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Summary: Yosef Ashkenazy
The role of phase locking in a simple model for glacial dynamics
Received: 1 April 2005 / Accepted: 24 March 2006 / Published online: 9 May 2006
Ó Springer-Verlag 2006
Abstract Glacialinterglacial oscillations are often de-
scribed by simple conceptual models. Relatively few
models, however, are accompanied by analytical solu-
tions, though detailed analytical investigation of climate
models often leads to deeper understanding of the cli-
mate system. Here we study a simple conceptual model
for glacial dynamics, a simplified version of the sea-ice-
switch mechanism of Gildor and Tziperman (Paleocea-
nography 15:605615, 2000), and provide a detailed
analytical treatment for this model. We show that when
the model is forced by a simplified insolation forcing it
exhibits rich dynamics and passes through a series of
bifurcations before being completely phase-locked to the
insolation forcing. Our model suggests that even when
the glacial cycles are self-sustained, insolation forcing
has a major role on the complexity of glacial cycles: (1) it
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