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Columbus blamed for Little Ice Age
ScienceNews ^ | 10-22-11 | Devin Powell

Posted on 10/13/2011 2:17:57 PM PDT by afraidfortherepublic

Depopulation of Americas may have cooled climate

MINNEAPOLIS — By sailing to the New World, Christopher Columbus and the other explorers who followed may have set off a chain of events that cooled Europe’s climate for centuries.

The European conquest of the Americas decimated the people living there, leaving large areas of cleared land untended. Trees that filled in this territory pulled billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, diminishing the heat-trapping capacity of the atmosphere and cooling climate, says Richard Nevle, a geochemist at Stanford University.

“We have a massive reforestation event that’s sequestering carbon … coincident with the European arrival,” says Nevle, who described the consequences of this change October 11 at the Geological Society of America annual meeting.

Tying together many different lines of evidence, Nevle estimated how much carbon all those new trees would have consumed. He says it was enough to account for most or all of the sudden drop in atmospheric carbon dioxide recorded in Antarctic ice during the 16th and 17th centuries. This depletion of a key greenhouse gas, in turn, may have kicked off Europe’s so-called Little Ice Age, centuries of cooler temperatures that followed the Middle Ages.

(Excerpt) Read more at sciencenews.org ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Front Page News; Government
KEYWORDS: 1492; ageofsail; ancientnavigation; carboncretins; catastrophism; change; christophercolumbus; climate; climatechange; co2; columbus; columbusday; cooling; deforestation; energy; forests; globalcooling; globalwarming; globalwarminghoax; godsgravesglyphs; gorebullwarming; greens; junkscience; littleiceage; navigation; psuedoscience; reforestation
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To: afraidfortherepublic
Solar activity at the time (the Maunder Minimum) probably had much more to do with the Little Ice Age.


81 posted on 10/14/2011 6:04:49 AM PDT by PapaBear3625 (When you've only heard lies your entire life, the truth sounds insane.)
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To: henkster
Whoaaaa!!! Just wait a dog-gone minute! The European settlement of the New World CLEARED LAND! That is historical fact. This is the most ridiculous mumbo-jumbo of all time.

Farmers cleared land for planting, and they didn't do that much of it before the 1800's. There just wasn't that much population.

Indians were fire-bugs. They would set forest fires all over. The reason was that deer eat grasses and tree shoots. Their ecological niche is at the interface between woods and meadow. Large forests of large mature trees do not provide food for deer. The ideal hunting environment involved lots of meadows.

That said, the conclusion is silly. The Earth's main carbon sink is the ocean. Warm oceans hold less carbon than cold oceans. For that reason, CO2 levels FOLLOW temperature changes, rather than causing them.

82 posted on 10/14/2011 6:14:02 AM PDT by PapaBear3625 (When you've only heard lies your entire life, the truth sounds insane.)
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To: SunkenCiv; ApplegateRanch; Silentgypsy; decimon; TheOldLady; Winstons Julia; Daffynition

Horsesh!+. Every one knows that the introduction of horses back to the Americas, and all the horsesh!+ they produced is what changed the climate. Everything wrong in the world can be blamed on horsesh!+.


83 posted on 10/14/2011 10:17:12 AM PDT by bigheadfred (But alas)
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To: bigheadfred

84 posted on 10/14/2011 10:43:47 AM PDT by Daffynition (“There are no compacts between lions and men, and wolves and lambs have no concord.” ~ Homer)
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To: afraidfortherepublic
How much did the planet cool when Mao killed 30 million Chinese after the Cultural Revolution? Or after Stalin caused 6-8 million to die in the Ukranian famine?

Sheesh...

85 posted on 10/14/2011 10:53:23 AM PDT by andy58-in-nh (America does not need to be organized: it needs to be liberated.)
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To: Daffynition

Steaming. Nice touch.

That The Rose Garden?


86 posted on 10/14/2011 10:56:15 AM PDT by bigheadfred (But alas)
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To: PapaBear3625
>>Large forests of large mature trees do not provide food for deer.<<

How does that account for the deer foraging on acorns? Are they all community organizers?

We all know...deer eat meat. Fact.


87 posted on 10/14/2011 11:22:57 AM PDT by Daffynition (“There are no compacts between lions and men, and wolves and lambs have no concord.” ~ Homer)
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To: bigheadfred
Organically speaking...


88 posted on 10/14/2011 11:35:44 AM PDT by Daffynition (“There are no compacts between lions and men, and wolves and lambs have no concord.” ~ Homer)
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To: Daffynition; bigheadfred

Why does photo #2 bring to mind the clubbing to death of one’s neighbor w/a snow shovel?


89 posted on 10/14/2011 11:55:30 AM PDT by Silentgypsy (If this creature is not stopped it could make its way to Novosibirsk!)
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To: andy58-in-nh

“How much did the planet cool when Mao killed 30 million Chinese after the Cultural Revolution? Or after Stalin caused 6-8 million to die in the Ukranian famine?”

Last time I read about that it was 40 million for Mao and 20 million Ukranians.

What, are they revising the numbers downward bit by bit?


90 posted on 10/14/2011 12:32:15 PM PDT by dsc (Any attempt to move a government to the left is a crime against humanity.)
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To: bigheadfred; SunkenCiv

Unlike buffalo chips, horsesh!+ rots quickly, producing a lot of heat; that was th basis of gardening hot beds. You just might be onto something!


91 posted on 10/14/2011 12:34:25 PM PDT by ApplegateRanch ("Public service" does NOT mean servicing the people, like a bull among heifers.)
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To: dsc

It depends largely on who you cite as a source, and what time frame one uses. I was only making a point about the insanity of assuming that human beings can have any substantial control over CO2 amounts in the atmosphere, 97% of which is naturally-occurring (e.g. - evaporative water vapor) and which only constitutes 0.38% of the Earth’s atmosphere to begin with.


92 posted on 10/14/2011 12:53:09 PM PDT by andy58-in-nh (America does not need to be organized: it needs to be liberated.)
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To: afraidfortherepublic
from the article: "Nevle estimated how much carbon all those new trees would have consumed.
He says it was enough to account for most or all of the sudden drop in atmospheric carbon dioxide recorded in Antarctic ice during the 16th and 17th centuries.
This depletion of a key greenhouse gas, in turn, may have kicked off Europe’s so-called Little Ice Age, centuries of cooler temperatures that followed the Middle Ages."

The "little ice age":
"...any of several dates ranging over 400 years may indicate the beginning of the Little Ice Age:


93 posted on 10/14/2011 2:13:59 PM PDT by BroJoeK (a little historical perspective....)
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To: afraidfortherepublic

OMG.... This can’t be real..................


94 posted on 10/14/2011 4:24:32 PM PDT by The Mayor ("If you can't make them see the light, let them feel the heat" — Ronald Reagan)
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To: ApplegateRanch

My dad has my cousin bring his horses up every summer to graze in his small pasture, a couple of times every summer. Dad then collects the manure and spreads it on his garden. I asked my dad one day WHY he needed corn 14 feet tall. He just told me to shut up and climb that ladder....


95 posted on 10/14/2011 4:38:17 PM PDT by bigheadfred (But alas)
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To: Silentgypsy
Why does photo #2 bring to mind the clubbing to death of one’s neighbor w/a snow shovel?

It's in your trial transcript????

96 posted on 10/14/2011 4:40:42 PM PDT by bigheadfred (But alas)
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To: BroJoeK; SunkenCiv; Daffynition

Good post BroJoeK, but does anyone remember the blizzard of “71? My dad told me my toes would grow back....


97 posted on 10/14/2011 4:52:35 PM PDT by bigheadfred (But alas)
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To: bigheadfred

The first storm that really registered with me was the blizzard (late 1970s) that shut down the enormous state university I was attending at the time.


98 posted on 10/14/2011 5:09:41 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (It's never a bad time to FReep this link -- https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: The Mayor

I always wondered what near-missing comets and asteroids over time have done to the atmosphere, having grazed it or ran through it. Those are direct, immediate impacts, I think of the slo-mo footage of that bullet going through the apple.


99 posted on 10/14/2011 5:21:23 PM PDT by txhurl (Did you want to talk or fish? Or feed the fish?)
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To: bigheadfred

Darned right — hence, the Democratic Party.


100 posted on 10/14/2011 5:22:02 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (It's never a bad time to FReep this link -- https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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