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One hundred years of Milanković cycles

Nature Geoscience volume 13, pages 524–525 (2020)Cite this article

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Milanković’s personal memoirs3 provide unique insights into the scientific and personal events surrounding the development of his theory. They describe his childhood in the Serbian enclave of Dalj in Austro-Hungary, his student days at the Vienna University of Technology where he also completed his doctorate, and his abandonment of a successful engineering career in Vienna for a professorship at the University of Belgrade. They also recount the turbulent times at the beginning of the twentieth century and their impact on his scientific progress.

Upon moving to Belgrade in 1909, Milanković sought a quiet research area that avoided the sorts of research questions that might lead to fierce competition between scientists. He found this at the intersection of applied mathematics, astronomy and climatology, where he resolved to bring a mathematical perspective to what had been a rather descriptive field of climate science. He began to grapple with a solution to the outstanding problem of explaining how changes in insolation occur and affect the global climate. However, only three years into his professorship he was drafted into the first Balkan War (1912–1913). Assigned, due to his profession, to foreign correspondence duty instead of being sent to the frontline, Milanković managed to publish some of his first works during this time4,5.

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Fig. 1: Milanković and his masterpiece.

Image adapted with permission from Milutin Milanković Society Belgrade

References

  1. Milankovitch, M. Mathematical Theory of Heat Phenomena Produced by Solar Radiation (Gauthier-Villars, 1920).

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  4. Milanković, M. Glas SKA 87, 136–160 (1912).

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  6. Milankovitch, M. Canon of Insolation and the Ice-age Problem (Königlich Serbische Akademie, 1941).

  7. Hays, J. D., Imbrie, J. & Shackleton, N. J. Science 194, 1121–1132 (1976).

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Acknowledgements

We thank R. Seager and N. Brandwein. M. Milanković and D. Milanković helped source the photographs. I.C. was supported by Generalitat de Catalunya (Secretaria d’Universitats i Recerca del Departament d’Empresa i Coneixement) through the Beatriu de Pinós programme and J.L. by the Serbian Ministry of Education and Science (grant no. III 43007). All translations are the authors’ own.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Earth Sciences Department, Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Barcelona, Spain

    Ivana Cvijanovic

  2. Faculty of Geography, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia

    Jelena Lukovic

  3. Amphos 21, Barcelona, Spain

    James D. Begg

Authors
  1. Ivana Cvijanovic
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  2. Jelena Lukovic
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  3. James D. Begg
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Correspondence to Ivana Cvijanovic.

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Cvijanovic, I., Lukovic, J. & Begg, J.D. One hundred years of Milanković cycles. Nat. Geosci. 13, 524–525 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-020-0621-2

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