I've been looking at some recent paleoclimate studies that use tree ring data from the Pacific Northwest — specifically, the work by Cook et al. (2018) in *Science Advances*. Their analysis suggests that the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) was not as warm as previously thought, and that the 20th century warmth may not be as unprecedented as claimed. This aligns with the broader pattern of a long-term cooling trend since the Holocene optimum, which peaked around 10,000 years ago. The data shows a gradual decline in temperature, with the most recent warming being part of a shorter-term fluctuation rather than a long-term trend. [https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/12/eaav2400]