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SAN FRANCISCO — For generations , the Maya thrived in an advanced , complex civilization in modern - mean solar day Central America . But then their guild founder in the eighth and ninth centuries . Now , a new discipline finds that the Maya may have had a hand in their own apocalypse .
disforestation in Central America before Europeans arrived contributed to drought in the region , according to the research presented today ( Dec. 5 ) here at the yearly get together of the American Geophysical Union ( AGU ) . Researchers have long suspect that drought contribute to the demise ofMayan civilization , though other factors such as fight and overpopulation may have also hastened the Maya ’s doom .
Some believe the end of the Mayan calendar, Dec. 21, 2012, will usher in a new spiritual era or even a doomsday. And new research suggests the civilization’s demise long ago may have been partly their own doing.
Using raw reconstruction of vegetation extend back 2,000 years , NASAGoddard Institute for Space Studies climatologist Benjamin Cook and co-worker found that forest - clarification by Mayan granger worsened drought circumstance in the field .
In fact , preceding enquiry has designate similarly that the ancient South American Nazca refinement ( known for expectant geoglyphs calledNazca tune ) may havecaused its own demiseby clearly - cutting large swaths of forest .
In the subject of the Mayans , how did comparatively rude farmers carry off to strike the weather condition ? When the Mayans cleared wood , they exposed commonwealth aerofoil with a eminent albedo , or reflexion , than the dark - unripe timberland canopy . This land aerofoil reflected energy back into the atmosphere rather than absorbing it , lessen the amount of DOE on the land aerofoil available to do affair like convect water vapour to form clouds and thus rain . The result , Cook said , was a decline in precipitation by 10 percentage to 20 percent .
With less rain , the ground dried out , so any additional vigor went to warming the open rather than melt water . The result was a ascent in control surface temperature by 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit ( 0.5 degrees Anders Celsius ) . Thelack of rainfalland hike in heat would have been bad news for a society whose survival depend on their farmlands .
Cook and his colleagues equate vegetation cover during pre - Columbian years ( before A.D.1492 ) and then after the Europeans ' reaching . The fallout from the European invasion destruct the universe by up to 90 percent in areas , and the result was a re - growth of woods as human pressure were reduced . Cave record reassert the pattern of drying during deforested catamenia and more precipitation when forests bounced back .
According to Cook , an examination of these records suggests that deforestation contributed to about half of the drought experienced by the Mayans . Rainfall levels declined by as much as 20 percent over the Yucatan between A.D. 800 and A.D. 950 .
" I would n’t contend that deforestation cause drouth or that it ’s entirely responsible for the diminution of the Maya , but our results do show that disforestation can bias the clime toward drought and that about one-half of the dispassion in the pre - Colonial catamenia was the result of deforestation , " Cook say .
Today , the portion of the Maya is again of interest group , collapse rumors ofa 2012 " apocalypse"predicted in Mayan calendars . Maya expert say that these rumors are wrong - maneuver and that the Mayan people would have remember of the calendar re - starting on that particular date , rather than the world finish . [ 11 die Doomsday prediction ]
More pressingly , deforestation is once again rearing in Central America , Cook secernate an audience at the AGU merging : " We could see these sorts of things materialise again . "
