Fossilized Trees in Siberia Reveal Anthropogenic Warming Led to the Hottest Climate in over Seven Millennia

Fossilized trees in Siberia have just revealed the hottest summers or hottest climate in the last seven millennia is happening now.

This is according to a new study led by researchers from the Ural Federal University in Yekaterinburg, Russia.

The findings were based on the analysis of the annual growth rings from the Yamal Peninsula of the Siberia region.

Based on the new research, the current Siberian heating is considered to be "unprecedented" in the past 7,000 years, indicating a historic heat never seen before.

The Russian research team starts with the premise that 2022 is going down in history as one of the hottest summers to date.

They mentioned that heat waves caused abnormally high temperatures as Earth continues to warm.

Hottest Climate in Millennia

(Photo : Photo by DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP via Getty Images)

The breakthrough discovery was published in the journal Nature Communications on August 25, confirming the Arctic polar region is warming faster than any part of the planet.

To put into perspective, the team used the Yamal Peninsula as the hotspot of the recent warming, primarily in the last 7638 years by utilizing annually resolved tree-ring records.

Furthermore, the Ural Federal University researchers concluded that anthropogenic warming or human-caused warming has interrupted a "multi-millennial cooling trend" by approximately 1850s, thanks to the onset of the Industrial Revolution.

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Global Temperature in Decades

Prior research in recent years have shown that the onset of the 21st century marks some of record-breaking global temperatures since recordings started in 1880.

In general, existing scientific literatures suggested that human-operated industrial operations, including greenhouse gas emissions and burning of fossil fuels, have significantly contributed to the climate crisis and the warming of the planet.

According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) last year, Earth's global average surface temperature in 2020, together with 2016, as the hottest year on record.

This warming trend will continue due to human activities.

NASA said their analyses mostly matches with the independent analyses by the Climatic Research Unit and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The US agencies found that nineteen of the hottest years have occurred since the year 2000

Warmest Years on Record

An update from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in January 2022 suggests the year 2021 has been one of the warmest years on record, even if the average global temperatures were temporarily cooled down by the La Niña events from 2020 to 2022.

The findings are based on the six leading international datasets of the WMO, which shows that global warming and other long-term trends link to climate change are anticipated persist due to record levels of the heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

In its report, the WMO also mentions the UN-led Paris Agreement, which aims to limit the global temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius and limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Scientists reportedly believe that one of the manifestations of these warming trend was the major heat wave that struck the Northern Hemisphere, including the eruption of wildfires due to a heat wave in some European countries and the massive heat domes over the United States in recent months.