Description
The authors conducted an analysis of past changes in the northern Russian treeline, as reconstructed from tree-ring data and radiocarbon-dated subfossil wood. This work revealed, in their words, that "temperature increases over the past century are already producing demonstrable changes in the population density of trees, but these changes have not yet generated an extension of conifer species' limits to or beyond the former positions occupied during the Medieval Warm Period (MWP: ca AD 800-1300)," indicative of the fact that "the impact of twentieth century warming has not yet compensated fully for the mortality and range constriction caused by the cold temperatures of the Little Ice Age," specifically mentioning, in this regard, the central Kola Peninsula and the northern Polar Urals.