European colonizers killed so many Native Americans that it changed the global climate, researchers

When Europeans arrived in the Americas, they caused so much death and disease that it changed the global climate, a new study finds.

European settlers killed 56 million indigenous people over about 100 years in South, Central and North America, causing large swaths of farmland to be abandoned and reforested, researchers at University College London, or UCL, estimate. The increase in trees and vegetation across an area the size of France resulted in a massive decrease in carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, according to the study.

Carbon levels changed enough to cool the Earth by 1610, researchers found. Columbus arrived in 1492,

"CO2 and climate had been relatively stable until this point," said UCL Geography Professor Mark Maslin, one of the study's co-authors. "So, this is the first major change we see in the Earth's greenhouse gases."

Before this study, some scientists had argued the temperature change in the 1600s, called the Little Ice Age, was caused only by natural forces.

But by combining archaeological evidence, historical data and analysis of carbon found in Antarctic ice, the UCL researchers showed how the reforestation -- directly caused by the Europeans' arrival -- was a key component of the global chill, they said.

"For once, we've been able to balance all the boxes and realize that the only way the Little Ice Age was so intense is ... because of the genocide of millions of people," Maslin told CNN.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/01/world/european-colonization-climate-change-trnd/index.html

First, the Europeans did not intend to kill all those Native Americans. Most of them succumbed to European diseases. At the time, all diseases were thought to be caused by the environment. The germ theory of disease and an understanding of communicable diseases was only developed in the 1800s, Centuries later.

Second, the Little Ice Age is likely the result of the lack of sunspots during the Maunder Minimum. At first, the Little Ice Age was debunked as being a local European weather phenomena. Enough data from around the world is now in so that it has to be recognized as a global cooling. I'm sure the search is on for non-sunspot theories connected to human activities. However, the sunspots are now coming to a new Minimum, and we shall soon see what the satellite data says.