What Milankovitch Cycles Will Do To Earth

I don't doubt the human role in climate change. But I think people forget just how much the earth's climate changes on it's own.

Milankovic is one of the greatest minds in human history. Because this part of science is not as "glamurous" he is less known and less apreciated when compared to other great minds that have thrived in their respective fields of science. Thank you for this video.

The Milankovitch "trifecta" for chilly northern summers: 1. Maximum eccentricity in the orbit (currently in a medium phase) 2. Aphelion during northern summer (currently very favorable for ice age onset!) 3. Minimum tilt of axis (currently medium) Line up all three of these, and the summer sun will be as far away as possible and as low in the sky as possible. That allows glaciation over Canada & Siberia to really take off!

Milankovich cycles were one of the first things we were introduced to in my geology degree. Its the driver of abnormal weather patterns and may be read in sedimentary rock formation environments. It is the most basic time references on earth and are 100% reliable.

Thanks for mentioning Milutin Milanković, was an amazing scientist and a genius. Amazing testimonies about his life and work are still alive. Cheers!

The Mojave Desert in California was once a wet and watery paradise with lakes, rivers, giant dire wolves and flamingos. The first humans in the Mojave region even experienced the large bodies of water and rivers. Paleolithic records reveal they had boats that traversed the massive lakes.

This may be one of many reasons why we haven't seen interstellar civilizations yet; not only the small chance of developing life, but also the small chance of a planet being temperately stable long enough to do much. Even if life were common, the kind of temperate stability we enjoy could be exceedingly rare on large timescales.

This is my favorite video of all-time explaining the Milankovitch Cycles. Really amazing job.

I've been a fan of Milankovitch since I was in college. The dude is up there with Copernicus with what he did for science.

Excellent description. One other thing that makes things more complicated is the fact that the output of the sun is not constant. From what I have read the sun’s output can vary by as much as 11% on a cyclical basis. This further complicates the climate.

So impressed by the jaw dropping brainy'ness of those folk who worked all this out, wow! What an informative, balanced and well researched piece, such a pleasure to watch - thank you.

In Norse mythology, the Fimbul winter was a sign that Ragnarök was relentlessly approaching. The Fimbul winter was said to be a winter that lasted three years without any summer, thus heralding Ragnarök, the end of the world. Year 536 was as close we have come in documented times. I believ that Ragnarök was the Norse Flood myth.

The geologic arrangment of earths land and seas also play a massive part in this. Before Australia separated from Antarctica the Southern Ocean did not have Antarctic Convergence. This flow has worked to stabilize weather patterns in the southern hemisphere. Think of the effects the Rocky Mountains have on air currents, thus long term weather patterns. There are so many factors on such long time scales that humanity will likely never figure out how it works.

This is the kind of stuff that almost never gets taught in schools and needs to be talked about more.

Winter missed me in my part of Canada totally. We had one -30 day and not much snow. It’s mid February it should be -10c and below but it’s been above plus 5 all week.

It's important to note that the larger ocean area in the southern hemisphere more than offsets the effects of summer perihelion/winter aphelion down there. More ocean = less extreme seasons. It also means that the climate of the southern hemisphere cannot make or break ice ages. There are no large landmasses in the middle to subarctic southern latitudes, unlike North America and Eurasia in the north. You need subarctic land surface to support increasing snow cover.

there are few additional factors, like solar cycle, cycle related to jupiter, saturn orbit, etc.... including cycle related to rotation of sun around milky way core

I've watched all your videos and while this one addresses what might seems to be the most "basic" of topics, it ended up being one of the most interesting! I was only aware of about half the cycles you reviewed. Incredible channel you have going here, thanks!

For decades I have sat on my front porch to smoke, because I don't smoke in the house. Over the decades of sitting on the porch, I have noticed the shadow from the house has always been in the same spot. 3 years ago, for some reason, the shadow moved to the north by 3 feet. 2 years ago, it moved about another 8 feet to the north. Last year, it was still in about the same place it was the year before. This year, I can't say because the time I have taken note of the shadow's placement, it has been rainy and quite gray with no sun. So, no shadow. I've tried to research this to find out exactly why the sudden change, but I haven't found anything much to it. I have found things like this that indicate to a maybe, but nothing that says yes, this is why.

Really interesting and well out together content. Congrats 👏