Science Forums 2

[Essay]

Very cool idea! Well, I should say a hot idea and a cool link! Thanks MTM!!!

While I like the implications of the article, it places the LIA from 1250-1650. I thought the LIA was more like wiki says: "Some confine the Little Ice Age to approximately the 16th century to the mid 19th century. It is generally agreed that there were three minima, beginning about 1650, about 1770, and 1850, each separated by slight warming intervals."

Implications: Massive collapses of local civilizations due to population collapses, from the 1350's to the 1650's may have led to a large drawdown of CO2 as jungles, forests and animal herds burgeoned--and nobody remained to manage the herds, burn off the underbrush and litter, and clear/cultivate the lands. This applies to all of the Americas (and Europe), but maybe Africa and Asia too.

I thought the MWP was from 800-1500. This would coincide with when the lands were being intensively managed--20 million Incas, Cahokia, etc.--releasing CO2.

Well, I was close: wiki says, "The Medieval Warm Period was a time of warm weather around AD 800-1300 during the European Medieval period."

p.s. wiki says: "Cahokia is the site of an ancient Native American city (650-1400 CE) near Collinsville, Illinois in the American Bottom floodplain, across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Missouri. The 2,200-acre (8.9 km2) site includes at least 109 man-made earthen mounds. Cahokia Mounds is the largest archaeological site related to the Mississippian culture, which developed advanced societies in eastern North America centuries before the arrival of Europeans."

p.p.s. I did not know this, but wiki also says: "The plague resurfaced in the mid-18th century; like the Black Death, the Third Pandemic began in Central Asia. It spread worldwide, killing millions, into the early 20th century."