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The 100,000-Year Ice-Age Cycle Identified and Found to Lag Temperature, Carbon Dioxide, and Orbital Eccentricity
Nicholas J. Shackleton
The deep-sea sediment oxygen isotopic composition
(18O) record is dominated by a 100,000-year cyclicity
that is universallyinterpreted as the main ice-age rhythm. Here, the
ice volume componentof this 18O signal was extracted by
using the record of 18O in atmospheric oxygen trapped in
Antarctic ice at Vostok, preciselyorbitally tuned. The benthic marine
18O record is heavily contaminated by the effect of
deep-water temperaturevariability, but by using the Vostok record, the
18O signals of ice volume, deep-water temperature, and
additionalprocesses affecting air 18O (that is, a
varying Dole effect) were separated. At the 100,000-yearperiod,
atmospheric carbon dioxide, Vostok air temperature, anddeep-water
temperature are in phase with orbital eccentricity,whereas ice volume
lags these three variables. Hence, the 100,000-yearcycle does not
arise from ice sheet dynamics; instead, it is probablythe response of
the global carbon cycle that generates the eccentricitysignal by
causing changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration.
Department of Earth Sciences, Godwin Laboratory, University of
Cambridge, Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3SA, UK. E-mail:
njs5{at}cam.ac.uk
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Richard A. Kerr (15 September 2000) Science289 (5486), 1868.
[DOI: 10.1126/science.289.5486.1868] |Summary »|Full Text »
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18O) record is dominated by a 100,000-year cyclicity
that is universally interpreted as the main ice-age rhythm. Here, the
ice volume component of this 
