Home›Open Questions›Why Does the 100,000-Year Ice Age Cycle Dominate When Its Orbital Forcing Is Weak?Open QuestionsWhy Does the 100,000-Year Ice Age Cycle Dominate When Its Orbital Forcing Is Weak?Citation FormatsGeneral ReferenceGeneral Reference Citation TextEarth and Environment Atlas. "Why Does the 100,000-Year Ice Age Cycle Dominate When Its Orbital Forcing Is Weak?." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://earth.interactiveatlas.org/open-questions-index/the-100000-year-problem.Copy General ReferenceAPA StyleAPA Style Citation TextEarth and Environment Atlas. (n.d.). Why Does the 100,000-Year Ice Age Cycle Dominate When Its Orbital Forcing Is Weak?. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://earth.interactiveatlas.org/open-questions-index/the-100000-year-problemCopy APA StyleBibTeXBibTeX Citation Text@misc{earthandenvironmentatlas-why-does-the-100-000-year-ice-age-cycle, author = {Earth and Environment Atlas}, title = {Why Does the 100,000-Year Ice Age Cycle Dominate When Its Orbital Forcing Is Weak?}, year = {2026}, url = {https://earth.interactiveatlas.org/open-questions-index/the-100000-year-problem}, note = {Accessed August 30, 2026} }Copy BibTeXReference and ClassificationDevelopingFactsOpen QuestionCross-Tradition ConnectionsSourcesComments (0)Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)FactsWhy OpenWell-attestedMilankovitch's own theory identifies the roughly 41,000-year obliquity cycle as the strongest orbital forcing on high-latitude summer sunlight, yet ice age cycles over the last million years have paced at roughly 100,000 years, matching the far weaker eccentricity cycle instead. This mismatch between the strength of the forcing and the size of the climate response is known as the 100,000-year problem. 1What Would ResolveWell-attestedA mechanism, such as an internal ice-sheet or carbon-cycle feedback, frequency modulation, or a stochastic-resonance effect, that amplifies the weak eccentricity signal into a full glacial cycle, confirmed against the detailed timing of the ice-core and ocean-sediment record. 1Discipline NeededWell-attestedPaleoclimatology 1Open QuestionMilankovitch's own theory identifies the roughly 41,000-year obliquity cycle as the strongest orbital forcing on high-latitude summer sunlight, yet ice age cycles over the last million years have paced at roughly 100,000 years, matching the far weaker eccentricity cycle instead. This mismatch between the strength of the forcing and the size of the climate response is known as the 100,000-year problem.What would resolve this A mechanism, such as an internal ice-sheet or carbon-cycle feedback, frequency modulation, or a stochastic-resonance effect, that amplifies the weak eccentricity signal into a full glacial cycle, confirmed against the detailed timing of the ice-core and ocean-sediment record.OpenPaleoclimatologyMilankovitch Cycles (Wikipedia)Cross-Tradition ConnectionsQuestion OnMilankovitch Cycles, Concepts Well-attested Source Milankovitch Cycles (Wikipedia)Sources1. Milankovitch Cycles (Wikipedia)Wikimedia FoundationThe 100,000-year problemView the SourceComments (0)No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.Sign in to join the discussion.Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.View At A Past YearThe atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.Show This Year