Can natural or anthropogenic explanations of late-Holocene CO 2 and CH 4 increases be falsified?

Abstract

Concentrations of CO₂ and CH₄ in the atmosphere rose slowly during the millennia prior to the industrial era. Opposing explanations for these increases have invoked natural and anthropogenic sources. Here we revisit this argument using new evidence to see whether either explanation can be falsified (disproven, in the sense proposed by German philosopher Karl Popper). Two lines of evidence suggest that natural explanations for the CH₄ increase are falsified: (1) the absence of any sustained methane increase early in seven interglaciations prior to the Holocene; and (2) weakening emissions during the last 5000 years from the two largest global sources of CH₄ – north tropical and boreal wetlands. Consistent with this interpretation, a new synthesis of archeological data from southern Asia reported in this issue indicates an exponential increase in CH₄ emissions from expanding rice irrigation during the last 5000 years. Neither the anthropogenic nor the natural explanations for the CO₂ increase can at this point be falsified. Previous studies that rejected the early anthropogenic hypothesis based on the small size of early farming populations ignored a rich array of archeological and historical evidence showing that early farmers used much more land per capita than those in the centuries just before the industrial era. Previous interpretations of very small terrestrial (anthropogenic and other) carbon emissions during the last 7000 years based on the δ¹³CO₂ record failed to incorporate credible estimates of very large carbon burial in boreal peat lands during the late Holocene. Allowance for larger burial in peat deposits requires much greater emissions of anthropogenic carbon to balance the δ¹³CO₂ budget. The prevalence of downward CO₂ trends during equivalent intervals early in previous interglaciations poses a major problem for natural explanations of the late-Holocene CO₂ increase.