A Paleoclimatic Model of the Mid-Pleistocene Climate Transition

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Abstract
A one-dimensional time-dependent ice-sheet model is employed to simulate ice-volume variations throughout the Pleistocene epoch of Earth history. The model is based upon the explicitly-described physics of ice-sheet accumulation and flow and the physics of the viscoeleastic relaxation of the Earth under the weight of the ice load. The model of the viscoelastic relaxation of the Earth incorporates the vertical variation of density and viscosity of its interior in great detail. An abrupt variation of some of the parameters that govern the height of the ice-sheet equilibrium line, and a gradual increase in the strength of a generalized feedback mechanism that is turned on after mid-Pleistocene time, lead to simulation of ice volume that has the general features of observed δ18O records, in particular the new high-resolution oxygen-isotope record from site ODP 677 (Peltier and others, 1989).