Query: Fifty-five thousand years ago the whole world was 2°C warmer than it is today[...]

Relevant passages:
Earth <=SEP=> Earth ( from Eorðe -LSB- Γαῖα , Gaia -RSB- Terra ) , otherwise known as the World or the Globe , is the third planet from the Sun and the only object in the Universe known to harbor life . It is the densest planet in the Solar System and the largest of the four terrestrial planets .   According to radiometric dating and other sources of evidence , Earth formed about 4.54 billion years ago . Earth 's gravity interacts with other objects in space , especially the Sun and the Moon , Earth 's only natural satellite . During one orbit around the Sun , Earth rotates about its axis over 365 times ; thus , an Earth year is about 365.26 days long . Earth 's axis of rotation is tilted , producing seasonal variations on the planet 's surface . The gravitational interaction between the Earth and Moon causes ocean tides , stabilizes the Earth 's orientation on its axis , and gradually slows its rotation .   Earth 's lithosphere is divided into several rigid tectonic plates that migrate across the surface over periods of many millions of years . About 71 % of Earth 's surface is covered with water , mostly by its oceans . The remaining 29 % is land consisting of continents and islands that together have many lakes , rivers and other sources of water that contribute to the hydrosphere . The majority of Earth 's polar regions are covered in ice , including the Antarctic ice sheet and the sea ice of the Arctic ice pack . Earth 's interior remains active with a solid iron inner core , a liquid outer core that generates the Earth 's magnetic field , and a convecting mantle that drives plate tectonics .   Within the first billion years of Earth 's history , life appeared in the oceans and began to affect the Earth 's atmosphere and surface , leading to the proliferation of aerobic and anaerobic organisms . Some geological evidence indicates that life may have arisen as much as 4.1 billion years ago . Since then , the combination of Earth 's distance from the Sun , physical properties , and geological history have allowed life to evolve and thrive . In the history of the Earth , biodiversity has gone through long periods of expansion , occasionally punctuated by mass extinction events . Over 99 % of all species that ever lived on Earth are extinct . Estimates of the number of species on Earth today vary widely ; most species have not been described . Over 7.4 billion humans live on Earth and depend on its biosphere and minerals for their survival . Humans have developed diverse societies and cultures ; politically , the world has about 200 sovereign states .

Holocene <=SEP=> The Holocene ( -LSB- pronˈhɒləˌsiːn , _ ˈhoʊ - -RSB- ) is the geological epoch that began after the Pleistocene at approximately 11,700 years before present . The term `` Recent '' ( usually capitalised ) has often been used as an exact synonym of `` Holocene '' , although this usage is discouraged in 21st-century science . The Holocene is part of the Quaternary period . Its name comes from the Ancient Greek words ὅλος ( holos , whole or entire ) and καινός ( kainos , new ) , meaning `` entirely recent '' . It has been identified with the current warm period , known as MIS 1 , and can be considered an interglacial in the current ice age based on that evidence .   The Holocene also encompasses the growth and impacts of the human species worldwide , including all its written history , development of major civilizations , and overall significant transition toward urban living in the present . Human impacts on modern-era Earth and its ecosystems may be considered of global significance for future evolution of living species , including approximately synchronous lithospheric evidence , or more recently atmospheric evidence of human impacts . Given these , a new term , Anthropocene , is specifically proposed and used informally only for the very latest part of modern history involving significant human impact .

Nordland <=SEP=> Nordland ( -LSB- ² nuːrlɑn -RSB- ; Nordlándda ) is a county in Norway in the Northern Norway region , bordering Troms in the north , Nord-Trøndelag in the south , Norrbotten County in Sweden to the east , Västerbotten County to the southeast , and the Atlantic Ocean ( Norwegian Sea ) to the west . The county was formerly known as Nordlandene amt . The county administration is in Bodø . The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen has been administered from Nordland since 1995 .   In the southern part is Vega , listed on the UNESCO World Heritage Site list . The history of Nordland is a tale about the gifts from the sea : One of the most productive seas in the world providing food all year since ancient times , the same sea creates a climate more moderate than any other place in the arctic ; even the bedrock itself enriched by sea living organisms millions of years ago in the geological past .

Beringia <=SEP=> Beringia is defined today as the land and maritime area bounded on the west by the Lena River in Russia ; on the east by the Mackenzie River in Canada ; on the north by 72 degrees north latitude in the Chukchi Sea ; and on the south by the tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula . It includes the Chukchi Sea , the Bering Sea , the Bering Strait , the Chukchi and Kamchatka Peninsulas in Russia as well as Alaska in the United States .   The area includes land lying on the North American Plate and Siberian land east of the Chersky Range . Historically , it formed a land bridge that was up to 1000 km wide at its greatest extent and which covered an area as large as British Columbia and Alberta together , totaling at approximately 1600000 km2 . Today , the only land that is visible from the central part of the Bering land bridge are the Diomede Islands , the Pribilof Islands of St. Paul and St. George , St. Lawrence Island , and King Island .   The term Beringia was coined by the Swedish botanist Eric Hultén in 1937 . During the ice ages , Beringia , like most of Siberia and all of North and Northeast China , was not glaciated because snowfall was very light . It was a grassland steppe , including the land bridge , that stretched for hundreds of kilometres into the continents on either side .   It is believed that a small human population of at most a few thousand arrived in Beringia from eastern Siberia during the Last Glacial Maximum before expanding into the settlement of the Americas sometime after 16,500 years ago during the Late Glacial Maximum as the American glaciers blocking the way southward melted , but before the bridge was covered by the sea about 11,000 years BP .   Before European colonization , Beringia was inhabited by the Yupik peoples on both sides of the straits . This culture remains in the region today along with others . In 2012 , the governments of Russia and the United States announced a plan to formally establish `` a transboundary area of shared Beringian heritage '' . Among other things this agreement would establish close ties between the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve and the Cape Krusenstern National Monument in the United States and the planned Beringia National Park in Russia .