Climate emulator recreates 2.6 million years of ice-age cycles on a laptop

Researchers at the University of Bristol have developed a new method which could help scientists perform large-scale climate simulations at a fraction of the cost and time needed compared to traditional climate models. The team, led by Dr. Charles Williams, Senior Lecturer in the School of Geographical Sciences, wanted to investigate factors influencing the way Earth's climate has repeatedly swung between cold glacial "ice ages" and warmer interglacial periods over the last 2.6 million years—known as the Quaternary period.