POSSIBLE EFFECTS OF ANTHROPOGENICALLY-INCREASED CO2 ON THE DYNAMICS OF CLIMATE - IMPLICATIONS FOR ICE-AGE CYCLES

A dynamical model, developed to account for the observed major variati ons of global ice mass and atmospheric CO2 during the late Cenozoic, i s used to provide a quantitative demonstration of the possibility that the anthropogenically-forced increase of atmospheric CO2, if maintain ed over a long period of time (perhaps by tectonic forcing), could dis place the climatic system from an unstable regime of oscillating ice a ges into a more stable regime representative of the pre-Pleistocene. T his stable regime is characterized by orbitally-forced oscillations th at are of much weaker amplitude than prevailed during the Pleistocene.