The Neolithic Revolution altered land use enough to impact Earth's climate
Extensive scientific modeling confirms that anthropogenic changes in land use and land cover significantly alter regional and local climates, supporting the premise that early and ongoing agricultural transformations impact Earth's climate system.
The claim specifically asserts that the Neolithic Revolution altered land use enough to impact Earth's climate. While none of the papers explicitly study the historical Neolithic period itself, multiple high-quality modeling studies (e.g., papers 1, 3, 6, and 10) robustly demonstrate that anthropogenic land use and land cover change (LUCC) significantly alters regional and global climate variables, albedo, and weather extremes. Since land use changes are well-established drivers of climate modification, the underlying mechanism of the claim is strongly supported by the literature.
K. Findell, A. Berg, P. Gentine, J. Krasting, B. Lintner, S. Malyshev, J. Santanello, E. Shevliakova. The impact of anthropogenic land use and land cover change on regional climate extremes. 2017. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-01038-w
Paper [1] demonstrates that converting natural land to agriculture and pastures significantly modifies regional climate extremes.
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Kirsten L. Findell, Elena Shevliakova, P. C. D. Milly, Ronald J. Stouffer. Modeled Impact of Anthropogenic Land Cover Change on Climate. 2007. https://doi.org/10.1175/jcli4185.1
Paper [3] shows that anthropogenic land cover changes create large, significant local variations in surface climate variables.
S. Sy, B. Quesada. Anthropogenic land cover change impact on climate extremes during the 21st century. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab702c
Paper [6] finds that land cover changes substantially modulate regional weather extremes and precipitation patterns.
M. Yan, Jian Liu, Zhiyuan Wang, L. Ning. Biogeophysical impacts of land use/land cover change on 20th century anthropogenic climate compared to the impacts of greenhouse gas change. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.6598
Paper [10] establishes that historical land use and land cover changes exert biogeophysical effects comparable to greenhouse gas changes.
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