Ice Ages and Astronomical Causes

Data, spectral analysis and mechanisms

Richard A Muller and Gordon J Macdonald

"This book is a joy to read. The authors’ enthusiasm for the subject permeates nearly every page. The numerous examples they present will be of tremendous help to students and professionals in their efforts to sort out competing explanations for the cyclicity of the Pleistocene ice ages."

Isaac J. Winograd, US Geological Survey, Reston, VA

• Glaciers are driven by changes in the Earth’s orbit, but how?
• Why did the last ice age end, and when will the next one begin?
• How can we predict climate, until we understand past climate?

Ice Ages and Astronomical Causes is concerned with one of the most active interdisciplinary areas of the present day, with new discoveries and data emerging all the time. This information must be carefully and rigorously analysed using sophisticated mathematical techniques, and the authors successfully explain both the data and the methods of analysis. The book combines a theoretical presentation of the methods with practical instructions and numerous Matlab recipes that will make it of the greatest use to the practising geologist and paleoclimatologist.

Ice Ages and Astronomical Causes provides a foundation for students and professionals who want answers to questions about the Earth’s past which will then help to predict what is to come.

Table of Contents:

Preface
Foreword by Walter Alvarez
Acknowledgements
1. Brief introduction to
2. Astronomy
3. Spectral analysis
4. Climate proxies
5. Time scale and tuning
6. Mechanisms, models and theories
7. Accretion climate models
8. Evidence
9. Status of our understanding?
Appendix 1: Bispectal analysis
Appendix 2: Matlab programs
Appendix 3: Maximum entropy plots
Appendix 4: Websites for data
References
Index

Extent: 336 pages
Binding: hardback
Publication Date: August 2000
ISBN: 978-3-540-43779-6

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