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 ...
Although this isn’t news about an archeological exploration, it discusses a startling hypothesis about global warming in the days of Columbus which I’m sure that many members of your ping list would love to discuss.
Sounds like it should come from “The Onion”.
Folks you cannot make this stuff up. These people must stay awake nights figuring new ideas to make up.
this needs a facepalm
So, clear cutting by Indians good. Clear cutting by white man bad.
Reading the excerpt was enough IMO. Amazing. Absolutely amazing.
Wondering which chemicals he was overexposed.
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.
Next I suppose they will finally acknowledge the Medieval Warm Period, but will blame it on the Crusades/Byzantines/Mongols/Viking cow farts.
Except that the cooling associated with the Little Ice Age started almost 200 years before Columbus Sailed The Ocean Blue.
This theory is not new.
Historian Charles Mann discusses it in his books, “1491” and “1493,” covering the Americas before and just after the arrival of Europeans.
Richard Nevle of Stanford University
I wonder if this guy has any relationship to the Richard Nevle who is currently principal of Strake Jesuit College Prep High School in Houston, TX? Mr. Nevle had 4 children, as I remember -- some of them sons. Mr. Nevle was my sons' Sr. Advisor years ago, 1979 and 1982. Very accomplished family. The age would be right.
For the record, Charles C. Mann is not an historian. He's a B.A. who writes stuff, generally at great length. A heavy-breathing, politically correct scribe who takes a lot of liberties with the truth, in my observation.
Ignores science that shows atmospheric CO2 does not drive temperature change. If RESPONDS to it.
We all know it’s Bush’s fault.
Did he explain why the Norse Greenland settlements were dying due to temperature drops 50 to 100 years befor Columbus sailed? Maybe they should blame it on the 35% drop in Europe’s population due to the Black death. With a drop in population less food was needed,less acreage cultivated,reforestation takes place.
GW PING
I get it, trees cause ice ages.
THC?
Let me get this straight, they move from europe and stop cutting trees down to cook dinner and go to America where they forget how to cook.
Right...
Obviously these Scientwists smoke a lot of pot.
ping
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