Timothy Birdnow

A new papers says that agricultural activity in the central U.S. has caused a drop of 0.35* since the 1940"s.

From No Tricks Zone:

"In a new paper published in Geophysical Research Letters, three MIT scientists assert that the human influence on the climate of the Central United States is dominated by agricultural activity rather than greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Human activity has caused a significant long-term cooling trend (-0.35°C between the 1940s and 2009) and higher rainfall totals via the mechanism of "agricultural intensification” – a photosynthesis-associated increase in the air’s water vapor or humidity levels due to an explosive (400%) increase in crop production and yield since the 1940s.

The authors assert that the human-caused post-1940s cooling trend and increase in precipitation dramatically conflict with climate model expectations which project a human-caused warming trend and decreasing rainfall with the advent of increasing GHG emissions"

End excerpt.

Now retired Colorado State climatologist Roger Pielke Sr. always argued that land use changes had a far bigger impact on climate than carbon dioxide emissions. This clearly buttresses the argument.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 11:01 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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