Core records, both ice and deep-sea, suggest that the dominant character is that of a red-noise process or random walk. Examination of a few typical records supports the inference that the contribution of the Milankovitch frequencies to climate change at most represents only a small fraction of total climate variance. A broad maximum near 100 ky period can be readily rationalized without invoking an oscillator. One need only suppose that there is an approximate threshold beyond which the climate system collapses. Changes in the forcing intensity would lead to a shift in the dominant time scale. (modif. j. abstr.)