Topic description and stories

Pile of yew trunks at the edge of an agricultural field

The Fens of eastern England once held vast woodlands

24 Nov 2023

The Fens of eastern England, a low-lying, extremely flat landscape dominated by agricultural fields, was once a vast woodland filled with huge yew...

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European summer droughts since 2015 unprecedented in past two millennia

15 Mar 2021

Recent summer droughts in Europe are far more severe than anything in the past 2,100 years, according to a new study.

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Driftwood in Siberia

The testimony of trees: how volcanic eruptions shaped 2000 years of world history

28 Sep 2020

Researchers have shown that over the past two thousand years, volcanoes have played a larger role in natural temperature variability than previously...

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Amount of carbon stored in forests reduced as climate warms

15 May 2019

Accelerated tree growth caused by a warming climate does not necessarily translate into enhanced carbon storage, an international study suggests.

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Subfossil trees preserved in Iceland

Silent witnesses: how an ice age was written in the trees

27 Feb 2018

What connects a series of volcanic eruptions and severe summer cooling with a century of pandemics, human migration and the rise and fall of...

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