Former farmers may have stopped the ice age

According to one study, ancient farming practices that have led to increased atmospheric emissions of heat-trapping gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, have continued to profoundly alter the Earth's climate.
Led by researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the results of the study showed that former farmers were clearing land for planting wheat, corn, potatoes and squash, flooding fields to grow crops rice and raised soil.

Without this human influence, the planet would probably have moved to another ice age before the start of the industrial revolution, according to the researchers.

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"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, known as 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 or 1.3 degrees Celsius cooler 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.