Landscape in Sweden, basement gneis eroded and formed by the glacial ice sheet on Scandinavia

Flint rubble with marks of ice pressure

Erratic block with ice scratches indicating direction of ice flow (Lake Noa, Greenland)

Catabatic wind

Ventifact from Denmark, formed by strong wind off the retreating ice sheet

Erratic block, erroded and transported by glacial ice on Greenland

Erratic block from Northern Germany, used for a memorial on Iceland

Plate tectonics

Opening of Tasman Strait and Drake Passage as prerequisite for the development of the circum-Antarctic current and the climatic isolation of Antarctica in the southernmost hemisphere

Climate cooling during the last 5 Ma

Antarctic glaciation

Antarctic glaciation compared to Europe

Closure of the Panama Strait as prerequisite for the glaciation of Greenland, starting around 3 Ma ago.

Glaciation of Greenland

Climate change in six time scales

Solar system. Earth orbit is influenced by the gravity of the large planets, mostly Jupiter and Saturn.

Milankovitch parameter are excentricity, obliquity, and precession

Milankovitch variations (red, green, blue) influence solar radiation on the northern hemisphere. Solar forcing at 65°N in summer (yellow) is essential for the development of ice sheets. The resulting curve from the addition of the three Milankovitch parameters reflects the climatic variations as reconstructed from sediment and ice cores (black). Hays et al. 1976 doi:10.1126/science.194.4270.1121

Northern hemisphere, ice coverage (black) during interglacial

Northern hemisphere, ice coverage during glacial

Southern hemisphere, ice coverage during interglacial

Southern hemisphere, ice coverage during glacial

300 ka glacial/interglacial cycles

Nunataker in southern Greenland

Nunataker with reconstruction of ice cover

Sunspots

Sunspot cycles with Maunder Minimum

Antonio Stradivari (Burckle & Grissino-Mayer, 2003 doi:10.1078/1125-7865-00033)

CO2 concentration in past and future

Peter Brueghel The Bird trap (1601)

Hendrick Averkamp Winter landscape with skaters (1608)

Aert van der Neer River view in the winter (1655)

Caspar David Friedrich Das Eismeer (1823)

Cave with stalagtites

Crystal King, Ohio Caverns

Stalagmite, cut and polished, showing growth bands reflecting "paleo-precipitation"

Drilling a coral head of Porites on the Philippines

Giant clam Tridacna

Ice core in transmitting light

Ice core thin section in polarized light

Sediment core from the South Atlantic showing color variations reflecting quaternary climatic changes during the last 800 ka

Part of a 1000 m long sediment core drilled off Cape Roberts to reconstruct glaciation history of Antarctica

Scientific drill ship Joides Resolution

Drill rig on ice

Drill bit

Research vessel Polarstern

Repository with sediment cores: Geological library

Sampling drill for dendrochronology

"Basic tools" of a geologist

Masspectrometer for the determination of stable isotope ratios in microfossils

Scanning electron microscope used for the investigation of microfossils