Milankovitch cycles
From CreationWiki, the encyclopedia of creation science
The Milankovitch cycle is the theoretical effect of changes in the Earth's movements upon its climate. The theory states that the eccentricity in the Earth's orbit, axial tilt, and precession of the Earth's orbit produce 100,000 year ice age cycles in Earth's climate. Despite the claims of evolutionists this theory does not work.
If the Earth were more than a few thousand years old, changes would occur in the eccentricity, obliquity, and precession of Earth's movements due to the various forces acting on the Earth . These changes in movement and orientation would affect the amount and location of solar radiation reaching the Earth. This affect is called solar forcing. There are problems when it comes to reconciling the theory of Milankovitch cycles with reality, even if one assumes uniformitarian interpretations of the data.
The variations in eccentricity would have a much smaller effect than precession or obliquity and should produce the weakest effects. However, observations show the strongest variation in the 100,000 year cycle according to uniformitarian dating methods. Furthermore, as the above chart shows, the actual pattern is not as good as the theory suggests, as the peaks are at best an imperfect match. Furthermore a strong 400,000 year cycle in the eccentricity variations is detected in the climate data. There is also a causality problem in that the alleged climate effects sometimes seem to occur as much as 10,000 years before the solar forcing that is alleged to be causing them.
The simple fact is, that the predicted variations in the Earth's movements are not large enough to cause the change in climate they are alleged to cause. If the Earth were more than a few thousand years old, the variations would probably occur, but they cannot produce the predicted change in climate. However, immediately following the Genesis Flood there would be large and rapid climate fluctuations. Uniformitarian geologists interpret this climate data as occurring over 100's of thousands of years, but Flood geology would interpret it as occurring within 1,000 years of the Flood.
The Milankovitch cycle and laminated sediments
Laminated sediments are found all over the world, from England to India, from America to Japan. Many claim that the sequences of these sediments follow a pattern of thickness. One such pattern of carbonate cycles can be found in the Middle Triassic Latemar platform. More often then not, this type of phenomenon is explained by the Milankovitch cycle of about 20,000 years. The counted amount of such cycles at this site is 598, thus hinting a total time of 12 million years.
However, fossils and radiometric dating indicates a age around of 4.7 million years, far from 12 million years. This shows that the Milankovitch cycle is insufficient in explaining geological data. ( Brack P, Mundil R, Oberli F, Meier M, Rieber H. 371-375)
Related References
- Brack P, Mundil R, Oberli F, Meier M, Rieber H. 1996. Biostratigraphic and radiometric age data question the Milankovitch characteristics of the Latemar cycles (Southern Alps, Italy). Geology 24:371-375.
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