14-04-2010: Response of late Neogene glacial cycles to obliquity forcing

This paper provides constraints for the geometry and time lags of the predominent obliquity-paced glacial stages during the period 2.56-2.40 Myr BP, which marks a major phase in Northern Hemisphere glaciations during the late Pliocene. A high-resolution marine benthic oxygen isotope record was reconstructed from an astronomically-tuned Meditarranean deep ocean core and decomposed into an ice volume and temperature component using an inverse modelling approach. Results suggest that the ~28 kyr fluctuations, which are linked to glacial terminations, are intrinsic to the climate system, and that these thereby govern the geometry of glacial-interglacial variability throughout the Pliocene and Pleistocene.