Who is the 'culprit' first causing the greenhouse effect?

By burning wood and firewood, the ancient people who lived in the same time as the Roman Empire were the "culprits" who contributed significantly to creating significant emissions causing the greenhouse effect.

This finding may cause scientists to reconsider some aspects of the climate change model, saying that before the industrial revolution took place, humans were not responsible for the phenomenon.'It is believed that emissions only started to appear in 1850, but in fact it happened a long time ago,' said Célia Sapart, a member of the Utretcht University (Netherlands) research team. know.

Methane is a fairly powerful greenhouse gas, 20 times the heating power of carbon dioxide. Forest fires, swamps and volcanic eruptions have released methane into the atmosphere. However, human daily activities, such as raising livestock or burning fossil fuels, account for more than half of the methane released.

To draw this conclusion, Sapart and colleagues analyzed ice cores taken in Greenland. The tiny air bubbles trapped in the ice provide the perfect picture depicting the atmosphere thousands of years ago: the carbon isotopes (atoms with the same element but the number of different neutrons) inside the bubble are not only Revealing the level of methane in the atmosphere but also helping to understand the amount of gas originating from forest fires, wetlands or other sources.

The process of releasing methane causes a greenhouse effect several times inside
2100 years in the Roman, Middle Ages and in the ice age. (Photo: NBI)

In a study published in the journal Nature recently, the team also found that methane levels were high from 100 BC, during the heyday of the Roman Empire, and began to decline. around 200 AD, at the same time the empire weakened. It was created when the Romans burned forests to get land for planting and to expand settlements, Sapart said.

That period coincided with the peak of the Han dynasty in China. Han people burned a large amount of wood for the forging blades. After the collapse of the dynasty around 200 AD, the concentration of methane in the atmosphere quickly decreased. In addition, in Europe, experts noted that methane levels skyrocketed during the ice age of the 1400s, when people kept warm by burning firewood.

In general, all of the above results show that the forecasting model of climate change may need to be revised because in the past, researchers always believed that methane only appeared when humans entered too much. industrialization process.