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The 8,000-year-old climate puzzle

Nature (2011)Cite this article

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Models bolster case for early human effect on greenhouse-gas levels.

Scientists have come up with new evidence in support of the controversial idea that humanity's influence on climate began not during the industrial revolution, but thousands of years ago. Proposed by palaeoclimatologist William Ruddiman in 2003, the theory says that human influences offset the imminent plunge into another ice age and helped create the relatively stable climate that we are familiar with today. It has been repeatedly panned as implausible by palaeoclimate researchers, but eight years on, Ruddiman and others say that they have the data to support early anthropogenic climate change.

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References

  1. Ruddiman, W. F., Kutzbach, J. E. & Vavrus, S. J. Holocene advance online publication doi:10.1177/0959683610387172 (2011).

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Authors
  1. Jeff Tollefson
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The Holocene journal

Jed Kaplan’s group website

AGU Chapman Conference on Climates, Past Landscapes and Civilizations

William Ruddiman's web page

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Tollefson, J. The 8,000-year-old climate puzzle. Nature (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/news.2011.184

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