Talk - The Wonky Wheel of Eccentricity, and how it drives the Ice Ages

Friday 13th February 2015, 7:30 pm, Ely Museum

Simon Crowhurst, Dept. of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge

The great oscillations between warm interglacials and cold glacials in Earth's planetary climate over the last million years have occurred in pace with the periodicities of Earth's major orbital cycles: eccentricity, obliquity, and precession. A long-running problem for the Milankovitch theory - which states that climate cycles are paced by the planetary orbital configuration - has been that the difference in the radiation budget associated with the longest of these cycles - orbital eccentricity - appears too weak to explain its dramatic climate impact. New data obtained in Cambridge from the southern ocean suggests that there may be a more integrated way of understanding how our planet has responded to this orbital component; and this may be relevant to understanding the effects of eccentricity on other planets, and their moons.


The Vernon Cross Meeting Room is part of a self-contained wing at the back of the museum. The address is: The Old Gaol, Market Street, Ely, CB7 4LS. Note: the meeting room has it own entrance, at the back of the museum. The museum itself will be locked at night. The museum is at the top of Market Street, on the corner with Lynn Road. The council car park, next to the museum and meeting room entrance, should be available for public use in the evening. The St Mary's St. and Nutholt Lane public car parks are nearby. http://www.elymuseum.org.uk/