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Did prehistoric farmers drive early global warming? Jeremy Hance, mongabay.com September 3, 2008
Re-examining Ruddiman's theory, an article in New Scientist states that when the theory was first proposed "there was no shortage of criticism"; however since then, Ruddiman has been able to answer a fair number of critics with further research and more evidence.
His theory ran into bumps. Fortunat Joos from the University of Bern, Switzerland, made the observation that the earth did not have enough trees to burn to add up to the total rise in carbon. Acknowledging the truth of this, Ruddiman now argues that human activity was the spark that lit a match. Carbon released from widespread deforestation caused a positive feedback mechanism, which exponentially increased atmospheric carbon. A current model by Ruddiman shows that humans could have released enough carbon into the atmosphere to cause oceans to warm, thereby creating the positive feedback mechanism necessary to his theory. Such a cycle would have released 75 percent of the total carbon measured.
While recent evidence and research have buoyed Ruddiman's theory, it still has a large number of critics who believe natural causes are far more likely than humans. Future studies will likely shed more light on the issue. Still, the question remains important—and heated—because an understanding of past global climate changes will help humanity better understand and combat today's rising temperatures. CITATION: Hazel Muir. The Climate Changes. New Scientist. 6 SEPTEMBER 2008 (Vol. 199 No. 2672)
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