Yet another recent study points to the Arctic being anomalously warmer than it should be, thanks to man-made greenhouse gas emissions. A research team led by Dr. Darrell Kaufman of Northern Arizona University has recently had a holistic look at data sets taken from tree rings, lake sediment cores and ice cores going back 2,000 years and reached a conclusion that while somewhat expected, nonetheless still gives you pause.

In short, the study, which was published at the beginning of September in Science, concludes that, due to the natural orbital cycles of the Earth, the Arctic had been slowly cooling since the Holocene Thermal Maximum (HTM) some 8,000 years ago until the middle of the 20th century, when the trend suddenly reversed. The study shows that average temperatures in the Arctic over the last decade should have been about 1.4 °C cooler than they actually were if the trend had continued as it should have.

Dr. Kaufman explains the findings of the study in a series of video clips on the US National Science Foundation’s website and in a double interview on SciencePoles, the International Polar Foundation’s scientific website.