Old agricultural practices have led to an increase in atmospheric emissions: study

According to a study, past agricultural practices have led to an increase in atmospheric emissions of carbon and methane gas, which have continued since then and have profoundly changed the climate of the Earth.

The findings, led by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, showed that former farmers were clearing land for planting wheat and corn, potatoes and squash, flooding fields to grow rice and growing crops. livestock.

Without this human influence, at the beginning of the industrial revolution, the planet would probably have moved to another ice age, the researchers said.

"Without early agriculture, the Earth's climate would be significantly cooler today," said lead author Stephen Vavrus, of the university.

"The ancient roots of agriculture produced enough carbon dioxide and methane to influence the environment," he added.

The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, is based on a sophisticated climate model that compares the current geological period – called the Holocene – to a similar period 800,000 years ago.

The results showed that the earlier period, called MIS19, was already 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit (1.3 degrees Celsius) colder overall than the Holocene equivalent time, around 1850.

This effect would have been most pronounced in the Arctic, where the model shows that temperatures were 9 to 11 degrees Fahrenheit colder, the team explained.

Using ice core-based climate reconstructions, the model also showed that MIS19 and the Holocene had similar concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane, but that both greenhouse gases had decreased overall. 5000 years ago. of the two gases in 1850.

Glaciers have long served as a source of fresh water for the Earth.

But climatologists now agree that the next ice age is on hold in the near future and predictable, "because even if we stop putting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, what we have now, "said co-author William Ruddiman paleoclimatologist at the University of Virginia.

"The phenomenal fact is that we may have stopped the Earth's major climate cycle and we are stuck in a warmer, warmer interglacial," he said.