Ice ages and interglacials

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This book examines the history and analysis of extreme climate change on Earth. The first chapter reviews significant climate fluctuations from hundreds of millions of years ago, including snowball Earth and hothouse Earth, and discusses the impact of continental drift, particularly the closing of the Isthmus of Panama, on the onset of ice ages over the past three million years. This sets the stage for exploring ice ages in the geological recent past, focusing on the last few hundred thousand years. The second chapter presents geological evidence for ice ages, detailing how geologists deduced their existence before subsurface data confirmed the theory. Subsequent chapters delve into ice core data from Greenland and Antarctica, with Chapter 3 discussing data processing and Chapter 4 summarizing findings. Chapter 5 shifts to ocean sediment data, while the next chapter examines information from sources like "Devil’s Cave." Chapter 7 synthesizes experimental results from previous chapters, laying the groundwork for theory comparison. The author highlights the challenges of circular reasoning in data dating, particularly concerning astronomical theory. Chapter 8 reviews theories explaining the patterns of ice ages and interglacials, leading to chapters that compare the astronomical theory and other theories with data. The final chapter summarizes current knowledge about ice ages and identifies gaps in understanding.