How pandemics affected the Earth’s atmosphere – research

Pandemics could change the Earth’s atmosphere

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Scientists have discovered in the Antarctic ice a link between the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in the past and centuries-old global pandemics.

Plague, syphilis and other diseases destroyed humanity and also affected the atmosphere. About this it is said in a study published in Nature Communications, writes Science Alert.

In the glaciers of Antarctica there are “time capsules” – air bubbles covered with ancient ice. They have preserved tiny samples of gases from the atmosphere that may be thousands or even millions of years old.

Scientists studied the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) and the large ice dome or “hill” Law Dome. Between them, scientists found discrepancies in the measurement of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2).

A study of the Law Dome core indicated a rapid decline in CO2 over a 90-year period, reaching its lowest point in 1610 AD.

Scientists assume that the cause of this is pandemics, which significantly reduced the population. Communities shrank and probably left previously inhabited areas. Scientists assume that the vegetation recovered and absorbed the carbon dioxide.

At the same time, the study of the core of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet did not show the same significant drop in the level of CO2 – it happened gradually until the 17th century.

To find out why there is a discrepancy in the level of carbon dioxide in the two glaciers of Antarctica, scientists raised a piece of ice with “time capsules” from a depth of about 100 meters in the period from 1454 to 1688 AD.

“The analysis confirms a more gradual decline in CO2 of 0.5 parts per million over the decade from 1516 to 1670 AD.

This supports the simulated scenarios of a large-scale reorganization of land use in the Americas after the contact of the New and Old Worlds.” – note the researchers.

They added that about 2.6 gigatonnes of CO2 were absorbed by humans over the decade as the population declined and forests grew back.

The team then modeled atmospheric carbon fluxes based on each of the ice cores, based on rough estimates of population size.

They concluded that the decrease in CO2 in 1610 at the Law Dome is “unbelievably large” and “inconsistent with even the most extreme land-use change scenarios.” However, scientists do not rule out that there was another event that could have affected the relationship between climate and CO2 levels.