Paleoclimate
8 questions tagged Paleoclimate — spanning every one of the seven Ws.
Whose work first explained the cause of ice ages?
Milutin Milankovitch developed the orbital theory of ice ages in the early 20th century. He linked climate cycles to changes in Earth's orbit and tilt.
Whose research first explained why the Sahara once had lakes and grasslands?
Paleoclimate researchers, especially including work by scientists such as Fritz Sterner and later teams using lake sediments and fossils, showed the Sahara has repeatedly become greener during wet climate periods.
Whose research first showed that desert salt flats can preserve trackways and climate records?
Geologists studying playa lakes and salt pans showed they can preserve footprints, sediment layers, and evidence of past wet phases.
How do climate scientists estimate past temperatures from ice cores?
They analyze trapped air bubbles, oxygen isotopes, and dust layers in ancient ice. These records can extend back hundreds of thousands of years.
What is a varve?
A varve is a pair of sediment layers deposited in one year, usually in a lake, with a coarse summer layer and a finer winter layer.
Whose name is attached to the layer that marks the end of the last Ice Age in Greenland ice cores?
The Younger Dryas is a climate event, but the Greenland ice-core work of Willi Dansgaard helped reveal it. He pioneered stable-isotope analysis in ice cores.
Where is the world's longest running climate record from an ice core?
One of the world’s longest continuous climate records comes from ice cores in Antarctica, especially at sites like Dome C and Vostok. These cores preserve ancient air and snowfall layers.
Whose work first linked Milankovitch cycles to ice ages?
Milutin Milankovitch developed the theory that changes in Earth’s orbit affect climate over long periods. His calculations helped explain why ice ages come and go.