TR3.5

Causes of the Little Ice Age

Houjun Liu 2021-09-27 Mon 12:00

1 Why the Little Ice Age Happened

While he cause of KBhHIST201LittleIceAge The Little Ice Age is still unknown, there are some theories as to how this happened…

1.1 Maunder Minimum

  • Decreased sun spots causes less sun energy output
  • Hence, the earth is cooled

1.2 Volcano

  • Earlier in the period, there had been volcanic activity
  • Filipino volcanoes thought to deposit smoke, in which water droplets could have cooled the earth for ~3yrs

1.3 Slash-and-burn theory

  • Native Americans had a habit of clearing — whether through burning or slashing — forestland that could be used for farming. This reduces forests, so more \(CO_2\) could be in the air
  • The Europeans' influence of NA habit causes less of this to happen, making it be rather more Carbon Dioxide in the air