William F. Ruddiman is a
palaeoclimatologist and Professor Emeritus at the University of
Virginia
. He is known principally for his "
early anthropocene" hypothesis, the idea
that Human-induced changes in
greenhouse
gases did not begin in the eighteenth century with advent of
coal-burning factories and power plants of the
industrial era, but date back to 8,000
years ago, triggered by intense
farming
activities of our early agrarian ancestors. It was at that time
that atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations stopped following
the periodic pattern of rises and falls that had accurately
characterized their past long-term behavior, a pattern which is
well explained by natural variations in the Earth’s orbit known as
Milankovitch cycles. In his
overdue-glaciation hypothesis
Ruddiman claims that an incipient ice age would probably have begun
several thousand years ago, but the arrival of that scheduled ice
age was forestalled by the activities of early farmers.
The
overdue-glaciation hypothesis
has been challenged on the grounds that alternative explanations
are sufficient to account for the current warm anomaly without
recourse to human activity, but Ruddiman challenges the methodology
of his critics. (see external links)
William Ruddiman is also known for his hypothesis in the 1980s that
the
tectonic uplift of
Tibet created the highly seasonal
monsoonal circulation that dominates Asia
today.
He has also proposed that the uplift of the Tibetan and
Colorado plateaus caused a reduction in
atmospheric CO
2 and was therefore a major causal factor
in the Cenozoic Cooling trend that eventually lead to our current
Ice Age
He has written a number of books including "
Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum: How
Humans Took Control of Climate".
References
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