The climate discovery of Christopher Columbus
On the second trip to America in July 1494, Christopher Columbus's ships sailed between Cuba and Jamaica, somehow resisting the monsoon's patrons. Torrential rains flooded the ships' basements and suffocating heat did not help to conserve food. The expedition was in danger.
In this critical situation, Colón wrote: “The sky here, the state of the air and time are similar to those here; every day there is a cloud that brings a rainfall of an hour, sometimes more and less, and that is due to the large trees of this country.” The colonial experience told him that the forest cover and rainfall were united: the same happened “in the Canary Islands, in Madeira and in the Azores, but since the trees were cut there are not so many clouds and it does not rain so much”. So he realized the relationship between deforestation and climate change.
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