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Concerning "soaking into the ground", it does that ~ INITIALLY ~ and then it is sucked up by the plants. Much of it evaporates directly ~ that's why irrigation leaves behind salt damaged land.

I'm sorry, but none of that has anything to do with the factors I mentioned in my post.

First of all, irrigation has been taking place on a long term basis and it's effects are barely measureable on today's equipment. As I mentioned, we're talking about a factor that amounts to hundredths of one percent, at best. Micro-trivia! What is your point?

*Please excuse me for guessing, but this wouldn't happen to be your your day off, would it?

Irrigation has been taking place for a long time ~ right ~ and we can pretty well establish when it was first implemented on a widespread scale because the Earth heated up.

That's way back when rice cultivation spread throughout China and East Asia.

Lightweight plastic pipe, cheap pumps, and other pieces of technology have allowed for a vast expansion of irrigation over the past 50 years.

Several issues back a Brit researcher saw his research into the matter of a coming Ice Age Glaciation published in Scientific American. It is his thesis that we are actually in the cool-down phase leading to widespread glaciation BUT widespread agriculture has served to keep the Earth warm. He pointed to a drop in global temperatures coincident with the great die-off of American Indians (1500-1600), and the consequent rise in global temperatures coincident with European/African re-settlement of the Americas.