Adverse consequences of this rapid warming are already underway: enhanced ice loss across Greenland 6, record-low Arctic sea ice extent 7, permafrost thawing 8, 9 and unprecedented wildfires across Siberia 10, 11 with considerable implications on a suite of human and natural systems, both within and outside the polar regions 4. The 2011–2020 mean temperature of the Arctic region (>60° latitude) alone was 0.71 ☌ higher than the preceding decade mean 5. Whereas the globe is nowadays approximately 1.2 ☌ warmer than during pre-industrial times (1850–1900) 1, 2, near-surface regions of the northern hemisphere high latitude have warmed at a rate nearly twice that of lower latitudes 1, 3, a phenomenon known as Arctic Amplification 4. This is undoubtedly of concern for the natural and human systems that are being impacted by climatic changes that lie outside the envelope of natural climatic variations for this region. We find the industrial-era warming to be unprecedented in rate and to have elevated the summer temperature to levels above those reconstructed for the past seven millennia (in both 30-year mean and the frequency of extreme summers). We demonstrate that the recent anthropogenic warming interrupted a multi-millennial cooling trend. Here, we provide this long-term perspective by reconstructing past summer temperature variability at Yamal Peninsula – a hotspot of recent warming – over the past 7638 years using annually resolved tree-ring records. Putting this rapid warming into perspective is challenging because instrumental records are often short or incomplete in polar regions and precisely-dated temperature proxies with high temporal resolution are largely lacking. The Arctic is warming faster than any other region on Earth.
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