Related papers: Why could ice ages be unpredictable?
The length of the solar activity cycle fluctuates considerably. The temporal evolution of the corresponding cycle phase, that is, the deviation of the epochs of activity minima or maxima from strict periodicity, provides relevant…
The provision of accurate methods for predicting the climate response to anthropogenic and natural forcings is a key contemporary scientific challenge. Using a simplified and efficient open-source general circulation model of the atmosphere…
The interpretation of experimental and numerical data describing off-equilibrium aging dynamics crucially depends on the connection between spontaneous and induced fluctuations. The hypothesis that linear response fluctuations are…
Conceptual climate models provide an approach to understanding climate processes through a mathematical analysis of an approximation to reality. Recently, these models have also provided interesting examples of nonsmooth dynamical systems.…
We propose a model for the Pleistocene Ice Age, assuming the following scenario: Between 3 Myr and 11.5 kyr BP a Mars-sized object existed which moved in a highly eccentric orbit. Originating from this object, gas clouds with a complex…
An Earth-analog orbiting within the habitable zone of $\alpha$ Centauri B was shown to undergo large variations in its obliquity, or axial tilt, which affects the planetary climate by altering the radiative flux for a given latitude. We…
Earth's earliest sedimentary record contains evidence that surface temperatures were similar to, or perhaps even warmer than modern. In contrast, standard Solar models suggest the Sun was 25% less luminous at this ancient epoch, implying a…
The role of water ice in the solar system is reviewed from a fluid-dynamical point of view. On Earth and Mars, water ice forms ice sheets, ice caps and glaciers at the surface, which show glacial flow under their own weight. By contrast,…
Comparing paleoclimate time series is complicated by a variety of typical features, including irregular sampling, age model uncertainty (e.g., errors due to interpolation between radiocarbon sampling points) and time uncertainty…
Cyclic sedimentation has varied at several timescales and this variability has been geologically well documented at Milankovitch timescales, controlled in part by climatically (insolation) driven sea-level changes. At the longer (tens of…
We present 33 new mid-eclipse times spanning approximately eight years of the eclipsing polar UZ Fornacis. We have used our new observations to test the two-planet model previously proposed to explain the variations in its eclipse times…
The relaxation dynamics of many disordered systems, such as structural glasses, proteins, granular materials or spin glasses, is not completely frozen even at very low temperatures. This residual motion leads to a change of the properties…
Solar oblateness has been the subject of several studies dating back to the nineteenth century. Despite diffculties, both theoretical and observational, tangible results have been achieved. However, variability of the solar oblateness with…
The obliquity of the Earth, which controls our seasons, varies by only ~2.5 degrees over ~40,000 years, and its eccentricity varies by only ~0.05 over 100,000 years. Nonetheless, these small variations influence Earth's ice ages. For…
The climate change attribution problem is addressed using empirical decomposition. Cycles in solar motion and activity of 60 and 20 years were used to develop an empirical model of Earth temperature variations. The model was fit to the…
The striking asymmetry of the ice cover during the Last Global Maximum suggests that the North Pole was in Greenland and then rapidly shifted to its present position in the Arctic See. A scenario which causes such a rapid geographic polar…
Dynamical friction implies a consistency check on any system where dark matter particles are hypothesised to explain orbital dynamics requiring more mass under Newtonian gravity than is directly detectable. Introducing the assumption of a…
Global Climate Models are key tools for predicting the future response of the climate system to a variety of natural and anthropogenic forcings. Here we show how to use statistical mechanics to construct operators able to flexibly predict…
Extrasolar terrestrial planets with the potential to host life might have large obliquities or be subject to strong obliquity variations. We revisit the habitability of oblique planets with an energy balance climate model (EBM) allowing for…
In the search for life beyond our Solar system, attention should be focused on those planets that have the potential to maintain habitable conditions over the prolonged periods of time needed for the emergence and expansion of life as we…