Editing Little Ice Age (section)

===Population increases at mid- to high latitudes===
It is suggested that during the Little Ice Age, increased deforestation had enough effect on the Earth's [[albedo]] (reflectiveness) to cause regional and global temperature decreases. Changes in albedo were caused by widespread deforestation at high latitudes, which exposed more snow cover and thus increased reflectiveness of the Earth's surface, as land was cleared for agricultural use. The theory implies that over the course of the Little Ice Age, enough land was cleared to make deforestation a possible cause of climate change.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ellis |first1=Erle C. |last2=Kaplan |first2=Jed O. |last3=Fuller |first3=Dorian Q. |last4=Vavrus |first4=Steve |last5=Klein Goldewijk |first5=Kees |last6=Verburg |first6=Peter H. |year=2013 |title=Used planet: A global history |journal=[[Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America]] |volume=110 |issue=20 |pages=7978–7985 |bibcode=2013PNAS..110.7978E |doi=10.1073/pnas.1217241110 |pmc=3657770 |pmid=23630271 |doi-access=free}}</ref>

It has been proposed that the Land Use Intensification theory could explain this effect. The theory was originally proposed by Ester Boserup and suggests that agriculture advances only as the population demands it.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Turner |first1=B. L. |last2=Fischer-Kowalski |first2=Marina |date=2010 |title=Ester Boserup: An interdisciplinary visionary relevant for sustainability. |journal=[[Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America]] |volume=107 |issue=51 |pages=21963–21965 |bibcode=2010PNAS..10721963T |doi=10.1073/pnas.1013972108 |pmc=3009765 |pmid=21135227 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Furthermore, there is evidence of rapid population and [[agricultural expansion]], which could warrant some of the changes observed in the climate during this period.

This theory is still under speculation for multiple reasons: primarily, the difficulty of recreating climate simulations outside of a narrow set of land{{clarify|date=April 2022}} in those regions; so that one cannot rely on data to explain sweeping changes or to account for the wide variety of other sources of climate change globally. As an extension of the first reason, climate models including this period have shown increases and decreases in temperature globally.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Pitman |first1=A. J. |last2=Noblet-Ducoudre |first2=N. |last3=Cruz |first3=F. T. |last4=Davin |first4=E. L. |last5=Bonan |first5=G. B. |last6=Brovkn |first6=V. |last7=Claussen |first7=M. |last8=Delire |first8=C. |last9=Ganzeveld |first9=L. |last10=Gayler |first10=V. |last11=Can den Hurk |first11=B. J. J. M. |last12=Lawrence |first12=P. J. |last13=van der Molen |first13=M. K. |last14=Muller |first14=C. |last15=Reick |first15=C. H. |date=2009 |title=Uncertainties in climate responses to past land cover change: First results from the LUCID intercomparison study |journal=Geophysical Research Letters |volume=36 |issue=L14814 |pages=L14814 |bibcode=2009GeoRL..3614814P |doi=10.1029/2009GL039076 |s2cid=15504757 |doi-access=free |last16=Seneviratne |first16=S. I. |last17=Strengers |first17=B. J. |last18=Voldoire |first18=A.|hdl=11858/00-001M-0000-0011-F8CF-9 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> That is, climate models have shown deforestation as neither a singular cause for climate change nor a reliable cause for the global temperature decrease.