EARTH’S CLIMATE PAST and FUTURE SECOND EDITION CHAPTER 15 Humans and Preindustrial Climate WILLIAM...
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Transcript of EARTH’S CLIMATE PAST and FUTURE SECOND EDITION CHAPTER 15 Humans and Preindustrial Climate WILLIAM...
• EARTH’S CLIMATE• PAST and FUTURE
• SECOND EDITION
• CHAPTER 15• Humans and Preindustrial Climate
WILLIAM F. RUDDIMAN
© 2008 W. H. Freeman and Company
Main Concepts
• Major steps in Human evolution• Theories for connection between climate and
Human evolution– Limited data for Human evolution and how that limits
our ability to test theories• Agriculture and its relationship to climate
– Role of climate in development of agriculture– Role of climate in civilization collapse– Role of agriculture in greenhouse gas increases of
last 8000 to 5000 yrs• Role of climate in megafaunal extinction
Role of Climate?
• What does the figure on the right suggest about African climate changes while humans were evolving in the last 4 million years?– While planet cooling, Africa
getting dryer and less forested
– Causes of drying may be many: precession and monsoons, lower CO2, tectonic uplift
Scarcity of human boneSamples affects two things:
1) Ability to determine true age range of human ancestors
2) Ability to determine rate of evolution of human ancestors and traits
Did human evolution occur because of:
1) The change from forest to savannah?
2) Continuous variability in climate?
Impossible to tell with sparse data set
Role of Climate in development of Agriculture
• Two possibilities presented:– Deglacial warming favored agriculture in fertile
crescent generally– Younger Dryas cooling/drying concentrated
people near water sources and led to agriculture
• Impossible to tell if either is correct!
Climate and Civilization
• Several major civilization collapses coincide with periods of intense drought
• Not surprisingly, other factors likely played a role:– War, overexploitation of
soil/resources, affecting climate by cutting trees
What is the main difficulty with the idea that climate caused the megafaunal extinction?
Last 5 interglacial CO2 records from Antarctic ice cores
Last 5 interglacial CH4 records from Antarctic ice cores
Rice patties or glaciation?!
Models suggest we wouldbe in the beginnings of thenext ice age now if not for the current levels of CO2 and CH4