Nonlinear resonance in an overdamped Duffing oscillator as a model of paleoclimate oscillations.

The cause of the dominant 100-kyr cycles in Earth's paleoclimate in the last 800 000 years has since long been debated. We analyze geological temperature proxy data and retrieve an anharmonic potential from time series data. The obtained potential has bistable features but has significant differences compared to the quartic potentials derived from theoretical energy-based models.