Climate of the Past
Climate of the Past
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Articles | Volume 22, issue 3
Articles | Volume 22, issue 3
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-22-647-2026
© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-22-647-2026
© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Articles | Volume 22, issue 3
Research article
 | 
27 Mar 2026
Research article |  | 27 Mar 2026

On the computation of several “insolation” quantities relevant to climatology or planetology

Didier Paillard

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Cited articles

Berger, A.: Long-term variations of daily insolation and Quaternary climatic change, Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 35, 2362–2367, https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0469(1978)035<2362:LTVODI>2.0.CO;2, 1978a. 
Berger, A.: Long-Term Variations of Caloric Insolation Resulting from the Earth's Orbital Elements, Quaternary Research, 9, 139–16, https://doi.org/10.1016/0033-5894(78)90064-9, 1978b. 
Berger, A., Loutre, M. F., and Tricot, C.: Insolation and Earth's orbital periods, Journal of Geophysical Research, 98, 10341–10362, https://doi.org/10.1029/93JD00222, 1993. 
Berger, A., McIntyre, A., and Loutre, M. F.: Intertropical Latitudes and Precessional and Half-Precessional Cycles, Science, 278, 1476–1477, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.278.5342.1476, 1997. 
Berger, A., Loutre, M. F., and Yin, Q.: Total irradiation during any time interval of the year using elliptic integrals, Quaternary Science Reviews, 29, 1968–1982, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2010.05.007, 2010. 
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This paper presents classical and new mathematical formulas to compute various "flavors" of the insolation forcing used to interpret paleoclimatic series, or to simulate climate at different times. It provides a description of the usual concepts while insisting on the difficulties associated with them, like the definition of a calendar. Then it presents novel formulas to compute extrema of insolation for a given latitude. It thus presents a new open-source software package available online.
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