type of glacial cycle is Earth currently in?

Earth is currently in the Quaternary glaciation, known in popular terminology as the Ice Age.

What causes an ice age and glacial-interglacial cycles?

What causes an ice age and glacial-interglacial cycles? Many factors contribute to climate variations, including changes in ocean and atmosphere circulation patterns, varying concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide, and even volcanic eruptions.