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Milankovitch Cycles for an aquifer
Built for students learning it for a class or exam. See the concept move instead of memorizing formulas — and check your homework intuition. Simulate an aquifer live below — adjust the inputs and watch it respond, right in your browser.
Milankovitch CyclesLive
orbital forcing of the ice ages
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Three slow changes in Earth's orbit — the stretch of its ellipse (eccentricity), the tilt of its axis (obliquity), and the wobble of that axis (precession) — combine to modulate summer sunlight at high latitudes. That insolation rhythm paces the glacial-interglacial cycles recorded in ice and ocean cores.
Data Inspector
Eccentricity~100 kyr
Obliquity~41 kyr
Precession~23 kyr
Insolation forcing
Reading this result: With obliquity weighted highest, a ~41 kyr beat dominates — the pattern that paced glacial cycles before ~1 million years ago, when axial tilt led the forcing.
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