Influence of the CLIMAP ice sheet on the climate of a general circulation model: implications for the Milankovitch theory.

While the spectral analysis of data from deep sea cores supports the suggestion that the temporal variation of the earth's orbital parameters is responsible for triggering the growth and decay of continental ice during the Quaternary, the physical factors responsible for maintaining a global ice age climate are less well understood. One of the important factors in maintaining a lowered atmospheric temperature during an ice age is the presence of large continental ice sheets that reflect a large fraction of incoming solar radiation.-from Authors