Did the Carbon Cycle Drive the Pleistocene Quaternary Glacial-Interglacial Periods?

The Carbon Cycle as the Main Determinant of Glacial-Interglacial Periods

Authors:

Jiménez de la Cuesta et al

Abstract:

An intriguing problem in climate science is the existence of Earth's glacial cycle. We show that it is possible to generate these periodic changes in climate by means of the Earth's carbon cycle as the main source factor. The carbon exchange between the Ocean, the Continent and the Atmosphere is modeled by means of a Lotka-Volterra three species system and the resulting atmospheric carbon cycle is used as the unique radiative forcing mechanism. It is shown that the carbon dioxide and temperature paths that are thus obtained have the same qualitative structure as the 100 kyr glacial-interglacial cycles depicted by the Vostok ice core data, reproducing the asymmetries of rapid heating--slow cooling, and short interglacial--long glacial ages.