Milankovitch cycles
Ciclos de Milankovitch
- Date
- 1920-1941 / confirmado 1976 · confidence high
- Place
- Belgrade, Serbia
- Credited to
- Milutin Milanković; confirmed by Hays, Imbrie and Shackleton (1976)
- People
- 👤 John Imbrie1925–2016👤 Milutin Milanković1879–1958👤 Nicholas Shackleton1937–2006
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
Milanković calculated how variations in the eccentricity, obliquity and precession of Earth's orbit (cycles of 100,000, 41,000 and 23,000 years) modulate insolation and trigger glaciations. Marine sediments confirmed it in 1976.
Place where Milanković developed his calculations over decades, including while a prisoner in the First World War.
What it led to
- Astronomical theory of the ice ages
- Orbital time scale for stratigraphy
- Understanding of the glacial-interglacial alternation
Built on
- Ice ages and continental glaciation1837-1840
- Astronomical theory of the ice ages (Croll)1864
- Oxygen-isotope palaeothermometry (Urey and Emiliani)1947-1955
- Ice ages (Agassiz)
- Croll's orbital hypothesis (1864)
Made possible
- Astrochronology
- Cyclostratigraphy