In order to understand a given law, I was generally obliged to make myself acquainted with the preceding law or condition on which it depended. I remember well that, before I could make headway in physical astronomy... I had to go back and study the laws of motion and the fundamental principles of mechanics. In like manner I studied pneumatics, hyd

It is concluded that changes in the Earth’s orbital geometry are the fundamental cause of Quaternary ice ages. A model of future climate based on the observed orbital-climate relationships... predicts that the long-term trend over the next several thousand years is towards extensive northern-hemisphere glaciation.

Milankovitch reckoned that he started out on the task, when he was thirty-two years old, at exactly the right time: Had I been somewhat younger I would not have possessed the necessary knowledge and experience... Had I been older I would not have had enough of that self-confidence that only youth can offer.

The obvious candidate for that something else was the way water gets locked up in great ice sheets during an Ice Age. When water evaporates, it is easier for the lighter molecules to escape into the air, so the water left behind tends to have a higher proportion of oxygen-18; much of the evaporated water, relatively rich in oxygen-16 compared with

it was while watching the fighting that he suddenly had a flash of insight which showed him the way around the mathematical logjam that had been holding him up. It was a classic example of the way the answer to a problem you have been struggling with can pop into your head once you stop looking for the solution.

The environment suited him down to the ground. ‘I have never been in any place so congenial to me as that institution,’ he wrote. ‘My salary was small, it is true, little more than sufficient to enable me to subsist; but this was compensated by advantages for me of another kind.’ He meant the library, and the peace and quiet, allowing him to give r

South America, moving northward, gradually caught up with North America, so that by about 3 Myr BP the gap between them was closed, and ocean currents that used to flow westward through that gap were being diverted northward as the Gulf Stream, setting up the pattern of circulating ocean currents that we see today. But the drifting continents were

The solution was to drop hollow steel pipes vertically into the sea bed, so that their weight would drive them into the mud. When the pipes were hauled back on board ship, the mud inside the pipe could be extracted as a cylindrical core, with its layered structure intact. Unfortunately, because of the resistance of the water, which stops the pipes

But you can’t have half the north polar icecap; the feedbacks make it an all or nothing choice.