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Orbital forcing and role of the latitudinal insolation/temperature gradient

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Abstract

Orbital forcing of the climate system is clearly shown in the Earths record of glacial–interglacial cycles, but the mechanism underlying this forcing is poorly understood. Traditional Milankovitch theory suggests that these cycles are driven by changes in high latitude summer insolation, yet this forcing is dominated by precession, and cannot account for the importance of obliquity in the Ice Age record. Here, we investigate an alternative forcing based on the latitudinal insolation gradient (LIG), which is dominated by both obliquity (in summer) and precession (in winter). The insolation gradient acts on the climate system through differential solar heating, which creates the Earths latitudinal temperature gradient (LTG) that drives the atmospheric and ocean circulation. A new pollen-based reconstruction of the LTG during the Holocene is used to demonstrate that the LTG may be much more sensitive to changes in the LIG than previously thought. From this, it is shown how LIG forcing of the LTG may help explain the propagation of orbital signatures throughout the climate system, including the Monsoon, Arctic Oscillation and ocean circulation. These relationships are validated over the last (Eemian) Interglacial, which occurred under a different orbital configuration to the Holocene. We conclude that LIG forcing of the LTG explains many criticisms of classic Milankovitch theory, while being poorly represented in climate models.

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Acknowledgments

The contribution by Simon Brewer has been funded in part by the EU MOTIF project (EVK2-2001-00263). We acknowledge the PMIP international modeling groups for providing their data for analysis and the Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement (LSCE) for collecting and archiving the model data. The PMIP2/MOTIF Data Archive is supported by CEA, CNRS, the EU project MOTIF (EVK2-CT-2002-00153) and the Programme National d’Etude de la Dynamique du Climat (PNEDC). The analyses were performed using version 11-20-2005 of the database. More information is available on http://pmip2.lsce.ipsl.fr/ and http://motif.lsce.ipsl.fr/. We also acknowledge the resources of the NOAA World Data Centre for Paleoclimatology, the PANGAEA Network for Geoscientific & Environmental Data and the European Pollen Database. We would also like to thank Odile Peyron and Carin Anderson for additional data, as well as comments on early drafts by Jed Kaplan, Erin McClymont, Takeshi Nakagawa and Tony Stevenson, as well as by two anonymous referees.

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  1. Basil A. S. Davis

    Present address: ARVE Group, ISTE, EPFL, 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK

    Basil A. S. Davis

  2. CEREGE, Europôle de l’Arbois, B.P. 80, 13545, Aix-en-Provence Cedex 04, France

    Simon Brewer

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Correspondence to Basil A. S. Davis.

Appendices

Appendices

1.1 Appendix 1

Data sources and values for mid-Holocene SST data shown in Fig. 3a, sorted first by proxy, then by latitude. The Basis coding indicates how the 6 ka temperature anomaly was calculated; (1) published linear regression equation, (2) 6 ± 0.5 ka reconstruction minus modern SST, (3) 6 ± 0.5 ka reconstruction minus 0 ± 0.5 ka reconstructed SST. The Motif SST data was kindly supplied by Carin Anderson. Pangaea data can be accessed at http://www.pangaea.de. Original data has been used where ever possible, although sources depicted by (D) have been digitised from published diagrams. Please refer to the source reference for the original references cited.

figure a

1.2 Appendix 2

The relationship between sea level and Northern Hemisphere ice cover during Termination I (Holocene) used to infer ice cover from sea level during Termination II (Eemian) in Figs. 10 and 11. The dashed line indicates the estimated Eemian high stand which was higher than today as a result of a reduced Greenland ice sheet.

figure b

1.3 Appendix 3

Detail of Holocene pollen-climate reconstruction for Mekelermeer in the Netherlands (Bohncke et al. 1988; Bohncke and Wijmstra 1988; Bohncke 1991) shown in Fig. 11f. Analysis is based on a modern analogue technique using pollen pft scores as detailed in Davis et al. (2003). Diagram shows loess smoother in bold. Pollen data and chronology (calibrated) is from the European Pollen Database (site #547), accessed with kind permission of the author.

figure c

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Davis, B.A.S., Brewer, S. Orbital forcing and role of the latitudinal insolation/temperature gradient. Clim Dyn 32, 143–165 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-008-0480-9

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