{"id":234540,"date":"2026-04-03T04:23:35","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T09:23:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/earths-40000-year-tilt-cycle-links-antarctic-ice-growth-to-subtropical-productivity"},"modified":"2026-04-03T04:23:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T09:23:35","slug":"earths-40000-year-tilt-cycle-links-antarctic-ice-growth-to-subtropical-productivity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/earths-40000-year-tilt-cycle-links-antarctic-ice-growth-to-subtropical-productivity","title":{"rendered":"Earth\u2019s 40,000-year tilt cycle links Antarctic ice growth to subtropical productivity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/earths-40000-year-tilt-cycle-links-antarctic-ice-growth-to-subtropical-productivity2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Cycles in the growth and decay of Antarctica\u2019s ice sheets once shaped marine biological productivity thousands of miles away in the subtropical ocean, according to new research led by scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The study, published in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pnas.org\/doi\/10.1073\/pnas.2424082123\" target=\"_blank\"><i>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/i><\/a>, found that the obliquity cycle\u2014a 40,000-year astronomical cycle tied to changes in Earth\u2019s axial tilt\u2014influenced ocean productivity in subtropical latitudes about 34 million years ago, when the Antarctic ice sheet was first expanding.<\/p>\n<p>The finding surprised researchers because the 40,000-year cycle, while an important factor in the conditions at Earth\u2019s poles, typically has a more limited influence on climate and ocean conditions near the equator.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe generally expect other astronomical cycles to have a greater influence,\u201d says Stephen Meyers, a professor of geoscience at UW-Madison and one of the study\u2019s lead authors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cycles in the growth and decay of Antarctica\u2019s ice sheets once shaped marine biological productivity thousands of miles away in the subtropical ocean, according to new research led by scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that the obliquity cycle\u2014a 40,000-year astronomical cycle [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,493],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biological","category-climatology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234540\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}