Orbital tuning
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Orbital tuning refers to the process of adjusting the time scale of a paleoenvironmental proxy record so that the observed fluctuations correspond to the Milankovitch cycles in the Earth's orbital motion.[1] This is typically done to correct for dating uncertainty or in cases where dating is not possible, such as beyond the range of radiocarbon dating. [2]
Changes in the Earth's orbit affect the amount and distribution of sunlight the Earth and certain parts of the Earth receives.[1] Such changes are expected to introduce periodic climate changes on a time scale of 20-100 kyr. Long records of sedimentation or climate should record such variations. However, such records often have poorly constrained age scales. As a result, scientists will sometimes adjust the timing of the features in their samples to match the predictions of orbital theory in the hopes of improving the accuracy of their data. [1]
