Milankovitch Cycles and Climate Variations

Dr. Peter Carter, Paul Beckwith and Regina Valdez discuss the Milankovitch cycles which drive natural climate variations taking place over periods ranging from approximately 20,000 to 400,000 years.

This video was recorded on January 25th, 2023, and published on February 19th, 2023, and represents the opinions of the discussion participants.

Some of the topics discussed:
- The man who discovered the cycles is Milutin Milanković,whose name is commonly Anglicised as Milankovitch and the work he did in the 1920s.
- How the Milankovitch cycles drive a natural variation in the Earth’s climate over 100,000 year cycles through three main factors affecting the movement of the Earth being eccentricity, tilt and precession.
- How Milankovitch’s work was influenced by the work on ice cores and on sediment cores in the ocean floor that showed there had been periods of warming and periods of cooling.
- How Richard Alley was one of the leading names with respect to research being done on ice cores which have given us a way to determine the Earth’s temperature from before we had thermometers and how these indirect methods of determining temperatures in the distant past are referred to as proxies.
- How CO2 concentrations have never gone higher than 300 parts per million in the past 1.5 million years and how methane never went above 800 parts per billion.
- How Milankovitch, one of Serbia's most famous persons, is still in the shadow of Nikola Tesla.
- and much more. . .

Links:
- Milankovitch cycles

- Global Warming - Milankovitch Cycles

- Milutin Milancović

- World Meteorlogical Organization

Panelists:
Dr. Peter Carter - MD, Expert IPCC Reviewer and the director of the Climate Emergency Institute

Paul Beckwith - Climate Systems Scientist. Professor at the University of Ottawa in the Paleoclimatology Laboratory as well as at Carleton University

Regina Valdez - Program Director, Climate Reality Project, NYC. GreenFaith Fellow and LEED Green Associate

Video Production:
Charles Gregoire - Electrical Engineer, Webmaster and IT prime for FacingFuture.Earth & the Climate Emergency Forum; Climate Reality Leader

Heidi Brault - Video production and website assistant, Organizer and convener, Metadata technician, COP28 team lead for FacingFuture.Earth and the Climate Emergency Forum; BA (Psychology); Climate Reality Leader

Our Website:

Attributions:
Background Music:
- Title: Through the City II
- Author: Crowander
- Source: Free Music Archive
- License: CC BY-NC 4.0

#earth #climatechange #climate

[voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang]

This is actually my favorite Paul Beckwith vid since he mainly likes to reguritate factoids - and so he does a good job on the Milankovitch cycle since his reguritation is focused on one specific tightly woven topic. thanks

[Seawithinyou]

Thank you sincerely for this great informative video from Aotearoa 💖🌏

[critiqueofthegothgf]

this might come across as ironic or facetious but this was interestingly inspiring to me. Milankovitch's personal story is a testament to perseverance and the pursuit of truth, which is something I only hope to emulate

[teethompson]

This is great!
Deniers are always bringing up Milankovitch. If they even bothered to learn the facts maybe they could get on board with finding solutions and not contributing to the problem.
Thank you for your endless efforts in combating our climate crisis.

[voteutah]

Very much appreciated. I have long been looking for a deeper explanation of this phenomenon.

[singingway]

The other important tip I have for scientists, when communicating to the public: you can say "as long as humans have been on the planet." It can help a lot of people to "get it, " if you dispense with numbers. Say "as long as humans have been on the planet parts-per-million have been under 300. Until 1900. And in five generations of humans they've risen to 420." It helps if you personalize it too. You can say: think of someone in your family, an ancestor who was born in 1900. That person was in the last generation of humans EVER to be born at the same parts-per-million that all humans, back to the beginning of humans, had also lived under."

[rajendratayya]

Thinking is very difficult. Therefore following the natural polarities is the only to be secure for our common purpose.

[annal]

Greetings from Sweden! Thank you so much for your great work and your passion. Today I just have to ask you REGINA, is that a quilt you have to your left?! Is gorgeous!!!
/ a quilt nerd 😊

[whatabouttheearth]

I can't see a picture of Milankovitch anymore without think about the hilarious video on climate change on UpIsNotJump here on YouTube

[voltrevolt]

Thanks for the vid, learned something new as always. The increase in human-generated emissions and global heating track tightly together, as you've documented many times -- it seems downright unscientific to blame it on the Milankovitch cycle.

[bradleywinter]

There are cycles or circles and there are circles within circles (aikido style) but I'm not dwelling on that. Even if there's no problem now, there will be in the future. You guys are on the right thinking trajectory, we do have to clean up our act, absolutely.

[gregroberts]

Just a few points for context:
1. Pre-industrial CO2 levels were around 280 ppm, and today we are at 420 ppm. The increase is almost exclusively man-made.
2. Ice core samples go back 800, 000 years and for that period CO2 varied from 170 ppm to 300 ppm. Again, more evidence that the levels of CO2 are artificially high now for this period, but not high compared to full history of the planet.
3. So what are the pros for this increase. Fossil fuels is what drives our economy, and probably will for the next 50 years as renewable energy proves to be unable to replace them. And in the meantime, plant life is thriving!
4. Minimum level of CO2 required for plant growth is 150 ppm. This is a number that we have approached during the years measured by ice core samples.
5. Ideal CO2 levels for plant growth is 1000 ppm (something that we are no where near currently).
6. CO2 is regularly added to greenhouses to create much higher yields, especially when growing vegetables.
7. Far more people die from extreme cold than from extreme heat.
8. While Fusion Reactors are always “30 yrs away”, it does appear that that saying may finally be coming to an end, and it’s only a matter of time before we won’t be be burning as many fossil fuels. So it’s a little dishonest to believe that CO2 levels will continue to increase until it kills the planet.

Yes, I know these statements will get me labeled as a “climate denier”. Isn’t that how science is supposed to work? The man-made climate movement is more political at this point than it is scientific. If we want to bring it back to the science, you need to be open to all the science, not just the science that plays to the narrative. And when you open your mind to the other side, you might just start to realize that the world will survive man’s activity just fine.

[TacoBellMexicanPizza]

Siberian traps lasted a million years just fed methane gas non stop for a million years all we can do is enjoy are precious moments on earth keep up the great work

[Rossion]

Im glad you addressed this. I'm always hearing this from deniers. (PS, I notice you have the Pali canon on your shelf! I only have the suttanipata.)

[TacoBellMexicanPizza]

The ice caps drilling in the artic and soil samples does prove earth has had cold periods and drought before humanity and it is going back millions of years of data it's breath taking

[singingway]

I am a climate educator. The most important thing for scientists to communicate to the public is that the warming we are seeing is exactly opposite of "natural cycles." I am surprised that you didn't make this clear. Scientists don't talk about this because they don't think it's relevant since Milankovitch cycles are so long. But guess who IS talking about it? The Denier Campaign. When people tell me "it's natural cycles" I ask them what ARE the "natural cycles" which make Earth's climate? They have no idea. When I explain Milankovitch cycles and then say "a more circular orbit creates a more calm climate, whereas a more elliptical orbit creates a more varied and wild climate. Which one do you think we are in now?" They answer "well we are seeing a lot of extreme climate effects so our orbit must be in the elliptical part of the cycle." They get an ah-ha moment when I tell them that we are actually more in a circular orbit at the moment, and that by Milankovich cycles, Earth would normally be in a slightly cooling phase, right now, if we had not poured excess greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, then we would have been in a Goldilocks (not too hot not too cold) climate for many thousands of more years (ten thousand I think?). This is the point that needs to be emphasized. Because this is the point that denier campaign is exploiting. That it's not only NOT natural cycles, IT'S EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE OF NATURAL CYCLES THAT WE ARE SEEING HAPPEN RIGHT NOW.

[Budguy]

So what percentage of climate change is due to natural occurrences such as the Milankovitch cycle? Or to what extent is it affecting our climate..?

[Lichenlikenedlich]

wait- so we're 420 ppm blazing it?

[terenceiutzi]

Between the dark ages and the Medevil warm period tempuratures rose 4 degrees then they dropped 6 during the Maunder minimum . 1850 was the coldest point in the Maunder Minnimum and the only time that halifax Harbor has frozen and our temperatures are still far below the Medevil warm period when northern Scotland was coverd in vinyards and winerys.

[danasaylor]

I appreciate your contribution to the understanding of climate variations, especially in light of the pseudo science being espoused by climate alarmists.