Earth Transformed

ISBN-13: 9781464107764 / Angielski / Miękka / 2013 / 400 str.

William Ruddiman

Opis

It's a question that has engaged climate scientists for more than a decade: Not if human activity impacts the environment, but when did that impact start to be significant? Was it in the mid-18th century, as long believed, with the Industrial Revolution producing huge amounts in greenhouse gas emissions? Or did it actually begin thousands of years earlier, as a result of the discovery and spread of agricultural practices?

Spis treści

Prologue Did Civilization Develop in a Naturally Warm World?.- PART I: A MYSTERY: WRONG-WAY GREENHOUSE-GAS TRENDS.- 1. Natures Climatic Cycles.- 2. Wrong-Way Methane Trend.- 3. Wrong-Way Carbon Dioxide Trend.- PART II: EARLY AGRICULTURE: ANSWER TO THE CO2 AND CH4 MYSTERIES?.- 4. The Fertile Crescent and Europe.- 5. China and Southern Asia.- 6. The Americas.- 7. Africa, Australia, and Oceania.- PART III: DEBATING A NEW HYPOTHESIS.- 8. Early Farming and Per Capita Land Use.- 9. How Should Interglacial Gas Trends Be Compared?.- 10. Natural Versus Anthropogenic CH4 Sources: Closer Scrutiny.- 11. Natural Versus Anthropogenic CO2 Sources: Closer Scrutiny.- PART IV: HOW SCIENCE MOVES FORWARD.- 12. Falsification.- 13. Paradigm Shifts.- 14. An Emerging Paradigm for the Anthropogenic Era?.- PART V: EARLY HUMAN EFFECTS ON CLIMATE.- 15. Is the Next Glaciation Overdue?.- 16. Other Climatic Effects of Early Land Clearance.- 17. The End of Northern Hemisphere Glaciations.- PART VI: SMALL STEPS BACK TOWARD AN ICE AGE.- 18. The Little Ice Age.- 19. Were the Drops in CO2 and CH4 Natural?.- 20. Mass Human Mortality and CO2 Decreases.- 21. Effects of Humans on Short-Term Greenhouse-Gas Reductions.

O autorze

William F. Ruddiman is retired from the University of Virginia, USA and has since concentrated his research on the climatic role farmers played during the last several thousand years by clearing land, raising livestock, and irrigating rice padis. Over the course of his career, Ruddiman has explored several different aspects of the field of paleoclimate - from orbital-scale changes in North Atlantic sediment to the cause of long-term cooling over the last 50 million years. He has written trade books and numerous journal articles.