by Steve Graham • March 24, 2000
The Serbian astrophysicist Milutin Milankovitch is best known for
developing one of the most significant theories relating Earth motions
and long-term climate change. Born in 1879 in the rural village of Dalj (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, today located in Croatia), Milankovitch attended the Vienna Institute of Technology and
graduated in 1904 with a doctorate in technical sciences. After a brief
stint as the chief engineer for a construction company, he accepted a
faculty position in applied mathematics at the University of Belgrade in
1909a position he held for the remainder of his life.
Milankovitch dedicated his career to developing a mathematical
theory of climate based on the seasonal and latitudinal variations of
solar radiation received by the Earth. Now known as the Milankovitch
Theory, it states that as the Earth travels through space around the
sun, cyclical variations in three elements of Earth-sun geometry combine
to produce variations in the amount of solar energy that reaches Earth:
- Variations in the Earth's orbital eccentricitythe shape of the orbit around the sun.
- Changes in obliquitychanges in the angle that Earth's axis makes with the plane of
Earth's orbit.
- Precessionthe change in the direction of the Earth's
axis of rotation, i.e., the axis of rotation behaves like the spin axis
of a top that is winding down; hence it traces a circle on the celestial
sphere over a period of time.
Together, the periods of these orbital motions have become known as
Milankovitch cycles.
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Top: A portrait of Milutin Milankovitch. (Drawing by Hailey King)
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