Our climate future depends on the delicate, fine balance of earth processes first elaborated on by James Croll, born 200 years ago in 1821. A childhood victim of the Scottish clearances, Croll, after following various indifferent occupations, managed to remove to the then rapidly industrialising city of Glasgow and eventually to Scotland's capital, Edinburgh. He blossomed as a most original, outside-the-box, thinker of great intellectual strength and modesty. He carried out scores of studies across a broad range of research topics, many related to the physical causes of climate change. He is well known for his astronomical theory of the ice ages, but should be much better regarded for his incisive physical insights into the central importance of feedbacks in the Earth system. Although humble, Croll was an ardent controversialist who strongly, perhaps over-strongly, always defended his corner. As well as his many accomplishments as a man of science, Croll was committed to exploring philosophical questions of theism and determinism, topics which occupied his earliest and last publications. A ‘top ten’ selection out of the varied subject areas that Croll tackled are explored herein, along with a brisk survey of their legacy to contemporary modelling studies and to Earth's climate future: (1) causes of climate change (1864); (2) ice-cap melt and sea-level rise (1865); (3) predicting future climates using eccentricity (1866); (4) combining orbital precession, eccentricity and obliquity (1867); (5) geological time and the date of the glacial epochs (1868); (6) geological time and denudation rates (1868); (7) ocean currents and the hemispherical temperature difference (1869); (8) feedbacks – a remarkable circumstance which led to changes of climate (1875); (9) temperature of space and its bearing on terrestrial physics (1880); (10) the causes of mild polar climates (1884).

中文翻译：

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Croll、反馈机制、气候变化和未来

我们的气候未来取决于 200 年前出生于 1821 年的詹姆斯·克罗尔（James Croll）首次阐述的地球过程的微妙而精细的平衡。作为苏格兰清除的童年受害者，克罗尔在从事各种冷漠的职业之后，设法迅速转移到当时工业化城市格拉斯哥，最终到达苏格兰首府爱丁堡。他成长为一个最具原创性、打破常规的思想家，具有强大的智力和谦虚。他在广泛的研究主题上进行了数十项研究，其中许多与气候变化的物理原因有关。他以其关于冰河时代的天文学理论而闻名，但更应该因其对地球系统反馈的核心重要性的深刻物理见解而受到更好的尊重。克罗尔虽然谦虚，但他是一位热心的争议者，他强烈地、或许过于强势，总是守着自己的角落。除了作为一名科学家取得的许多成就外，克罗尔还致力于探索有神论和决定论的哲学问题，这些主题占据了他最早和最后的出版物。本文探讨了 Croll 处理的不同主题领域中的“前十名”选择，并对其对当代建模研究和地球气候未来的遗产进行了简要调查：（1）气候变化的原因（1864 年）；(2) 冰盖融化和海平面上升（1865 年）；(3) 使用偏心率预测未来气候 (1866)；（4）结合轨道进动、偏心率和倾角（1867）；（五）冰期地质年代和年代（1868年）；（6）地质时间和剥蚀率（1868）；（7）洋流和半球温差（1869）；(8) 反馈——导致气候变化的显着情况（1875 年）；(9) 空间温度及其对地球物理学的影响（1880 年）；（10）温和的极地气候的原因（1884）。