Natural cycles in Earth's rotational axis and its orbit around the sun drive climatic changes, and now researchers have matched up specific points in those cycles to the timing of ice ages.

Earth naturally cycles between ice ages and warm periods based on three astronomical cycles: precession (Earth’s wobble), obliquity (tilt), and eccentricity (orbit shape). Scientists can now ...

Earth's history is a roller-coaster of climate fluctuations, of relative warmth giving way to frozen periods of glaciation before rising up again to the more temperate climes we experience today.

For the study, the researchers plotted known changes in obliquity and precession over the past 800,000 years. They also plotted the expansion and retreat of ice sheets during this period using ...

The findings highlight the roles of precession, obliquity, and eccentricity – factors influencing the tilt and movement of Earth's axis, and the shape of Earth's orbit around the Sun – in ...

The subtle changes in orbit (eccentricity), the planet’s inclination compared to the orbit (obliquity), and the change in the direction of Earth’s rotational axis (precession) were possible ...

Solar radiation received at low-latitude is principally affected by variations in the cumulative effect of eccentricity and precession ... affected by changes in obliquity. Since the Earth ...

A pattern of encroaching and retreating ice sheets during and between ice ages has been shown to match certain orbital parameters of Earth around the sun, leading to researchers being able to ...