The cause of the glacial cycles remains a mystery. The origin is widely accepted to be astronomical since paleoclimatic archives contain strong spectral components that match the frequencies of Earth's orbital modulation. Milankovitch insolation theory contains similar frequencies and has become established as the standard model of the glacial cycles. However, high precision paleoclimatic data have revealed serious discrepancies with the Milankovitch model that fundamentally challenge its validity and re-open the question of what causes the glacial cycles. We propose here that the ice ages are initially driven not by insolation cycles but by cosmic ray changes, probably through their effect on clouds. This conclusion is based on a wide range of evidence, including results presented here on speleothem growth in caves in Austria and Oman, and on a record of cosmic ray flux over the past 220 kyr obtained from the 10Be composition of deep-ocean sediments.
Quantitative implications of the secondary role of carbon dioxide climate forcing in the past glacial-interglacial cycles for the likely future climatic impacts of anthropogenic greenhouse-gas forcings
Stochastic coupling of climate variables and ice volume over the Late Pleistocene glacial cycles
Nordita, KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Stockholm University（诺尔迪塔，瑞典皇家理工学院和斯德哥尔摩大学）；Department of Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology（麻省理工学院数学系）；Departments of Mathematics, Earth & Planetary Sciences, and Physics, Yale University（耶鲁大学数学、地球与行星科学及物理系）
Galactic Cosmic Rays - Clouds Effect and Bifurcation Model of the Earth Global Climate. Part 2. Comparison of Theory with Experiment
将地球全球气候能量平衡模型的解与EPICA Dome C和东方号实验观测的420和740 kyr以来地表古温度演化资料进行了比较。在所提出的分岔模型的框架下，（1）从理论上论证了末次冰期可能的Dansgaard-Oeschger型随机共振急剧变暖;（ii）提出了大气中水的气候敏感性概念，其温度不稳定性具有所谓的滞后回线形式，在此基础上，得到了近100万年来全球冰量的时间序列，与海洋沉积物中δ O-18浓度的时间序列吻合较好;（3）讨论了所谓的“CO2倍增”问题
