Synchronicity of Antarctic temperatures and local solar insolation on orbital timescales

Antarctic snows locally determined Records of past temperatures derived from Greenland and Antarctic ice cores are important for the understanding of the global climate system on long timescales. According to Milankovitch theory, glacial to interglacial climate variability as recorded in Antarctic ice cores is governed by summer insolation — the amount solar of radiation received at Earth's surface — at high northern latitudes. Thomas Laepple and colleagues now show that accumulation of Antarctic snow is biased towards austral winter and may be explained simply by variations in local insolation, with no recourse to northern influences. Although the results do not constitute a complete negative proof, they show that the Antarctic ice core records do not, in themselves, provide sufficient support for Milankovitch theory.