
The time between the 10th and 15th centuries was a time of unusually warm weather and continued until the 15th century when a cold period know as the "Little Ice Age" appeared. The warmer climate resulted in a remarkable increase of prosperity, knowledge, and new art forms in Europe. Agriculture thrived, marshes and swamps dried up, eliminating breeding grounds for mosquitoes that was spreading malaria and killing the population off at the time. Former wetlands were converted to productive farmland that help reduce infant mortality and increase the population that had been devastated by disease before this time. It is estimated that the European population increased to approximately 60 million at the end of this warm period.
Vikings moved from Iceland to Greenland to colonize it and built settlements in Canada. Greenland prosperity reached its height in the later part of the 12th century and the start of the 13th centuries, when over 3,000 colonists occupied over 280 farms. The settlers experienced difficulty in the late 14th century at the beginning of the "Little Ice Age" cooling. The settlements were finally abandoned in the 15th century when it had become too cool to raise any crops. The warming that humanity is experiencing today is simply the result of the emergence from "the Little Ice Age", which was close to the time of the founding of our nation.
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