Yet another consequence of the Colombian Exchange

When Europeans came to the New World they brought diseases which decimated the local populations by up to 90%. One consequence of this is that cultivated land about the size of France was left fallow and reverted to forest which sucked up enough carbon dioxide to create cooling. This was already a cool cycle in climate but this time in the early seventeenth century is now thought to be the coolest part of the Little Ice Age.

(Archaeology Magazine – May/June 2019)

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