The sawtooth-patterned glacial-interglacial cycles in the Earth’s atmospheric temperature are a well-known, though poorly understood phenomenon. Pinpointing the relevant mechanisms behind these cycles will not only provide insights into past climate dynamics, but also help predict possible future responses of the Earth system to changing CO\(_2\) levels. Previous work on this phenomenon suggests that the most important underlying mechanisms are interactions between marine biological production, ocean circulation, temperature and dust. So far, interaction directions (i.e., what causes what) have remained elusive. In this paper, we apply Convergent Cross-Mapping (CCM) to analyze paleoclimatic and paleoceanographic records to elucidate which mechanisms proposed in the literature play an important role in glacial-interglacial cycles, and to test the directionality of interactions. We find causal links between ocean ventilation, biological productivity, benthic \(\delta ^{18}\)O and dust, consistent with some but not all of the mechanisms proposed in the literature. Most importantly, we find evidence for a potential feedback loop from ocean ventilation to biological productivity to climate back to ocean ventilation. Here, we propose the hypothesis that this feedback loop of connected mechanisms could be the main driver for the glacial-interglacial cycles.

地球大气温度中的锯齿状冰河间冰期循环是众所周知的，尽管人们对此知之甚少。查明这些循环背后的相关机制，不仅可以洞悉过去的气候动态，而且还可以帮助预测地球系统未来可能对变化的CO \（_ 2 \）做出的反应。水平。对此现象的先前研究表明，最重要的潜在机制是海洋生物生产，海洋环流，温度和粉尘之间的相互作用。到目前为止，交互作用的方向（即什么原因导致的结果）仍然难以捉摸。在本文中，我们应用收敛交叉映射（CCM）来分析古气候和古海洋学记录，以阐明文献中提出的哪些机制在冰川-冰川间的循环中起重要作用，并检验相互作用的方向性。我们发现海洋通风，生物生产力，底栖\（\ delta ^ {18} \）之间的因果关系O和尘埃，与文献中提出的部分但并非全部机制一致。最重要的是，我们发现了从海洋通风到生物生产力再到气候再到海洋通风的潜在反馈回路的证据。在这里，我们提出了一个假设，即连接机构的反馈回路可能是冰川-冰川间循环的主要驱动力。