Milanković’s masterwork on his astronomical theory of climate, which brought together all the mathematical elements underlying the theory of “Milanković cycles.” Milanković cycles are cyclical changes in a planet’s climate caused by the variations in its orbit, which affect the amount of solar radiation (insolation) the planet receives. On Earth these variations have played a decisive role in initiating the growth of glaciers, leading to at least five major periods of significantly colder temperatures (ice ages).

There have been two English transations:

Canon of insolation and the ice-age problem. English translation by the Israel Program for Scientific Translations. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce and National Science Foundation, 1969.

Canon of insolation and the ice-age problem. Pantic, N. editor, Belgrade: Zavod Nastavna Sredstva, 1998.

This theory was further developed to the point where it received widespread acceptance by James D. Hays, John Imbrie, and Nicholas Shackleton in their paper Variations in the Earth's Orbit: Pacemaker of the Ice Ages", Science 194, Issue 4270 (1976) 1121-1132. Using ocean sediment cores, their paper confirmed that oscillations in climate can be correlated with Earth's orbital variations of eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession around the Sun.