Deserted fields are overgrown with forests that have absorbed greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, and this has led to a global cooling.
The Little Ice Age of the 16th - 17th centuries had a strong impact on the development of mankind. Suffice it to say that global climate change is called one of the reasons for the Great Famine that lasted on the territory of the Russian kingdom from 1601 to 1603. These events led to the fall of the Godunov dynasty and the beginning of the Time of Troubles. Many scientists associate the cooling period with the eruption of Huaynaputina volcano in southern Peru. However, a group of scientists from University College London led by Alexander Koch believe that their colleagues are underestimating the influence of another powerful factor. We are talking about the European colonization of America, which led not only to the extinction of 90 percent of the indigenous population of the New World, but also to the onset of a global environmental catastrophe.
Studying various data, the researchers came to the conclusion that at the time Columbus discovered America in 1492, the population of South and North America was approximately 60.5 million people (for comparison, about 80 million people lived in Europe in the 16th century). A significant proportion of American Aborigines were actively engaged in agriculture. Scientists believe that there was 1.04 hectares of land used per capita. It turns out that the total figure is comparable to the sown area that is sown today in Russia (80 million hectares). Studying the farming practices of pre-Columbian cultures, historians came to the conclusion that they also widely used forest burning to clear areas for crops. And this regularly led to large emissions of carbon dioxide, which increased the greenhouse effect.
However, everything changed when Europeans arrived in the New World. Subsequent events were called "Indian demographic catastrophe". A large number of Indians died during the hostilities against the conquistadors. However, the main danger was carried by fatal diseases, against which the Indians did not have immunity. Soldiers and white settlers brought smallpox, typhus, measles, flu, bubonic plague, malaria to America … According to researchers, the epidemic mowed down up to 90 percent of the indigenous population of America. Over 100 years of colonization - by 1600, the number of Indians decreased from 60 million to 6.
“The destruction of the Native American population by repeated epidemics has led to a significant decline in agricultural activity,” says Professor Koch. - About 56 million hectares of land were abandoned. These territories were rapidly overgrown with forest, which actively absorbed atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Scientists have iron evidence that the concentration of CO2 in the air during this period on the planet decreased. This is evidenced by the ice cores that the researchers drilled in Antarctica. The fact is that a sample taken from the depths of the ice sheet may contain information about hundreds and thousands of years of the planet's history. With each snowfall, microscopic particles that floated in the air settled on the virgin Antarctic glaciers - this is how information about the composition of the atmosphere and air temperature was recorded in the ice chronicle.
After analyzing all these data, Alexander Koch and his colleagues came to the conclusion that the mass death of Indians in America contributed to the onset of the coldest stage of the Little Ice Age on the entire planet. Everything in the world turns out to be very closely interconnected.
YAROSLAV KOROBATOV
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